Once again, venerable Royal Troon Golf Links – 142 years young – hosted a legendary Open Championship, one that should shine brightly through the ages: proper weather, a scintillating links, and a worthy victor in Xander Schauffele, now a two-time major winner and one of only a handful of golfers to win both the Open Championship and the PGA Championship in the same year.
Schauffele’s final round 65 was one of the finest closing rounds in major championship golf, not just the Open. On a day when a crosswind befuddled the players and made a mockery of well-plotted game plans, Schauffele authored a flawless round – six birdies, no bogeys, including a spectacular 4-under 31 on the inward nine to storm past a leaderboard crowded with marquee names as well as not one but two puzzling strangers who sent everyone scrambling for their Players’ Guides.
Schauffele’s 9-under par 275 aggregate was two strokes better than England’s Justin Rose and the USA’s Billy Horschel, who despite both carding excellent final rounds themselves, (67 and 68 respectively), couldn’t keep pace with the galloping Schauffele. South Africa’s Thristan Lawrence, playing in the final group with Horschel and tied for the overnight lead, finished fourth at 6-under, three shots back. Denmark’s Daniel Brown, the surprise leader for two rounds faded to a tie for 10th after a final round 74.
This major was won on the back nine on Sunday, and it was Schauffele who not only survived the crucible of final round pressure at a major, but played his best golf for the clutch, carding birdies at 11, 12, 14, and 16 to pull away from the rest of the field. The 11th and 12th played the two most difficult holes at Troon for the week.
“I felt like I limited the mistakes pretty well…I felt like I just controlled a lot of what I was trying to do, and the moments where I was losing control – if I hit it offline and into the fescue – I wasn’t too worried about it because it’s links golf. It’s how you play golf out here,” Schauffele noted afterwards, cradling the precious Claret Jug like a newborn babe. “I think the style of golf maybe helped me mentally play this week. The style of golf you can play out here, you don’t have to be perfect or hit the prettiest drives or anything as long as you’re moving the ball forward and dodging bunkers.”
The soft-spoken American was steely-nerved and iron willed over the weekend, first enduring the relentlessly fickle winds and stinging rains of Satuirday, then putting on a virtuoso performance over a tough, yet fair final round set up – a set-up that encouraged scoring. All but two of the top 12 finishers fired final rounds of 69 or better. Kudos to the R&A for letting them play golf for the title instead of setting up an already difficult backnine like a steeplechase course.
But no matter the setup, Schauffele was absolutely correct when he called Sunday’s 65 in a Scottish crosswind, “the best round of his life,” It absolutely must be spoken of in the conversation of the great Sunday rounds and finishes in Open Championship history. Now Schauffele joins the long and distinguished list of winners at Royal Troon, including six consecutive Americans, beginning with Arnold Palmer in 1962. Palmer prevailed at Troon that year by conquering a howling gale, playing what seminal golf writer Dan Jenkins called “the best golf of his life.” Arnie’s Open Championship record b reaking score of 276 in the wind at a Troon called a “Beast” by the British press beat Kel Nagle by six strokes. The golfers tied for third finished a whopping 13 shots back…13! The British tabloids blared proudly, “Lord Palmerston!”
It was Palmer’s second consecutive Open Championship; he won at Royal Birkdale a year earlier. His clinching birdie at 15 was secured after slashing a 7-iron from some of the gnarliest fescue on the golf course. The shot was so astonishing, the club sank a plaque at the spot in the rough to commemorate it.
Decades later, Arnie returned to Troon to say fairwell to the Open as a ceremonial golfer. During a practice round the press urged Arnie to let them take a photo of him beside the plaque. After scrounging around in the rough on the 15th hole, Arnie finally turned to his caddie and shouted, “Alfie, where’s that damn plaque?!”
“600 miles south, at Royal Birkdale,” the caddie replied. “You’re on the wrong golf course.”
Nine years later, in 1973, Tom Weiskopf won wire-to-wire in the rain, lamenting the weather to the press in his usual dour, sometimes sour attitude.
“It’s like camping out here,” he groused. When Jenkins reminded him that Hogan “wanted to kill every golf course” he played because it “kept him from making a living,” Weiskopf responded, “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go out and kill this place,” and he did, outlasting Johnny Miller, whose 63 a few weeks earlier at Oakmont had won Miller the U.S. Open in record fashion. Weiskopf credits Jack Nicklaus with the advice that put him over the top on Championship Sunday. Nicklaus told him the night before the final round, “Whatever you do, don’t play Miller. Play the golf course.” And every time Miller hit an iron shot close on Sunday, “Tom terrific” as the press dubbed him, put one inside him.
Tom Watson won in the wind in 1982 to give him the rare feat of winning both the Open Championship and the U.S. Open in the same year. The others are Bobby Jones (twice – 1926 and 1930), Gene Sarazen (1932), Ben Hogan (1953), Lee Trevino (1971) and Tiger Woods (2000). That’s some rather rarified air that Schauffele has ascended into.
Is it as epic as the Second Duel in the Sun? The 2016 battle between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson, where Stenson – powered by a 63 on a sunny Sunday – tied the major championship aggregate scoring record of 20-under? Perhaps. There were so many more players to pass on the leaderboard, while Stens and Phil had separated themselves by a whopping 14 and 11 strokes from J.S. Holmes distant third at 6-under. But it was warm and sunny in 2016. This week at Troon was what we all hoped for – blustery. Proper weather for the de facto world championship on Ye Olde Sod. And now, once again, a stellar champion in full ascension of his career hoists the Claret Jug as waves lap at the shore of a sparkling sea.
“I think winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine. I had some feeling of calmness come through. It was very helpful on what has been one of the hardest back nines I’ve ever played in a tournament.” Schauffele birdied the 723nd hole at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky just two short months ago to edge Bryson DeChambeau by one shot and win his first major at the PGA Championship. “It’s a dream come true to win two majors in one year. It took me forever just to win one, and to have two now is something else.”
