Cameron Smith stole the tee from Rory McIlroy’s grasp, carding six birdies on the back nine to speed past a stranded neutral McIlroy on Sunday at St. Andrews and finish the weekend 64-64 to win a 150th Open Championship by one stroke. Here’s everything you need to know:
Ranking: Cameron Smith (-20), Cameron Young (-19), Rory McIlroy (-18), Victor Hovland (-14), Tommy Fleetwood (-14)
How it happened: Before Sunday’s final round, Tiger Woods sent NBC reporter John Wood a text putting himself in the shoes of the two co-leaders, McIlroy and Hovland, who were four shots ahead of the closest pursuers, including Smith. It read: “If I shoot 19 under par, which would tie the lowest score for par in all four majors, I win. How to do it? No bunkers, no three putts, take care of the manageable par 4s and take care of the par 5s. Maybe sneak in another one or two [birdies]. Lo and behold, score around 68 without doing anything special.
McIlroy tried to follow that game plan. He didn’t find a bunker or make a three-putt. And for good measure, he didn’t miss a green in regulation. Unfortunately for McIlroy, he couldn’t buy the birdies either, managing just two, closing at 2-under 70 and being passed by the young Australian, who actually did something special.
Smith reflects on ‘unreal’ victory at The 150th Open
While Hovland fell off the pace early, McIlroy looked good enough to win despite just two birdies in his first 10 holes. But by then, Smith had gone on a streak of five straight birdies — from 5, 16, 11, 18 and 5 feet on Nos. 10-14 — and eventually overtook McIlroy, 30 yards short of the green to putt-in distance. to move to 19 under. Smith added a birdie at the end with a closing 8-under 64, but he actually won that championship one hole earlier, on the par-4 Road Hole, where he made a drive down the fairway only to choke one left and well short from the green. With the infamous Road Hole Bunker between him and the hole, Smith chose to bypass the trap. He then sunk the clutch 10-footer for par to stay a shot clear of McIlroy, who should have gone in for eagle at the last but missed it well past him to finish third, two back of Smith and a shot behind Young, who scored no 18 to claim second place.
“I felt like I didn’t do a lot wrong today, but I didn’t do a lot right either,” McIlroy said. “It’s just one of those days where I played a really controlled round of golf. I did what I felt I had to except take advantage of the easier holes around the turn, 9, 12, 14. If I had birdied there from good positions it probably would have been a different story.”
Added Smith: “I feel like I can breathe. These last four or five holes are not easy here, especially with the wind to the left. Yeah, I just stuck to what I was doing. Yeah, I’m really proud of how I kind of struggled today and got it done.”
Full field results from the 150th Open Championship
What it means: Entering this 150th Open, McIlroy talked about the significance of winning a tee shot on the venerable Old Course at St. Andrews. He called the achievement the “holy grail” of professional golf, so even though McIlroy already held one open title, in 2014 at Royal Liverpool, he wanted this one badly. After all, it had been eight years since McIlroy had won anything major. Instead, it was Smith, with just one top 20 in four previous Open starts, who took down his first major as McIlroy became just the second 54-hole leader/co-leader in the last 30 years of major championships to slip away of scarecrows in the final round and did not win (Jason Day was the other, at the 2015 Open, also at St. Andrews).
“At the end of the day, it’s not about life or death,” said McIlroy, who now has 17 top 10s in majors since winning his last major at the 2014 PGA, four of which have come this year. “I’ll have other chances to win the Open Championship and other chances to win majors. I feel like I let it slip away, but there will be other opportunities.”
Smith’s back nine 30 marked the lowest back nine by an Open winner ever, and his 20-under-20 total matches the major record for par (Day at the 2015 PGA, Henrik Stenson at the 2016 Open and Dustin Johnson at the 2020 Masters are different).
With the victory, Smith, 28, became the first Australian to win The Open in 29 years, after Greg Norman also closed in 64 to beat Nick Faldo in 1993 at Royal St. George’s. While Smith may not yet have done enough to warrant Player of the Year ahead of four-time winner and Masters champion Scotty Scheffler, he is the top contender for world No. 1, now with three wins this season, his Open win after titles at Kapalua and TPC Sawgrass.
Round of the day: While McIlroy shot 36 on Sunday, Smith had just 29, and that flat stick performance helped him map the low final round by a stroke over several players, including Young.
Shot of the day: Smith was firing on all cylinders with the putter, but no shot was more important than his par save on No. 17. That unconventional up-and-down move, which Smith described as a board jug clincher, will be remembered by quite a while:
“That second shot on 17 is a really awkward shot, especially where I was,” Smith explained. “I should have drawn a 9-iron there. You’re trying to get it to 40 or 50 feet anyway. I just didn’t commit to the shape I wanted to hit and made it a bit of a toy and turned a touch more than I would have liked. Then the putt to the green, I mean, I was just trying to get it 15 feet and the putt felt really good all day. I knew if I could get it somewhere in there that I could do pretty well. Yeah, I got away with 4 there.”
Biggest disappointment: In what should have been essentially a match-play battle between him and McIlroy, Hovland went birdie-free for 11 holes and never made the cut, finishing with a closing 74.
“It was a little anticlimactic after the day yesterday,” Hovland said. “I expected to stay there a little longer. Yeah, I just didn’t have it today.”
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