Remember when Xander Schauffele was the nearly man? Worries about when he would ever win a major have now morphed into thoughts about when he might complete a career Grand Slam.
With a Claret Jug and Wanamaker Trophy collected in a matter of a little more than two months, Schauffele suddenly looks like the most comfortable player under major pressure. His Sunday 65 to charge to victory at Royal Troon was simply brilliant.
Schauffele defied tradition at Troon by collecting his second career major on the Ayrshire links. Of the nine previous winners at Royal Troon, six of them never won another major (Arthur Havers, Tom Weiskopf, Mark Calcavecchia, Justin Leonard, Todd Hamilton and Henrik Stenson). Two of the others successfully defended their Claret Jug at Troon (Bobby Locke and Arnold Palmer), and Tom Watson won his fourth of what would be five Open titles there.
On a Sunday with a star-studded and packed leaderboard, Schauffele made it look relatively easy. At only 30, he’s hitting his prime in fine form as he heads to Paris to defend his Olympic gold medal.
This Open left a lot to unpack from a dramatic week at Royal Troon:
BIRDIE: Schauffele. Only 13 players made the cut in all four majors, and the PGA/Open champ easily beat out Masters winner and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler by 15 shots with a cumulative score of 32-under with not a single finish over par. The other 11 clean sweepers included major winners Collin Morikawa, Shane Lowry, Brooks Koepka and Hideki Matsuyama, as well as Patrick Cantlay, Nicolai Højgaard, Harris English, Corey Conners, Russell Henley, Ryan Fox and Cameron Young.
BIRDIE: American exceptionalism. The streak of consecutive American major winners runs to seven –Schauffele (twice), Bryson DeChambeau, Scheffler, Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark and Koepka – the longest in nearly five decades since Yanks won 13 straight from 1974-77 (Tom Watson three times, Jack Nicklaus twice and Lee Trevino, Lou Graham, Raymond Floyd, Jerry Pate, Johnny Miller, Dave Stockton, Hubert Green and Lanny Wadkins once each). Six times since World War II, U.S. golfers have won six or more consecutive major titles. The last time Americans had won even six majors in a row was 1981-82.
BIRDIE: First-timers. Schauffele extends the streak of consecutive first-time winners of the Claret Jug to 11 dating to Phil Mickelson in 2013, tying the Open record of 11 straight inaugural winners from 1994 (Nick Price) to 2004 (Todd Hamilton).
BIRDIE: Justin Rose. The 43-year-old got to Troon the hard way via medaling in final qualifying and carried his momentum all the way to Sunday playing alongside the champion. It’s been 26 years since Rose first made a name for himself finishing T4 as a 17-year-old amateur at Royal Birkdale, and the Englishman keeps trying to win that jug.
BOGEY: Shane Lowry. The Irishman will rue his Saturday collapse that saw a 4-shot lead through 41 holes melt away with seven lost strokes in the final 11 holes in the rain and wind that should have felt like home to him. His mood turned as dark as the weather and he had to settle for his second sixth-place finish in a 2024 major.
BIRDIE: Daniel Brown. Links golf and the Open provide magic you just can’t find in other majors, like a 29-year-old journeyman from Northallerton, England, making his maiden major voyage with his little brother carrying the bag and putting himself in weekend contention 14 and 16 shots better than early-Brexiters Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy. A stellar debut at T10 despite his Sunday fade.
TBD: Runners-up. All nine previous Opens at Royal Troon have featured a runner-up who either previously or eventually won the Open. Justin Rose, 43, and Billy Horschel, 37, have the burden of stepping up against a ticking clock to keep that stat alive.
BIRDIE: Thriston Lawrence. Taking full advantage of the benign morning Saturday on “Moving Day,” the South African went 7-under through 11 holes before the rain started, to vault onto the leaderboard and ultimately land in the final Sunday pairing and nearly won.
BIRDIE: Russell Henley. The American made a spirited attempt to replicate Georgia’s 2021 and ’22 football program to become the second consecutive Bulldog to possess the title of champion golfer of the year. The 35-year-old is sneaky good in majors with his third top-10 in the last two years.
BOGEY: Phil Mickelson. It took only one hole for Mickelson to snap a streak of eight consecutive rounds without a bogey on the front nine at Royal Troon, having navigated the outward holes without blemish in both the 2004 and 2016 Opens. But Troon is like Augusta for Phil, and he hung in to make the cut (T60) at age 54 in likely his last Open on the Ayrshire coast. “There’s a lot of great memories for me from around this golf course from 2016 but even going back to 2004 when I missed the playoff by a shot,” he said. “I just really love Troon golf.”
BIRDIE/BOGEY: Justin Thomas. The American’s mood and form swings are anxiety inducing. Thursday he set the early clubhouse lead with 68. Friday he went out in a shocking 45 and recovered just enough to survive the cut. Saturday, he shaved 14 strokes on the front with 31 and was 6-under through 12 to climb back into the hunt. Sunday he opened with a triple en route to 76 and T31 finish. Pick a lane, Justin, and stay in it.
BIRDIE: Backward caps. Let the lords of the R&A, USGA and Augusta seethe, but the turned-around caps on Horschel and Rose as a tactical move to keep the rain from pouring off the bills as they stood over shots was just cool. Looked like two buds having a ball out there in otherwise miserable conditions. Party on, dudes.
10 and 8: The Open Radio. There’s simply no match choosing between listening to the commercial-free radio team on the Open app and muting the television. Not only is the golf description and commentary excellent, but the seamless shout-outs to global listeners’ comments are endlessly charming. Then there’s Sophie Walker’s assessment of Adam Scott’s drab attire as “a digestive biscuit” clearly designed “so other men have a chance.”
BOGEY: Cam Smith. The 150th Open champion was a relative no-show, shooting 12-over and getting a chance to head early to this week’s LIV UK venue in central England.
QUINTUPLE: Joaquin Niemann. You have to hand it to the Chilean LIV-ster who has scrapped around the world to find ways into majors. He battled back from a quintuple-bogey 8 on the Postage Stamp on Friday to post his second straight level-par 71 and stay in contention. Another quintuple 9 on 11 Saturday proved too much as he finished 10-over – all of those strokes over par on two holes.
BIRDIE: Bob MacIntyre. He could be forgiven for pushing his pre-tournament interview an extra day as he recovered from being only the second Scot to win the Scottish Open and the level-10 celebration that followed in Oban. “Look, I’m not a big drinker, but when you get moments like that, that’s a childhood dream and a lifetime goal and you’ve got family and friends there that have backed you since you were a young kid, I think it was quite right to go absolutely wild,” he said prior to finishing T50. “I think we done a good job of that.”
9: Aguri Iwasaki. The 26-year-old from Japan exemplified the carnage the non-prevailing winds unleashed upon its victims ill-prepared to handle it (there were 167 doubles and 57 others in the first two days). Iwasaki recorded consecutive 9s – a quintuple bogey on 13 and a dirty sextuple on 14 – en route to a second-round 91.
BIRDIE: Billy Horschel. The West Ham fan and anglophile Gator endeared himself to British fans winning the flagship BMW PGA Championship in 2021 and thoroughly embraced everything that Royal Troon and the heavens threw at the field last week. He was rewarded with a runner-up, birdieing the last to post his career-best major finish.
DOUBLE: Scottie Scheffler. The world No. 1 simply can’t putt like he did last week. That three-putt from 6 feet on No. 9 Sunday for double eliminated him from what was one helluva show and he limped home with a closing double to post the lone over-par round of the top-seven finishers. First-world problems, I know.
BOGEY: Colin Montgomerie. The last thing Tiger Woods needs is Monty’s criticism and concerns over the state of his game. Asked why he doesn’t heed the Scot’s advice and retire, Woods fired back “as a past champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not.” It was the harshest deflating of the major-less Scot since the 1997 Masters when Tiger stomped the superiority out of Monty, 65-74, in their head-to-head third round.
BOGEY: Tiger Woods. Just because you can play until you’re 60 doesn’t mean you have to. His difficult journey through the 2024 majors concluded with rounds of 79-77 and a third consecutive missed cut. “Hopefully, next year will be slightly better than this year,” he said of the low bar he set. When the highlight of your season is finishing 60th of 60 at the Masters, it doesn’t inspire hope for another renaissance.
BOGEY: Bryson DeChambeau. His bid to become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2000 to sweep both Opens short-circuited in short order, as he went out in 6-over on the front nine Thursday. Bryson has no real history of success on the links, with just one top-10 and three missed cuts in seven Open starts.
TRIPLE: Rory McIlroy. Whatever hopes the Ulsterman had of bouncing back from his poor Pinehurst finish evaporated somewhere between his bunkered double on the Postage Stamp and his flared drive OB across the railroad tracks on 11 Thursday, capping a 5-over stretch in four holes en route to a disqualifying 78. He sealed his Brexit with a triple 8 on the fourth Friday. Thus ended a full decade of major woe by the still four-time major champion.
BIRDIE: Max Homa. While playing partners McIlroy and Tyrrell Hatton pouted and brooded their way to early departures, Homa held it together and buried a 28-footer for birdie on 18 to make the cut on the number, eliciting a massive roar. “I had an out-of-body experience,” he said. “I didn’t really expect to yell like I won a golf tournament. It just felt really good.”
BOGEY: Wyndham Clark. If you wagered that the guy who earlier this year shot 60 to win at Pebble Beach and barely lost to Scottie Scheffler at Bay Hill and Players would miss three major cuts and do no better than T56 in his U.S. Open defense, you’d own my house. His 16-over effort to finish T147 was a total mess with four doubles and two triples.
ACE: Si Woo Kim. The former Players champion made the only ace on the par-3 called Rabbit – the 238-yard 17th hole – in the history of 10 Opens contested at Royal Troon. It’s also the longest Open ace since complete records started being kept in 1981.
BIRDIE: Railway. Both the hole (No. 11) and the trains that whoosh past it on the regular are majestic. Too bad America didn’t embrace a comprehensive railway transit system – or the way at most GB&I golf clubs the trains whiz past welcome visitors. This hardest hole fittingly was the scene of more proverbial trainwrecks than all others, with 33 doubles and 16 others.
BIRDIE: Royal Troon. The club and course present one of the best links tests on the Open rota and put on another epic show in all the elements. Unlike Muirfield, the membership at Troon didn’t hem and haw when it became essential to expand its membership ranks to include ladies to maintain its place, voting overwhelmingly to invite female members in 2016.
BIRDIE: Martin Slumbers. The outgoing CEO of the R&A had some stuff to say as he exited his 10-year term at the governing helm, sounding the alarm for runaway purses and the potential for curbing driver technology. Golf needs more voices of reason.