Troon (United Kingdom) (AFP) – American Xander Schauffele won the British Open on Sunday to claim the second major championship of his career, just two months after winning his first.
The 30-year-old Californian delivered a faultless final round of 65 at Royal Troon on Scotland’s west coast to emerge from a congested leaderboard and grab the Claret Jug.
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Schauffele, winner of the PGA Championship in May, finished on nine-under par, two shots ahead of England’s Justin Rose and Billy Horschel of the USA.
“Oh man,” he said.
“Hearing your name called with ‘Open champion’ after it is something I’ve dreamed of for a very long time.”
Schauffele had started the last 18 tied for second with five other players, a shot behind overnight leader Horschel.
Schauffele put together a tidy front nine under benign conditions on the Ayrshire links, reaching the turn at two-under par for the day after birdies at the sixth and seventh.
He then burst into life at the start of the inward half as his nearest challengers — Rose, world number 62 Horschel and South African Thriston Lawrence– began to falter.
Schauffele hit a sublime approach to the difficult 11th to set up a tap-in birdie before sinking a 16-foot birdie putt on the 13th to get to seven under alongside 27-year-old Lawrence.
Moments later Schauffele was in front on his own after Lawrence dropped his first shot of the day on the 12th.
The American then rolled in a 12-footer on hole 14 and suddenly he had a two-shot lead.
That extended to three after a delightful chip over a bunker at the 16th led to another birdie.
Two closing pars sealed the championship as Schauffele became the first golfer to win two majors in a single season since Brooks Koepka in 2018.
Lawrence, bidding to join a high-profile list of South Africans to have lifted the Claret Jug including Gary Player, Ernie Els and Bobby Locke, had held a one-shot lead at the turn.
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Rose, chasing his second major title and England’s first Open victory since Nick Faldo in 1992, briefly enjoyed a share of the lead with Lawrence after hitting three birdies in his opening nine holes.
But he bogeyed twelve before too-little-too-late birdies on 16 and 18 put him on seven-under. America’s Horschel suffered an inconsistent opening ten holes before birdieing the last three to finished tied for second with Rose.
Lawrence finished on his own in fourth at six under, while American Russell Henley was a shot further back in fifth.
Ireland’s Shane Lowry, leader after two rounds, posted a 68 to finish four-under par and in sixth place.
World number one Scottie Scheffler and two-time major champion Jon Rahm both briefly threatened a run up the leaderboard but finished tied for seventh on one under alongside South Korea’s Im Sung-jae.
Unheralded Englishman Daniel Brown, playing his first major, posted a three-over-par round of 74 for a tie for 10th.
A number of stars struggled this week due to the testing weather conditions, thick rough and well-placed punitive pot bunkers.
Rory McIlroy endured two miserable rounds to miss the cut on 11 over, extending his decade-long wait for a fifth major into 2025.
Three-time champion Tiger Woods also missed the weekend, recording his worst-ever performance at the Open with a 14-over score of 156.
US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark and Viktor Hovland also failed to make the final two rounds.
Home favourite Robert MacIntyre finished nine over after failing to repeat the heroics that secured last week’s Scottish Open.
© 2024 AFP
