St Andrews may have been built by the sea, but this coming week – as the golfing world converges on a historic small town – it represents an emblem that has been years in the making. The 150th Old Course Open Championship. What a fitting way to end the big season in 2022. Of course, historic Opens have been held here before, but perhaps none as significant as this one at the end of what has been the strangest golf summer in decades .
Although the PGA Tour-LIV Golf battle continues, a week-long truce has been issued as golf’s most famous city once again reveals itself to the world. Four days on the Old Course should be enough for at least the next five years (the next Open Championship won’t be played here until 2027 or later). Enough, of course, since the American Civil War, which is almost too much history to bear in one week.
That a silver jug older than several of our states will be up for grabs on a course older than the United States on the same island where Majesticks and Four Aces made their first push to become the future of professional golf a year ago, is a fact not lost on anyone.
Openers are only as important as their champions, of course, and there are some prolific potential Claret Jug hoisters in the field this week. As grand as we think the Masters is, as exciting as the PGA Championship is to run, and as historically positioned as the US Open, this particular Open will likely surpass those events in every category. And while it may be an exaggeration to say that the future of golf hangs in the balance while this Open is being played, it isn’t.
Let’s take a look at the best storylines going into the 150th Open Championship.
1. Championship Aftermath: What do I mean when I call this Open Aftermath? For starters, it could be the last for some historically great Open golfers. Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter lose their automatic qualifications in 2023 and may not qualify due to their affiliation with LIV Golf and therefore an inability to earn points in the Official World Golf Ranking. Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson might not be far behind. Depending on how the next few years go, this could be the last time all of the world’s top talent gathers in the same city for the same Open Championship.
It goes deeper though, because it feels like the PGA Tour is where the real pro golfers play, while LIV Golf is for the injured, the washed up, or those indifferent to the big trophies. However, if someone from LIV Golf wins this Open at St. Andrews, that narrative begins to change. It goes from a perceived hierarchy to a real battle and may convince more golfers to abandon ship on the PGA Tour.
On the other hand, if one of the PGA Tour’s mainstays wins the Open at St. Andrews, it sets the tone for the offseason. Right or wrong, it would serve as a reminder that the PGA Tour is where those golfers who are serious about winning championships play. Whether that can stem the tide of defections remains to be seen, but there is the potential for a winner this week to truly change the arc of golf history, if only in a small way. There aren’t many majors where you can definitively say something like that before a ball is even hit.
2. Tiger Woods’ last outing? There’s a non-zero chance that Woods will play his final Open at St. Andrews this week, and it’s almost certain that this will be his last trip to St. Andrews in which he has even a glimmer of hope of contending. Tiger said last week that he skipped the US Open because it was too monumental to risk missing out on. Some believe he may announce his retirement from professional golf this week, and while that is unlikely, he knows this is the last good shot he will get on the Old Course.
We can get a bent knee and a hand to the sky at Swilcan Bridge on Friday or Sunday. It would raise all sorts of emotions: disbelief that his time as a competitive golfer on one of the world’s great courses is coming to an end, sadness that we’ll never again see the top-class Tiger use those magical hands on one of the sport’s great Rubik’s Cubes, sadness at how quickly that time slipped away.
It seemed like just yesterday when it looked like Woods’ run would never end. Tiger won his first of three career Grand Slams on the Old Course, later saying that “St. Andrews [in 2000] it was a different level of hitting the ball. I hit it much better than I did on the Pebble [Beach].” Reminder: Woods won the US Open at Pebble that year by 15 strokes.
It felt like one was watching Woods walk through the pages of time itself. This is no longer the case, which is humanizing but much harder to reconcile. Like any champion who knows the dark depths of what is required, he can sense the finish line of his career, even if he isn’t entirely sure whether he is ahead or behind it. Regardless, he knows that in five years it will be deep in the rearview mirror; even though he can play the Open at 51 or older, this is his last real chance to hook the course he most desires.
It seemed like just yesterday when it looked like his run would never end. He won his first of three career Slams at this course and you felt like you were watching someone go through the pages of time itself. It doesn’t feel that way anymore, which is humanizing, but much harder to reconcile. Like any champion who knows the dark depths of what is required, he can sense the finish line of his career, even if he isn’t entirely sure whether he is ahead or behind it. Regardless, he knows that five years from now it will be deep in the rearview mirror, and while he may be playing the Open at 51 or older, this is the last time he’ll have a real chance to hook the course that most very willing.
3. Will Scotty Scheffler’s all-time streak last? Scheffler had a great year. He won four of the top 10 events for 2022 and has collected more money this season than any golfer in PGA Tour history. He won the Masters. He became the 25th person to climb to No. 1 in the world. It was the stuff of dreams. If he somehow ties his green jacket with the Claret Jug, it goes from one of the great years of the last decade to one of the great years in golf history. Only four other golfers have won five times in a year, with two of those coming at the Masters and The Open. And only Tiger did it at Augusta National and St. Andrews.
4. Collin Morikawa’s back-to-back bid: No one has won back-to-back Opens since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08 (right after Tiger in 2005-06). Morikawa has yet to find the winner’s circle this year, having won six of his first 64 OWGR tournaments (9.4%). He’s not the first player you think of when you think of someone battling the wind and the elements on a links course, but he clearly has the upside to win the Open (albeit more favorably than most). Was Morikawa at Royal St. George’s “Jordan Spieth at Chambers Bay” situation that happened once but almost certainly won’t happen again? If he pulls through, what will we do when Morikawa captures the PGA Championship and two Opens (including St. Andrews) by the age of 25? Time will tell how one of the great iron players of the last 50 years can hold up against Open conditions, but his defense will be a huge storyline in a year when the last five major champions (including Morikawa) were Ryder Cuppers in their 20s .
5. The Buoy: Jon Rahm has been suspiciously quiet at majors this year after finishing in the top eight in all four events a year ago. His closest shot in 2022 was a T12 at the US Open, although he completely blew it in the final round. However, he hasn’t missed a PGA Championship major in 2019 and is coming off his best Open last year when he finished T3 at Royal St. George’s. He’s dropped from the clip he was playing this time last year until the end of January 2022, but this is one last chance for him to remind everyone who has consistently been the greatest player in the world for the past five years.
6. Easy old course? This particular Open has become a vehicle for a variety of hopes and future plans from countless entities within golf. Perhaps none is more famous than the contingent who want to bring the equipment back so that places like St Andrews are still viable major championship venues 20-50 years from now.
“If someone scores 13 under for a round of golf, then good luck to them, but I don’t want that to happen at St Andrews. Somehow it wouldn’t be right,” Colin Montgomery said recently. “If it’s calm and the pins aren’t too hidden and they’re going to have to be put away and you can get to pins with wedges, then I’m afraid of that and I don’t want to. It doesn’t deserve to have 59 on it.”
That’s the big picture story, but on a more micro level, this Open could produce some silly numbers if the wind fails to howl. That’s one of the risks of going to places like St. Andrews, and it would be such a big bummer if one of the stories this week turned into what happens to be one of the biggest stories of the last month: that the sport that is playing is not what golf should be.
7. Spieth’s comeback: The last time Spieth played the Old Course, he took the Grand Slam to the 215th major hole of the year. He made five on the Road Hole and birdied the last to finish one stroke out of the playoff. Still, since then he has managed to win Opens with just one finish outside the top 20 and three top 10s, including a 2017 victory at Royal Birkdale. While Spieth has been competing in majors since that 2017 win at Birkdale, he’s starting to get a little into “Rory McIlroy hasn’t won a major since 2014” territory.
The last time when…
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