Some disturbing trivia: We are already one-fourth of the way through the 21st century.
What? This century was brand new just a few minutes ago. Who’s responsible for this outrage? And also, where did my hair go? We all want to play golf faster but could we get Time to at least pull out of the express lane?
Meanwhile, the 26th Open Championship of the 2000s is upon us at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland. Let’s catch our breath and recall the 12 Most Memorable Opens of this rapidly racing century.
NO. 12: 2005, ST. ANDREWS, OLD COURSE
Jack Nicklaus played his last U.S. Open and PGA Championship in 2000, and Tiger Woods won both events. Nicklaus made this his final Open Championship, so, naturally, the game’s best player rose to the occasion.
“I wish he’d keep retiring,” joked Woods, who led wire-to-wire and won by five.
Notably, Woods won a major with his third different swing iteration, this one with coach Hank Haney’s help. Nicklaus’ analysis: “This is the best I have ever seen Tiger swing.”
It was Woods’ 10th major title. “I'm 29 and didn't think I'd have this many majors before the age of 30,” Woods said. “Usually, your golden years as a golfer are your 30s. Hopefully that will be the case for me too.”
Woods would win four majors in his 30s and one in his 40s.
NO. 11: 2008, CARNOUSTIE
Strange things happen at Carnoustie.
Argentina’s Andres Romero looked as if he might win when he made 10 birdies in the final round — until he finished double bogey-bogey. Padraig Harrington had the lead on the 18th tee but Van-de-Velded (see 1999, Frenchman blows Open) two shots into the Barry Burn and made double bogey. Garcia led by one when he got to 18 but made bogey from a greenside bunker. Harrington birdied the first hole of the four-hole playoff and Garcia bogeyed. Harrington held on for the win.
Garcia, whose playoff featured a shot off the flagstick, went on a famous frustrated rant: “I should write a book on how to not miss a shot in the playoff and shoot 1 over. I guess it’s not news in my life. … It’s funny how some guys hit the pin and go to a foot. Mine hits the pin and goes 20 feet away. … You know what the saddest thing is? It’s not the first time. I’m playing against a lot of guys out there, more than the field.”
Garcia’s happy ending? He wins the 2017 Masters, apparently defeating the gods of golf.
NO. 10: 2022, ST. ANDREWS, OLD COURSE
Players tore the Old Course apart again. Rory McIlroy’s 18-under par was only good enough for third place. Australian Cameron Smith, known for his mullet hairstyle, shot 20-under par to edge Cameron Young by a shot.
McIlroy and Norway’s Viktor Hovland shared the 54-hole lead but McIlroy shot a so-so closing 70 and was passed by Smith, who came from six back with a 64. Smith birdied the final hole to finish one ahead of Young, who made a thrilling eagle at the 18th hole.
“At the end of the day, it’s not life or death,” said McIlroy, whose last major title was in 2014. “But it’s one that I feel like I let slip away.”
NO. 9: 2002, MUIRFIELD
There may be no such thing as Peak Tiger Mania but this was close. Woods had won seven of the previous 11 majors and was two shots off the lead after 36 holes. Then a freak storm blew in shortly before Woods teed off in the third round. He shot 81 and, as one chagrined tour player noted, this was the first time a break went against Woods.
Meanwhile, Ernie Els lost his lead when two poor chips at the 17th hole led to a double bogey and he ended up in a playoff with Stuart Appleby, Steve Elkington and Thomas Levet, the Open’s first four-man playoff. Levet bogeyed the fourth playoff hole to fall back into a tie with Els, who parred 18 on the sudden-death fifth hole for the win.
NO. 8: 2024, ROYAL TROON
The final round figured to be a charge of a light brigade. Billy Horschel led by one over six players. It was Xander Schauffele, the newly minted PGA Championship winner, who broke from the pack. He shot 31 on the back nine and outdistanced English favorite Justin Rose, Cinderella stories Thriston Lawrence and Dan Brown and, oh yeah, No. 1-ranked Scottie Scheffler.
“It took me forever just to win one major,” Schauffele said, “and to have two now is something else.”
NO. 7: 2013, MUIRFIELD
Phil Mickelson made a career out of defying expectations, and winning the Open on his 20th try was one of his biggest surprises. Mickelson surged in the final round with a 66 on a tough course, while Lee Westwood, Adam Scott and others faltered.
It was a superb 5-iron shot to 12 feet for birdie at the 13th hole in the final round that suddenly put Mickelson in the driver’s seat. He relied on his short game the rest of the way and won by three over Henrik Stenson, who would return the favor three years later.
NO. 6: 2019, ROYAL PORTRUSH
If you don’t get goose bumps watching highlights of this final round, you don’t like golf.
Royal Portrush hadn’t hosted an Open Championship since 1951. Rory McIlroy, who grew up an hour away from the course, was supposed to win this Open, but missed the cut. Instead, Ireland’s Shane Lowry vaulted into a four-shot lead with a third-round 63. He went on to win by six in classic Irish rain-and-wind conditions.
The only drama was whether Lowry would crumble under the great expectations. The roars of anticipation from the gallery throughout the final round, not to mention the ovations at every green, were stunning.
On the final hole, Lowry said he thought, “I can’t believe it’s happening to me.”
Guess who will never, ever have to pay for his own drink in Ireland?
NO. 5: 2015, ST. ANDREWS, OLD COURSE
You could feel the electricity when Jordan Spieth drained a stupefying 50-foot putt across the 16th green and jumped into a three-way tie for the lead in the final round.
He’d already won the Masters and U.S. Open and suddenly the calendar-year Grand Slam was in his grasp and … oops, no it wasn’t. Spieth bogeyed the Road Hole, then didn’t birdie the 18th and missed joining a three-man playoff.
Zach Johnson, the 2007 Master champ, outlasted Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen in a four-hole playoff and became the first player (Obscure Trivia Alert!) whose first two major titles were at Augusta National and the Old Course. While the playoff was tense, Spieth’s near-miss made it feel a tiny bit anticlimactic.
NO. 4: 2000, ST. ANDREWS, OLD COURSE
This was prime-time Tiger Woods in action, taking no prisoners.
He won the last four events in 1999 and racked up more Ws in 2000, notably the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots. This was golf the likes of which we’d never seen and it was kinda-sorta over after his opening 67. Woods led by six after 54 holes but David Duval gamely gave chase until he gave the Road Hole bunker a thorough excavation en route to an 8.
How good was Woods? This Open completed his career Grand Slam at age 24 and was the second of four straight majors he was about to win, dubbed the Tiger Slam.
Fellow competitor Thomas Bjorn nailed it: “It looks like he is playing golf on a different planet than the rest of us.”
NO. 3: 2017, ROYAL BIRKDALE
Seve Ballesteros won an Open from a car park — 1979 at Lytham — and not to be outdone, Jordan Spieth won one from the practice range.
After a spectacularly bad drive, Spieth’s ball was mired in thick rough right of the 13th fairway. Spieth backed up and shrewdly took a penalty drop on the practice range — a three-act play that took 15 minutes. From there, he salvaged a crucial bogey, then played the last five holes in 5-under par.
That stretch featured The Moment. Spieth holed an unlikely eagle putt, excitedly started walking away and then pointed at the cup and barked at caddie Michael Greller, “Go get that!”
We remember Greller more than we remember Matt Kuchar, the player Spieth outkicked at the finish.
NO. 2: 2016, ROYAL TROON
Was the shootout between Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson better than the original 1977 Duel in the Sun between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson?
“They scored better than us,” Nicklaus later said.
Mickelson opened with 63, closed with 65, posted 17-under par and, ahem, lost by three. Stenson put up 10 birdies in a final-round 63. The signature stroke was probably Stenson long-range birdie putt at 15, whose drama was matched only by Mickelson’s eagle chip at the 16th that narrowly missed. There’s never been a Sunday like this in any major championship.
NO. 1: 2009, TURNBERRY
It was a magical week for a 59-year-old who outplayed the world’s finest golfers for 71 holes. That 72nd hole still stings.
That’s where Tom Watson’s perfect approach shot rolled just over the green and down a slight slope. Old Tom needed a par to beat Stewart Cink, who had holed a birdie putt at the 18th that didn’t seem so important at the time.
You know the rest. Watson putted from off the green, hammer-smithed it past the hole and, battling some form of yips, hit a sad par putt that never had a chance. The clock struck midnight in the playoff, the magic wore off and Cink, not Watson, was the champ.
When Watson came into a quiet pressroom afterward, he tried to break the mood by joking, “It’s not a funeral, fellas.” The fans who rooted so hard for “Toom” — as the Scots called their beloved hero — to win a sixth Open, would have disagreed as they somberly left the grounds.
