Who is Dan Brown? Rookie jug hunter
Journeyman in mix with major champs Lowry, Rose atop Open leaderboard; Scheffler & Schauffele loom large; Big names depart; Niemann rebuilds off snowman
Daniel Brown is a surprise contender in his first major start (Tom Shaw/R&A via Getty Images)
TROON, Scotland — Every Open Championship needs a feel-good story. Daniel Brown is it this year — with apologies to Justin Rose. whose story is pretty cool, too.
Both Englishman reached Royal Troon via final qualifying. The similarities stop there as their career backgrounds are completely divergent, of course.
Rose, 43, is a long-time elite professional who won the 2013 U.S. Open and just played in his sixth Ryder Cup last year after winning his 11th PGA Tour title at Pebble Beach earlier in the season. He’s won eight additional DP World Tour events.
Brown, 29, is playing in his first major championship after hopscotching across various world tours for the majority of his pro career. His lone significant victory on the DP World Tour came at the ISPS Handa World Invitational last summer in Northern Ireland.
Rose added a 68 to his opening 69 to complete two rounds at 5-under par, and tied with Brown, who shot 72 on Friday after holding the first-round lead alone after a 6-under 65 late Thursday. The pair trail leader Shane Lowry — the 2019 Open champion at Royal Portrush — by two shots heading into the third round.
While Rose spoke openly about how he felt he could contend this week after earning his way into the field on July 2 as medalist at Burnham & Barrow, Brown would have been hard-pressed to offer up the same confidence.
The Englishman came in having missed the cut in seven of his last eight DP World Tour starts. He tied for 61st last week at the Genesis Scottish Open. And the qualifier out of West Lancashire — he made a 20-foot birdie on the final hole to avoid a playoff — teed off in the second-to-last group on Thursday, finishing with a birdie in near darkness at just after 9:35 p.m. local time.
It seemingly made for a restless night, given his place atop the leaderboard — although Brown said he had no trouble going to sleep.
“I was knackered,” he said. “I don’t think I finished that late in a long time.”
Brown said his game doesn’t feel much different than his recent struggles would make it seem.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve actually had a change in form. I think it’s just a case of results really.” he said. “I had a bit of a knee injury and had a few weeks out and haven’t really gotten going since.
‘’It’s more I wasn’t playing poorly. It was more just rustiness really from having six, seven weeks off. So I feel like the results have been coming. I’ve just had to stay patient, and I wasn’t very patient when I came back from injury at all.”
Brown admitted that his lack of form, however, suggested he wouldn’t be the first-round leader. “Yeah, amazing, isn’t it?” Brown said. “I was nervous on the first tee, obviously, it being my first major. But I hit a few nice shots early, so I kind of got settled into the round pretty quick.”
Brown has been a pro since 2017, toiling on various minor tours around the world. In 2022, he competed on the Challenge Tour, which is Europe’s version of the Korn Ferry Tour, and finished 30th on the points list, earning conditional status on the DP World Tour before finishing third to earn full status at the qualifying tournament.
Last fall, he broke his maiden in Northern Ireland — beating Alex Fitzpatrick, Matthew’s brother, by a convincing five shots — and finished 50th in the Race to Dubai standings.
But his golf has been poor for most of this year, due in part to a cyst in his knee which kept him off the course for several weeks. A good week here would obviously be a big boost, although Brown said he arrived at Troon with few expectations.
“I wouldn’t say I had any really,” said Brown, whose little brother, Ben, is caddying for him this week. “I just kind of try to go day by day. I’m not a huge goal setter, to be honest. I was playing well leading up to the tournament, so scores haven’t really reflected it recently. But, I felt comfortable and probably a bit more calm than you normally would be with it being your first major. It’s obviously a nice position to be in. Enjoy it.”
Winning a major in a first start is rare. Keegan Bradley was the last to do it at the 2011 PGA Championship. Prior to that it was Ben Curtis at the 2003 Open. Before that? Francis Ouimet at the 1913 U.S. Open.
Lowry caught Brown atop the leaderboard on Friday with a birdie at the first before the Englishman teed off. The Irishman went ahead with another birdie at the fourth hole. Brown made two first-nine bogeys but rebounded with birdies at 10 and 16 before a bogey at the 17th dropped him to 5-under and two strokes back.
He will get a final-group pairing with the 2019 Open champ for his efforts and said he remembers well Lowry’s victory at Royal Portrush.
“Just grit and determination, which he always seems to have,” Brown said of Lowry. “Hopefully, I’ll get to witness that first-hand tomorrow and try and hopefully go toe to toe with him.”
Shane Lowry didn’t let Railroad Hole distraction derail him (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)
Lowry grinds his way to top
You need perseverance and a little bit of luck to win major titles. Ireland’s Shane Lowry is blessed with an abundance of fortitude made for Open golf.
Lowry played the grit-and-determination card Friday to take a two-shot lead over Daniel Brown and Justin Rose into the weekend of the Open Championship at Royal Troon.
It’s been five years since Lowry hoisted the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush and after a battling 2-under 69 on Friday, it seemed he already has one hand on the precious trophy again.
“I felt like I went out there, I was in control of my ball and did all the right things for most of the round,” Lowry said. “Then, when I got in trouble, I feel like I really finished the round well.”
The Railway Hole, No. 11, was always going to be trouble and a problem for the field with the drive hard along the railroad tracks the initial issue. But when Lowry survived that difficult aspect of the hole in the right rough, the 2019 champion golfer of the year made a mistake on his approach, pull hooking it into the gorse bushes on the left and short of the green.
Lowry didn’t blame the photographers behind him, but he was put off by them and should have regathered himself. Instead, he had to take a drop nearer the adjacent 12th hole and eventually made a double bogey to fall back into a tie for the lead with Brown.
“I did the hard part. I hit my drive where you could find it, which is obviously a hard thing to do on that hole. I did get a nice lie in the rough.” he explained when talking about the hole that took 28 minutes to complete due to some complicated rulings. “I got a little bit distracted on the right just as I was over the shot, and I kind of lost a bit of train of thought. You’re so afraid of going right there that I just snagged the club and went left.
“Then from there, I hit a great provisional. The referee asked me going down, did I want to find my first one, and I said no. So I assumed that was okay. Then we get down there, and somebody had found it. So apparently we have to find it then, or you have to go and identify it, which I thought, if you declared it lost before it was found, that you didn’t have to go and identify it.
“I felt like through that whole process of that 20 minutes, it was whatever it was, of taking the drop, seeing where I could drop, and I felt like I was very calm and composed and really knew that I was doing the right thing. And I felt like Darren (Reynolds, his caddie) did a great job, too, just kind of … he kept telling me ‘we have loads of time; we don't need to rush this; we just need to do the right thing here.’
“To be honest, I was happy enough leaving there with a 6. It wasn’t a disaster. I was still leading the tournament.”
What was most impressive was that Lowry bounced back with two brilliant shots to par the difficult 12th and later made up his lost shots with birdies on 16 and 18 to cement his lead again to two shots.
“I’m going to have a very late tee time tomorrow,” Lowry said. “I’m not going to be playing for another 24 hours. I know what that’s about. I know tomorrow is going to be a long day, but I’ve done it before.
“For me, it’s just about going out and playing my own game, shooting the best score I can, and then seeing where it leaves me at the end of the day. Try not to worry about what other people are doing and just trying to take care of your own personal stuff.”
Asked if he was a “good frontrunner,” the stout Irishman drew laughs with his response.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a good runner,” he quipped.
“I don’t know. I put myself there in a few big tournaments, and I’ve managed to knock them off. So I’ve done it a few times. I don’t know. It’s hard to win tournaments. We’ll see. I’ll tell you Sunday evening.”
Tyrrell Hatton and Rory McIlroy make early exits (Warren Little/Getty Images)
Pinehurst protagonists blown away early
U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau and heartbroken runner-up Rory McIlroy headlined a cavalcade of prominent players making an early exit from Royal Troon.
DeChambeau couldn’t make up the ground he lost on Thursday’s front-nine 42 and missed the cut by three shots at 9-over par. McIlroy’s hopes of rallying from his opening 78 were quickly dashed by a gruesome quadruple 8 on the fourth hole Friday and he left with an 11-over total for the week.
“I think once I made the 8 on the fourth hole, that was it,” McIlroy said. “22 holes into the event and I’m thinking about where I’m going to go on vacation next week.
“I mean, I knew from then I’d sort of resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to shoot, whatever it is, 4- or 5-under from there on in to make the cut. Yeah, it was a pretty meaningless 14 holes after that.”
McIlroy blamed the winds on his quick demise, a theme that played out similarly at Augusta National in April.
“When I look back on the two majors that I didn’t play my best at, here and the Masters, the wind got the better of me on Friday at Augusta, and then the wind got the better of me the last two days here,” he said. “I didn’t adapt well at all to that left-to-right wind yesterday on the back nine, and then this afternoon going out in that gusty wind on the front, as I said, it got the better of me, and I felt pretty uncomfortable over a few shots.”
The list of players missing the cut included Tyrrell Hatton, Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Åberg and Tiger Woods.
Scottie Scheffler’s putter helps him sit 2-under and five back (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)
Schhhhh! Watch for lurking stars
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler and PGA champion Xander Schauffele — the Nos. 1 and 2 players in the world — are exactly where you’d expect them to be, loitering on the leaderboard and in position to pounce if the guys ahead of them trip up at Royal Troon.
Scheffler shot his second consecutive 70 to sit tied for fourth at 2-under with Billy Horschel and Dean Burmester. Schauffele posted a 1-over 72 on Friday to fall to 1-under overall and tied seventh with Jason Day and Corey Conners.
“I mean, it’s five shots,” Scheffler said of the ground he has to make up on Lowry. “I really don't know how else to put it. Yeah, it’s five shots back.
“I would have liked to be leading, but it’s just one of those deals. I’ve played two solid rounds and it put me five shots back, and I’ll continue to try to execute and just continue to try to hit good shots and hit good putts out there.”
Scheffler is a notorious lurker, keeping himself in proximity to the lead to take advantage of the mistakes of others and capitalize on opportunities. That said, he doesn’t know if his name on leaderboards presents any kind of intimidation to others the way Tiger Woods used to.
“I just try to stay in my own little world out there, just continue to hit good shots and just try to execute,” he said. “That’s up to those guys. You’ll have to ask them. It doesn’t really matter to me what those guys are doing. I’m trying to do my best to hit good shots and put myself in position, and going into the weekend, like you said, five shots back, I feel like I’m in a decent position.”
Schauffele has played the most consistent major championship golf of anyone this season, finishing T8, 1st and T7 without ever finishing over par in any majors.
Sneaky hot Niemann and the LIV brigade
While Dean Burmester at 2-under heads a strong contingent of LIV Golf players among the top 13 heading into the weekend at Royal Troon, Chilean Joaquin Niemann has been the most impressive of the bunch.
Despite making a quintuple-bogey 8 on the Postage Stamp par-3, Niemann fought back with four birdies on the back nine Friday to shoot even-par 71 for the second straight day and sit tied 11th.
LIV heavyweights Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm are all among the crowd tied for 13th at 1-over through 36 holes.
Niemann would be tied for second if not for the shortest hole in the Open rota. He hit each of his first four shots into three different greenside bunkers (one of them he needed two to get out of) and then three-putted for his 8, missing a 5-footer to salvage quad. Yet he rallied with birdies at 10, 12, 14 and 16 to get back to level.
“It was tough,” Niemann said. “After finishing No. 8, I kind of told myself that I … I mean, I was playing great before that. I started really good, and I started hitting all my golf shots. One hole is not going to change that.
“So looking from back here, it’s pretty easy to say, but being in that position is kind of tough. So I kind of try to tell myself and try to listen to myself and try to hack into that position that I was because it’s something that everybody works on. You’re always going to have tough holes, and you’re going to try to recover out of that.
“That’s what made me proud when I finished the round. Yeah, it was great to see that happen and shooting a good round on the back nine. … But if you ask me if I didn’t make that 8 there, I could have been a few under par, I’d prefer that, but yeah.”
Eighteen players with LIV connections started the week and 11 are still playing, including Adrian Meronk (+3), Laurie Canter (+3), John Catlin (+4), Phil Mickelson (+6), Andy Ogletree (+6) and Abraham Ancer (+6).
Mickelson is one of three 50-something players to make the cut, including fellow past Open champions Padraig Harrington (+3) and Darren Clarke (+6).
Among the other notables still playing the weekend are defending champion Brian Harman (+4); past Open champs Collin Morikawa (+1) and Jordan Spieth (+3); brothers Nicolai (+2) and Rasmus (+4) Højgaard; and two-time PGA champion Justin Thomas (+4) despite shooting 9-over 45 on the front nine Friday.