This Open Championship is not for everyone. That’s a good thing

TROON, Scotland – Thriston Lawrence’s voice cracked as he recalled the path here. How the South African flew overseas to test his level against the best in America only to make one cut in six weeks. How the doubt that this cold, unforgiving game creates can permeate even the strongest of wills.

“This game is not easy,” Lawrence said, holding back tears that arrived nonetheless.

Lawrence had just won the BMW International Open in Germany, coming from four shots behind to beat Joost Luiten. It was a win in June 2023 that ultimately gave Lawrence the points to qualify for the Open Championship this week at Royal Troon. His thoughts in that moment were as much about the man who lost as his own career moment, because he’d been there before. “I feel sorry for Joost,” he said. “I know how tough this game is.”

Thirteen months later, hours before leaders even teed off at the 152nd Open Championship, Lawrence played the front nine at Royal Troon in 30 shots to shoot up the leaderboard and jump into the final group of a major. This golfer you had never heard of before the week somehow made his way to 3 under par, one back of leader Billy Horschel. That kind of grind is the story of this week’s Open.

As professional golf attempts to limit opportunities and close off signature events by catering to the sport’s biggest names, this is not a major championship being dominated by the superstars. This isn’t Pinehurst. This isn’t Valhalla. This is ugly, windy, rainy links golf off the Firth of Clyde. It is not to be won by golfers who strike majestic shots only on sunny days, the data nerds playing probabilities, or even the distance kings.

You might call them underdogs, but in reality it is an Open for the real ones, the ones this means the most to. The ones who relish playing Saturday in pouring rain with their hats turned backward and every grip soaked. The ones who live for this.

That is why you look up at the leaderboard and see, yes, Scheffler and Schauffele, but far more names you did not expect. Horschel. Lawrence. Henley. Rose. Brown. Jordan.

“Links golf is a different facet, different style of golf,” said Justin Rose, the 43-year-old Englishman in that six-way tie for second. “I think form can be not as important. It’s sort of how you feel it on the week. There’s so much – there’s very few stock shots that you hit on the golf course this week.”

By that, Rose means you can’t be a pampered golfer to win the Open. As Royal Troon’s back nine played out to what Dustin Johnson called “the hardest nine holes I think you could ever play in golf,” it was those grinders who saved par from horrible bunkers and weathered the conditions.

Among the pack of golfers within a shot of the lead is Dan Brown, the son of a pig farmer who nearly quit the game before COVID. He missed six consecutive cuts before coming to Scotland last week and had never played in a major, but he earned a spot in the field through final qualifying thanks to a 20-foot putt on the final hole at West Lancashire. Thursday, the 29-year-old Englishman took the solo lead with an opening 65. Before an unfortunate double bogey on 18 to close out Saturday, he had the solo 53-hole lead.

There’s Rose, who said he dreamt of winning this event as a kid and played in his first when still one, a 17-year-old prodigy earning his way through qualifying. Twenty-six years later Rose looked up one day and realized he had to qualify again. The 2013 U.S. Open champ made it through a qualifier at Burnham & Berrow, and he opened 69-68 playing in the tougher wave both days. He was the only player in morning-afternoon waves in the final groups.

“Probably just a bit more gratitude just to be here from that point of view,” Rose said. “Twenty years probably-ish, ballpark, where you make your schedule in December and you go, OK, Masters, Open, U.S. Open, PGA, how do we plan around that, and this year it’s like, hang on a second, I’m not guaranteed in the Open or the U.S. Open at that point, either. Had to do a little bit of extra hard work just to make sure I was here.”

Or there’s Horschel, another 37-year-old veteran who ranks 96th on tour in driving distance and thought to have his best days behind him. Two years removed from winning the Memorial, Horschel wasn’t even in the Masters field this year. In more than a decade of major golf – 45 attempts – he’s finished top 15 just twice. So how did he get in the Open? Because he likes this style of golf so much he plays the DP World Tour swing in the fall and won the BMW PGA Championship in London in 2021. That win gave him a three-year exemption into the Open.

“I get tired of golf where you’re making full swings and you lean into a certain number and it stops,” Horschel said. “I like when you have to be creative and find a way to get around the golf course, and I think I’ve always done that well for the most part.”

The Open is just different.

It’s never been about distance or pedigree. It’s about smarts and mental discipline, creativity and versatility. Royal Troon has played difficult most of the week, with 20-mph winds and cold rain flying in players’ faces and those winds changing directions to confuse the best in the world. You need to be able to control ball flights and spin and know how to hit from strange lies and ugly shrubbery. It might be the lone major that somebody like Brian Harman (2023) can win, or Francesco Molinari (2018) before him or Darren Clarke (2011) or Todd Hamilton (2004) or a 42-year-old Ernie Els (2012). The cynics may say that’s undeserved randomness. The educated would say it’s a way to test golfers in a way they hardly ever are.

Golf is better when it lives by the late USGA chairman Sandy Tatum’s famous line: “We’re not trying to humiliate the best players in the world. We’re simply trying to identify who they are.”

Sometimes it confirms the best are who we thought they were. Like how Scheffler and Schauffele, the reigning Masters winner and PGA Champ, respectively, rose to the occasion Saturday as conditions reached their worst. While the field dropped shots, Schauffele went out in 33 and jumped up to a tie for second. Scheffler, the world No. 1, hit sensational shots with low line drives or 239-yard 3-woods into the wind on a par 3 for birdie.

Whether it’s a star who wins Sunday or somebody like Dan Brown, it is OK. Because the best player in the field will be identified. The winner will be real.