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SOUTHPORT, England — The big yellow scoreboard was littered with small black letters of names that seemed not to belong there judging by the squints and pointed fingers from the fans camped out early in the 18th hole grandstands. The Open Championship caters to a golf-centric crowd, probably the most knowledgeable left in the game, so this wasn't unfamiliarity so much as curiosity. With all due respect to the players on this leaderboard early Friday afternoon— which means someone here is about to be accidentally disrespected—you're forgiven for wondering what exactly is going on at Royal Birkdale.
It's an understandable question, but probably the wrong one, or at least what should take a back seat to this: What does this week say about how golf is played everywhere else?
Halfway through the second round, here are the golfers you’ll see in contention: Lucas Herbert, Jackson Suber, Pierceson Coody, Bud Cauley, Matt Wallace, Dan Brown. Only Cauley is ranked inside the top 50 in the world. It's not barren of recognizable names—Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Bryson DeChambeau, Sam Burns, Cam Young are all in the mix—but compared to what golf audiences have come to expect from a major championship, this feels like an aberration. People don't know what to do with the unexpected.
There's a visceral reaction to assuming something is wrong, and when something is wrong, the blame usually falls on the course. Links golf, the theory goes, has more variability than the parkland golf played almost everywhere else, variability being a polite word for luck. To believers of that creed, this board is proof of concept. That baked-out Birkdale looks like something Matt Damon should be roving across in a Mars lander makes it an easy sell. Except, what if the opposite is true?
Consider what a standard tour course asks of a player: Hit it far and high, stop it on a green softened by overnight watering, make putts on a surface so true (and relatively flat) it borders on sterile. That's a test but a narrow cohort, probing a handful of skills, run through the same values week after week. Birkdale's exam is not that. Can you flight an iron to keep it out of a pot bunker, or the spotty native area waiting around it? Can you make the right choice from 40 yards off the green when there are seven different options at your disposal? Can you take a bad bounce as the cost of doing business? Birkdale is making an argument that professional golf's version of "complete" has narrowed to fit the golf it's built.
Or maybe our definition of a good player simply reflects the golf we watch most. The top of the World Ranking is, in effect, a leaderboard of the PGA Tour, because that's where the points and attention live. If the tour plays 40 weeks a year on receptive greens and fairways without much penalty for missing either, the players who rise are the ones built for that climate. Bomb-and-gouge power, aggressive iron play, a short game built around spin and stopping power. None of that disqualifies them at the Open; may we remind you the defending champ is Scottie Scheffler. It's just that their performance comes on a specific, relatively unvarying set of conditions. Birkdale is different, meaning a different set of players gets to look complete.
Something like this happened earlier this year, though the comparison needs a caveat. Aronimink's greens were so severe that the PGA Championship turned into a lag-putting contest, won by Aaron Rai, with Alex Smalley in a tie for second and Matti Schmid one behind. That in itself is a different test, although it was arguably not a complete one. The examination at Birkdale is wider, not narrower. Yes, ball-striking still reigns supreme, and the sparse rough does allow some semblance of “rip first, ask questions later” with the driver. (Lucas Herbert shot a second-round 62 while hitting only sven fairways over his 18 holes.) Yet power has taken a backseat to ground-game imagination, strategy and the temperament to stay level-headed when a good shot doesn’t receive a good result. Those are skills we usually don’t get to see assessed.
That distinction matters, because the players near the top of this leaderboard aren't accidents, even if they didn't arrive here the same way. Herbert grew up on Australia's sandbelt, where firm turf is the default. Brown contended at the Open two years ago, so this isn't a stranger's leaderboard cameo. Suber has never set foot in Europe before this week but has been playing some of the best golf of his life the last two months, proof that no theory accounts for everything.
That's the case for calibrating our connotation of "different." One of the charges against the modern professional calendar is that most weeks look the same as the last. As Royal Birkdale's leaderboard showed on Friday, this week is one of one.
• • •
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.
• • •
MORE GOLF DIGEST BRITISH OPEN COVERAGE
British Open 101: Answering all your frequently asked questions
How to watch the British Open on TV and streaming
Tee times for the second round
Video: The craziest 29 minutes in British Open history
Power Rankings: Every player in the field at Royal Birkdale
The Open keeps growing, but does it come at the price of tradition?
Video: Every hole at Royal Birkdale
Royal Birkdale demands these five shots. Here’s how pros practice them
How does a golf course earn ‘Royal’ status?
The best British Opens, ranked
The decision every pro face as they stand on the tee at Birkdale
Continue reading...
It's an understandable question, but probably the wrong one, or at least what should take a back seat to this: What does this week say about how golf is played everywhere else?
Halfway through the second round, here are the golfers you’ll see in contention: Lucas Herbert, Jackson Suber, Pierceson Coody, Bud Cauley, Matt Wallace, Dan Brown. Only Cauley is ranked inside the top 50 in the world. It's not barren of recognizable names—Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Bryson DeChambeau, Sam Burns, Cam Young are all in the mix—but compared to what golf audiences have come to expect from a major championship, this feels like an aberration. People don't know what to do with the unexpected.
There's a visceral reaction to assuming something is wrong, and when something is wrong, the blame usually falls on the course. Links golf, the theory goes, has more variability than the parkland golf played almost everywhere else, variability being a polite word for luck. To believers of that creed, this board is proof of concept. That baked-out Birkdale looks like something Matt Damon should be roving across in a Mars lander makes it an easy sell. Except, what if the opposite is true?
Consider what a standard tour course asks of a player: Hit it far and high, stop it on a green softened by overnight watering, make putts on a surface so true (and relatively flat) it borders on sterile. That's a test but a narrow cohort, probing a handful of skills, run through the same values week after week. Birkdale's exam is not that. Can you flight an iron to keep it out of a pot bunker, or the spotty native area waiting around it? Can you make the right choice from 40 yards off the green when there are seven different options at your disposal? Can you take a bad bounce as the cost of doing business? Birkdale is making an argument that professional golf's version of "complete" has narrowed to fit the golf it's built.
Or maybe our definition of a good player simply reflects the golf we watch most. The top of the World Ranking is, in effect, a leaderboard of the PGA Tour, because that's where the points and attention live. If the tour plays 40 weeks a year on receptive greens and fairways without much penalty for missing either, the players who rise are the ones built for that climate. Bomb-and-gouge power, aggressive iron play, a short game built around spin and stopping power. None of that disqualifies them at the Open; may we remind you the defending champ is Scottie Scheffler. It's just that their performance comes on a specific, relatively unvarying set of conditions. Birkdale is different, meaning a different set of players gets to look complete.
Something like this happened earlier this year, though the comparison needs a caveat. Aronimink's greens were so severe that the PGA Championship turned into a lag-putting contest, won by Aaron Rai, with Alex Smalley in a tie for second and Matti Schmid one behind. That in itself is a different test, although it was arguably not a complete one. The examination at Birkdale is wider, not narrower. Yes, ball-striking still reigns supreme, and the sparse rough does allow some semblance of “rip first, ask questions later” with the driver. (Lucas Herbert shot a second-round 62 while hitting only sven fairways over his 18 holes.) Yet power has taken a backseat to ground-game imagination, strategy and the temperament to stay level-headed when a good shot doesn’t receive a good result. Those are skills we usually don’t get to see assessed.
That distinction matters, because the players near the top of this leaderboard aren't accidents, even if they didn't arrive here the same way. Herbert grew up on Australia's sandbelt, where firm turf is the default. Brown contended at the Open two years ago, so this isn't a stranger's leaderboard cameo. Suber has never set foot in Europe before this week but has been playing some of the best golf of his life the last two months, proof that no theory accounts for everything.
That's the case for calibrating our connotation of "different." One of the charges against the modern professional calendar is that most weeks look the same as the last. As Royal Birkdale's leaderboard showed on Friday, this week is one of one.
• • •
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.
• • •
MORE GOLF DIGEST BRITISH OPEN COVERAGE
British Open 101: Answering all your frequently asked questions
How to watch the British Open on TV and streaming
Tee times for the second round
Video: The craziest 29 minutes in British Open history
Power Rankings: Every player in the field at Royal Birkdale
The Open keeps growing, but does it come at the price of tradition?
Video: Every hole at Royal Birkdale
Royal Birkdale demands these five shots. Here’s how pros practice them
How does a golf course earn ‘Royal’ status?
The best British Opens, ranked
The decision every pro face as they stand on the tee at Birkdale
Continue reading...
