It isn't often that Rory McIlroy loses a golf tournament when he has the lead on a Sunday and is playing at least pretty well. Sure, the McIlroy collapses are well documented.
For instance, he didn't do anything egregiously wrong in the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews when he was done in by Cameron Smith's brilliant play.
At the Scottish Open, McIlroy began Sunday with a share of the 54-hole leader and shot 2-under 68. Decent, for sure.
On the other hand, Chris Gotterup, a player who had all the game in college but had done little since turning pro, was just better. He grabbed the solo lead on the back nine and never let it go, shooting a 66 to win by two strokes over McIlroy. England's Marco Penge also shared second.
Gotterup, who turns 26 in a week, was the best college golfer in the nation in 2022, when he won both the Haskins Award and Jack Nicklaus Award while playing at Oklahoma.
He came out of school with much fanfare but without much success. He did win the alternate-field Myrtle Beach Classic two years ago, but it came in a 2024 season when he missed almost as many cuts as he made. In his 13 starts of 2024 after the win, he finished in the top 40 just once.
This season still had a lot of missed cuts -- nine -- but also a bunch of top-25s -- also nine, though none of them was a top-10.
Maybe that doesn't sound like too much of a struggle but if you saw Gotterup break down talking to CBS' Amanda Balionis right after winning, you'd know it was.
It all means so much.
An emotional win for @ChrisGotterup at the @ScottishOpen pic.twitter.com/yFR6SO0pEz
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) July 13, 2025
Gotterup is one of the longest hitters on Tour, which is great. But when you are outside the top 150 in driving accuracy and outside the top 100 in both Strokes Gained: Approach and Putting, success will be hard.
At the Scottish Open, Gotterup still wasn't especially accurate with his driver or irons, but he did rank fourth in the field in putting, with so many birdies or big par saves.
Drive for show, putt for dough? In this case, yes.
Gotterup thus moves into the top 50 in the world rankings, secures his PGA Tour card for multiple years, gets into next year's Masters and … gets into this week's Open Championship.
Three spots for the Open were being held for the top non-exempt finishers at the Scottish Open. Gotterup will be joined by Nicolai Hojgaard, who joins twin brother Rasmus Hojgaard already in the field, and Matti Schmid.
So now Gotterup is experiencing an extreme high after some really low lows.
"Yeah, I think that's probably why I got choked up there in the interview. I finished last year really in a bad -- not bad place but just like you said, you win early in the year and you're like, all right, I'm going to kick it into gear here.
"And then just kind of do a whole lot of nothing until the end of the year.
"My hand started hurting me. I had surgery a couple years ago and I was like, oh, here we go again. It ended up being all right. I took three months off and I got back -- taking the time off was important. I definitely felt a little burnt out."
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Rory McIlroy
If the talk of McIlroy being in a post-Masters funk didn't end after the tied for sixth at the Travelers, it will now. He has now finished in the top-5 at the Renaissance Club three years in a row – win in 2023, T4 last year – and heads into the Open Championship in great shape. "It's been a great week," he said. "I'm really happy with where my game is, the way I played over the weekend, the shots that I hit, how I controlled my ball flight. It has been a great week. Missing the trophy, that's about it."
Marco Penge
Penge is playing the best stretch of golf in his career. The 27-year-old Englishman won on the DP World Tour earlier this season, tied for 28th at the PGA Championship in May and has now finished top-25 or better in his past four DP starts. He was already in the Open Championship and there's a good chance he'll be on the PGA Tour next season as one of the top-10 players on the European circuit.
Matt Fitzpatrick
Fitzpatrick now has to be considered a real threat at the Open Championship. He's been playing great since the PGA, when he tied for eighth, and now he added this tie for fourth heading into Royal Portrush.
Nicolai Hojgaard
Hojgaard has struggled on the PGA Tour, even as his brother Rasmus has joined him this season and done better. But he shot a 6-under 64 to zoom up the leaderboard into a tie for fourth and into the field at Royal Portrush.
Justin Rose
Rose had struggled since losing in a playoff to McIlroy at the Masters. But now he's back on home turf, or close to it, and has a great record at the Open. He finished solo sixth.
Sepp Straka
It's little surprise that Straka finished seventh in a tremendous season. The real test will come next week. He's done great at the Open, including a runner-up, but has missed the cut in all three majors this season.
Scottie Scheffler
Scheffler tied for eighth. He finished 64th in the field in SG: Putting and that will not work out next week.
Xander Schauffele
Schauffele heads into defense of his Open Championship with just his second top-10 of the year, joining Scheffler in a tie for eighth.
Ludvig Aberg
Aberg picked a great time for his first top-10 since the Masters. He also tied for eighth.
Viktor Hovland
Hovland tied for 11th. He has a great resume at the Open and has to be considered maybe just outside the top tier of favorites.
Harry Hall
Hall won't be among the favorites heading into his first Open. But he is English and also is on a tear. He tied for 17th for his seventh straight top-25.
Justin Thomas
Thomas salvaged a miserable week by 1) Making a putt on Friday to make the cut on the number and 2) Shooting a 65 on Sunday to climb into the top-25 at T22.
Robert MacIntyre
The defending champion and Scotland's favorite son had to struggle late Friday just to make the cut. He did and wound up T65.
MISSED CUTS
Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, J.J. Spaun, Aldrich Potgieter. Missing the cut in Scotland should not greatly impact anyone's chances in the Open. But Morikawa's trying season continues and it would be at least a bit of a surprise if he were in the mix at Portfrush. … Im has a done well at the Open … This will be the first Open for Spaun and the second for Potgieter, both recent PGA Tour winners.
ISCO Championship
William Mouw, a struggling rookie on the PGA Tour, shot the round of his life, a 9-under 61, to steal the opposite-field tournament. The 24-year-old from Pepperdine had been languishing outside the top-150 in the FedEx Cup point standings. He's now projected to reach No. 83 -- still outside of playoff position but within reach. And of course he now has a two-year exemption on Tour. Mouw's only prior top-25 (other than the Zurich) was a T6 at another opposite-field event, the Puerto Rico Open. He began the day seven shots back in tie for 25th but zoomed up the leaderboard to defeat third-round leader Paul Peterson by one shot.
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