Every major tournament has the power of brutality and curtness to bring humble golf stars to their knees. Masters Rory McIlroy. Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship. Phil Mickelson at the US Open (OK, make more).
The British Open seemed to be full of vengefulness, even more hostile than recent majors and a mockery of the sport’s powers, until Jon Rahm’s Saturday-like onslaught put players on the record and brought him closer to winning the championship.
The world’s No. 3 player finished in 89th place on Thursday with a 3-over 74 at Royal Liverpool Golf Club. A 70 mark on Friday moved him up one place. He arrived on the course a dozen shots behind Brian Harman’s lead. But when Rahm finished Saturday’s round with a birdie, the gap between a two-time major winner and a former runner shrunk to four just after Herman walked in lonely silence to the first tee.
Harman had extended his margin to six points over Rahm before dawn on England’s west coast, where heavy rain and wind sporadically threatened on Saturday, and was on the verge of lifting a freshly carved claret jug on Sunday evening. Cameron Young was closest to Herman, five strokes behind.
But Rahm’s 63 on Saturday was two shots better than his open-season record at Royal Liverpool in the 13th edition. It was also a powerful answer to two days of mostly lackluster play by many of the world’s best golfers at the Open Championship, where the leaderboards often felt like a glimpse into the depths of the game.
“I gave up on majors, which are very costly, and that’s the main reason,” Rahm said on Saturday. “That’s what I was feeling. I knew I was playing better, and I knew my swing and the feel of the game was better than the score.”
A celebration of imaginative shotmaking, Saturday was different.
According to Rahm, the world’s best people often imagine what they want to happen in this shot or that shot. Reality often intrudes, he noted. However, he suggested that his Saturday was characterized by the feeling of seeing “everything unfold as it should have happened.” “I felt invincible,” he said in Spanish on Saturday.
He made his debut birdie of the day on the 5th hole and added another on the 9th. The other was on the 10th, around which time, he later recalled, shots began flying downwind. He made more birdies on the 11th and 12th, two more on the 15th and 16th, and finally on the 18th, causing the crowd to roar.
Disappointment was near-endemic among the sport’s top players until Lahm’s surge on Saturday, but not because many stars failed to win, but because they fell short.
Saturday’s first five (those who nearly missed out on a spot) included Scotty Scheffler (current No. 1), five-time major champion (Brooks Koepka) and one of the game’s most enduring favorites (Rickie Fowler).
What about the final five games on Saturday? Who is clearly in contention? Only Koepka has won more major titles than the group as a whole, with an average world ranking of 59th on Saturday, 40 ranks lower than last summer’s Round 3 average at St Andrews.
The top of the leaderboard soon became filled with headliners and players waiting to be headlined. Young, who finished second at last year’s British Open, finished 7-under, one stroke behind Rahm. Former world No. 1 Jason Day, Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland were among the five under par players. McIlroy, currently ranked No. 2 in the world, marked 69 and emerged to 3 under par.
But it was still a weird week after beating out recent major champions to watch out for in Friday’s cut, including Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Colin Morikawa and Justin Thomas. Other top-tier players, including Schaeffler, Koepka, Fowler and Patrick Cantlay, were barely able to stay for the weekend.
“Maybe people aren’t on their own this week,” said last year’s British Open champion Cameron Smith, who hit 68 on Saturday to take the score to one under par. But that banker, who is trying to be aggressive, has a lot of aggressive players in the majors, but I think it could get stuck in the butt. ”
All that many players could do was get through Sunday.
“Will you win?” said Schaeffler, 16 strokes behind the leader at the end of the third round.
“I think a hurricane and then a hurricane is what I need,” he added in one of the few major Saturdays that ended before the leaders took the first tee. “Tomorrow I’m going to go out and do my best and move up the leaderboard and have a good day.”
Last weekend’s Scottish Open runner-up Robert McIntyre similarly resigned. By Saturday afternoon, his mind was already wandering towards the hours after the tournament.
“Before you lift your feet, know that there are 18 holes,” he said.
The resurrected Rahm was in a far different place.
“I did what I needed to do, which was to give myself a chance,” he said.
