The final men’s major of the year is upon us, and then it’s a long nine months to Augusta National in 2025. Who is going to be sipping from the Claret Jug at the last chance saloon?
It’s hard to believe that, with summer yet to poke its nose through the gloomy skies, the final men’s major of the year is upon us. The PGA Championship was once dubbed ‘Glory’s Last Shot’, but now it’s the game’s oldest major that offers that last crack at true glory.
Or in Rory McIlroy’s case, redemption. One win on the DP World Tour and two on the PGA Tour might constitute an excellent return for just 99.99 percent of the game’s leading pros, but he’s the one percent of the one percent, a victim of his own success, and only major championship glory can silence the critics.
And the critics are plentiful, but not without reason. 10 full years – it will be if he doesn’t win at Royal Troon – since his last major victory is something that was so unthinkable that to suggest it was possible back in late 2014 would’ve brought a visit from men in white coats.
Yet here we are. On the final leg of 38 – he missed the 2015 Open due to injury and there was no Open Championship held in 2020 – and he’s staring a decade of pain right in the face.
But of all the pain endured, nothing can compare to that experienced at Pinehurst. By the time you’re reading this, he’ll have made an appearance at the Scottish Open, but the weeks in between will have been spent licking his wounds, desperately trying to make sense of it all, and trying to convince himself that he’s not doomed to end his career with just four major championships.
He’s resilient, there’s no doubt about that. To bounce back from his Masters heartache in 2011 and win the U.S. Open in his next major start was the first time he showed us that. To bounce back after the loss in the 150th Open at St. Andrews and win the FedEx Cup a month later was no mean feat either, nor was it to bounce back from finishing second at the 2023 U.S. Open and go on to play a starring role for the European Ryder Cup team in Rome.
But he was 21 when he suffered the back-nine collapse at Augusta, full of youthful exuberance and had his whole career ahead of him. He’s 35 now, and by his own admission, on the back nine of his career. The opportunities that lay ahead in 2011 were countless, those that lie ahead now are diminishing fast.
For McIlroy, like most of the field, Royal Troon is something of an unknown quantity. A tied fifth finish in 2016 might look good on paper, but it was a backdoor top 10 courtesy of a final-round 67 and Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson had long sailed off into the sunset.
Stenson and Mickelson aside, only 11 of the other top-30 players on the final leaderboard in 2016 feature again in 2024, and of these, only McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, and Tony Finau are among the bookmakers’ favourites to contend again.
Then, of course, there’s Scottie Scheffler. Six victories, including a second Masters title, make him far and away the golfing story of 2024, but given his level of dominance on the game’s premier tour, just one major title would be something of an anticlimax.
The world number one was still at the University of Austin when the Open Championship last visited Ayrshire, and his last three trips across the pond have taken him to Royal St. George’s, St. Andrews and Royal Liverpool. His best chance of winning an Open came on debut in 2022 where he entered the final round four shots back and his challenge ran aground early.
But he’s obviously a very different player now. Still, on a firm, fast and unpredictable Pinehurst, he was a non-factor, and unpredictability is the currency with which the Open Championship traditionally trades. The firm and fast element is in the hands of Mother Nature, but given the weather conditions we’ve experienced so far, it’s looking more likely to be a repeat of Hoylake in 2023 than St. Andrews in 2022.
At 28, Scheffler still has the majority of his career ahead of him, but you have to make hay while the sun shines and there’s no guarantee that he can keep his hot streak going. There’s pressure on him too, just not quite the white-hot heat that his closest challenger in the world rankings will be experiencing.
There’s no other major that tends to throw up surprise winners quite like the Open Championship either, although the halcyon days of shock back-to-back winners like Ben Curtis in 2003 and Todd Hamiton in 2004 are fading into the distance and the PGA Championship is now arguably the one where an outsider is most likely to emerge victorious.
At 33 in the world when he arrived in Portrush, Shane Lowry was the lowest ranked of the last 10 Open Championship winners, compared with Phil Mickelson’s 115th when he won at Kiawah Island and Jimmy Walker’s 48th at Baltusrol.
Since LIV’s inception, the world rankings are now largely defunct anyway, so such statistical models will bear little relevance going forward, but it does go to show that increasingly you have to be one of the game’s elite players and be playing an elite game if you are going to get your hands of major championship silverware.
Lowry certainly fits that bill. Since receiving a sponsor’s invitation to the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill back in early March, he’s steadily been climbing the ladder and at the time of writing, is once again ranked 33rd in the world. So, if you’re looking for good omens, look no further.
Lowry will be one of six Irishmen in the field along with McIlroy and Tom McKibbin, who makes his second major championship appearance – and maiden Open Championship bow – thanks to his fast finish at the Italian Open, past champions Darren Clarke and Pádraig Harrington, and major debutant, Galway amateur Liam Nolan, who advanced through Final Qualifying.
It’s not quite an Open Championship on the island, but it’s the closest Open Rota venue to us geographically. With four different Irish winners and five Claret Jugs in the past 16 stagings, we’ve been spoiled. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be eyeing a sixth.
Can Rory banish the ghosts of Pinehurst? Is Shane ready for to stake his claim for a future Hall of Fame induction? Can a first timer shock the world ala Curtis back in ’03? Or is there life in the old dogs yet?
It’s last chance saloon for 2024 major season, and it’ll be the talk of the Troon, whatever happens.
Three of the best Opens at Royal Troon
2016 – The Duel of the Sons
In what’s been billed the greatest final-round duel since Niclklaus and Watson at Turnberry in ’77, Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson were in a league of their own, with runner-up Mickelson finishing 11 shots clear of J.B. Holmes in third.
1962 – The King reigns supreme
Arnold Palmer was untouchable, hitting the front on day two and stretching his lead each day thereafter, eventually winning on -12, six clear of Ken Nagle who was the only other player at par or better.
1923 – Havers’ final-hole fireworks
Defending champion Walter Hagan would win the Open again in 1924, but at the first Championship staged at Troon, Englishman Arthur Havers holed out from the bunker on the 72nd hole. Hagen found the same bunker, but narrowly missed and Havers beat him by one.
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