Weekly Recap: A Win for the Ages

The back nine of the 150th Open Championship on Sunday at St. Andrews began with Rory McIlroy taking the very first steps toward what destiny would've called a coronation. He had been playing great golf for months, he was the best golfer on links, he was the overwhelming fan favorite, he was even the betting favorite. And he was in control of the tournament even before birdieing No. 10.

Little did the adoring McIlroy faithful know they were about to witness one of the great finishes in major golf history. Trouble was, it was not by their guy.

Cameron Smith also birdied No. 10 in the next group ahead. Then 11. And then incredibly 12,13 and 14 to blow past McIlroy and capture this historic Open at the Old Course for his first career major title. The 28-year-old Australian made putt after putt after putt to shoot an astounding 8-under 64 en route to an Open-record-tying 20-under total.

Smith shot 30 – THIRTY! – on the back nine. Destiny never had a chance.

McIlroy began the day with a four-shot lead over Smith but wound up two strokes back, and not even in second place, as his final-round 70 was also no match for PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young's Sunday 65. 

Smith's charge started unassumingly. Yes, he had a remarkable birdie run, but McIlroy was countering with pars so there were no wild swings. It was more of drip, drip, drip and before you knew it they were running out of holes and McIlroy stunningly had been steamrolled.

Smith had really come of age already this season, moving into the top-10 in the world rankings for the first time behind big wins at the Tournament of Champions and THE PLAYERS Championship. He has showcased perhaps the best short game in the world -- we're talking about putter and wedge -- and the dirty little secret about him is that his driver is not half bad. That was on full display on Sunday.

Most known for years for, yes, that mullet, Smith narrowly missed breaking through at the Masters in April when he couldn't keep up with Scottie Scheffler. He did not let that happen again, and now he has moved to No. 2 in the world behind only Scheffler, a four-time winner this season. Suddenly, there is a real dogfight at the top of men's golf, maybe not just yet for the No. 1 spot in the rankings but certainly for the PGA Tour Player of the Year.

After pars at Nos. 15 and 16 and a surreal par-saver on the famed No. 17 Road Hole, Smith made one final birdie to reach 20-under, one better than Tiger Woods' total at St. Andrews in 2000 and matching Henrik Stenson's record total for any Open set in 2016 at Royal Troon.

The weakest club in Smith's bad is the driver, though weak is too strong of a word. He averages 300 off the tee – average by today's standards – but ranks only 135th in driving accuracy. So it makes sense that his two best majors are the Masters and the Open with wider fairways and an emphasis on greenside skill. As Smith said his post-victory interviews, he was working hardest on improving off the tee. Hey, he was 13th at Southern Hills for the PGA Championship, so that work is showing results.

Even though in today's game the stats tell us that driving and long iron play are most important, Smith has shown us numerous times this season that there's more than one way to win a golf tournament.

And now, more than one way to win a major golf tournament.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Cameron Young
Everybody was already impressed with Young's grit and ability to drive the ball – he was second on Tour behind Jon Rahm in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee entering the Open. Now, just so much more impressed. Second at the Open, third at the PGA, plus three other podium finishes this season, including runner-up at another major track in Riviera. His eagle on 18 to grab solo second was, again, very impressive. Any discussion about Rookie of the Year including Mito Pereira, Sahith Theegala and Davis Riley is now over. Young will win it. He's still looking for his first PGA Tour title but that seems just a matter of time.

Rory McIlroy
The general consensus was that McIlroy did not nothing wrong, that he simply fell victim to a once-in-a-lifetime round by Smith. Yes, he hit every green in regulation and two-putted every hole. It's not that simple, though. After all, he was caught by Young, too. Smith was six strokes better, Young five. Those are enormous differences for a final round of a major. Just about everybody on the first page of the leaderboard was better than McIlroy's 2-under 70. So, this was McIlroy really coming up short. He probably knows that. … On the whole, McIlroy finished in the top-eight in all four majors, a remarkable accomplishment. It'll be almost nine years since his last major by the time the Masters is played next April. On one hand, how can he not win another one? On the other hand, he keeps finding new ways to not win another one.

Viktor Hovland
We railed on Hovland all weekend on Twitter, pointing to his dead-last wedge game (ranked 204th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green), and how bad it would be for someone with such a void in his game to win a major. That didn't come about, with a terrible 74 on Sunday to drop into a tie for fourth. Hovland is ranked ninth in the world. Which tells us how good the rest of his game is, putter included, to be a top-10 player without possessing one of the four general areas of shot-making (driver, irons, wedges, putter). Hovland surely will focus extensively on his short game and, if gets just a little better, he will be a force in all the majors. This was his first top-10 ever in a major. His previous best was 12th, at last year's Open.

Tommy Fleetwood
Jut about everything aligned perfectly for Fleetwood this week. He was playing great coming in and he's an outstanding links golfer with a sneaky-good short game. The Englishman tied for fourth, and the only thing missing that would've moved him even higher on the leaderboard was bad weather. Fleetwood would've handled it better than just about anyone else in the field.

Brian Harman
Fans have always liked Harman because of his grittiness, and frankly because he's smaller than just about everyone else in what's now a power game. He just had his second-best major ever, tying for sixth (runner-up, 2017 U.S. Open). At age 35, he's playing some of the best golf of his career, with four top-20s in majors over the past two years.

Patrick Cantlay
Cantlay tied for eighth, his first top-10 in a major since the 2019 PGA Championship, 14 majors ago. He was too good for this streak to go on much longer. This was his sixth top-15 in his past seven starts overall. Cantlay absolutely can be a force in the upcoming playoffs.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth was our pick to win. He tied for eighth. He now has five top-10s in nine career Opens. The courses in the Open rota, collectively, are great for his game. He should be a consideration every year.

Lucas Herbert
Herbert is another Aussie with a world-class short game. He was ranked second on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting, and it carried him to a tie for 15th. What separates him from Cameron Smith is, his accuracy off the tee and from the fairway is abysmal – every bit as bad as Viktor Hovland's wedge game. Herbert was ranked 197th in driving accuracy and 204th (last) in greens in regulation. He's a top-50 player and a Tour winner, so that combination is working at least a little bit.

Trey Mullinax
Mullinax's life was transformed in the past two weeks. He was the last guy to qualify for this historic Open by winning the Barbasol Championship, hopped on a plane to Scotland and tied for 21st at the Old Course. It's actually not even his best major – he tied for ninth at the 2017 U.S. Open. Let's see if this fortnight can propel Mullinax's career to another level.

Billy Horschel
Horschel tied for 21st, which is his best major in six years and third best ever. In other words, he'd been terrible in the majors. He's been great for a couple of years outside of the majors, top-15 golfer, so maybe that success is starting to trickle over to the majors. 

Justin Thomas
Thomas tied for 53rd. He's never contended at an Open Championship. We suspect he will someday. For now, he's been in six of them and never finished in the top-10.

LIV
Dustin Johnson tied for sixth, Bryson DeChambeau tied for eighth and Abraham Ancer tied for 11th. Great weeks for all of them. It doesn't really matter going forward, because we won't seem them play meaningful golf till at least next April. Sadom Kaewkanjana, a 24-year-old Thai, tied for 11th in just his second major after missing the cut at the PGA in May. Louis Oosthuizen, who won an Open at St. Andrews in 2010 and then finished runner-up there in 2015, surprisingly missed the cut. So did Brooks Koepka, who went MC-55-55-MC in the majors.

Max Homa
Homa didn't make the cut, certainly a disappointment for someone who had made great strides in the majors in the past year. As rewarding as playing with Tiger Woods for the first two rounds surely was for Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick, it probably didn't help them with all the crowds and drama.

Collin Morikawa
A missed cut for the defending champion. It's hard to imagine the world's best iron player could slump like the world's best putter, but Morikawa surely is not the same guy as the past two years.

Tiger Woods
Maybe Woods' right leg can get stronger, maybe the car accident was so catastrophic that it's taking even longer than the roughly 1 ½ years it's been. But short of that, Woods physically cannot compete in his current state. He's finally found something that can defeat his elite mental toughness. Woods missed the cut, and it was pretty clear before even Thursday ended that that would be the case. This week was supposed to be his best chance – chance at what, we're not sure. What happens now? We'll see him, what, two, three or four times a year for who knows how long? Win No. 83 will never come. But that's okay. He's Tiger and always will be.

Alex Noren
Noren was the first alternate for the Open and was on the ground at St. Andrews at the beginning of the week. Unsure if he'd get in, he flew to Kentucky for the Barracuda Championship. Then two Open golfers withdrew and it looked like Noren had made a terrible miscalculation. Would winning an opposite-field tournament mean more than simply playing in a major, even the historic Open? We'll never know. Noren didn't even win the Barbasol. But he came very close. He finished as runner-up to Chez Reavie, just one point back in the Modified Stableford Scoring system. Oh, if Noren had a mulligan.