Smith crashed McIlroy’s party at the 150th edition of The Open at St Andrews on Sunday. After starting the final round 4 shots behind McIlroy and Viktor Hovland of Norway, Smith had an impressive back nine, making five consecutive birdies to post an 8-under 64 and win the Claret Jug.
Smith is just the third winner to shoot 64 or better in the final round of The Open, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Henrik Stenson (63 at Royal Troon in 2016) and Greg Norman (64 at Royal St. George’s in 1993) were the others. Smith’s score of 20 also tied Stenson’s 72-hole total in 2016 for the lowest score in Open history.
PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young birdied the 18th hole to finish solo second, 1 shot behind Smith. McIlroy, who was trying to win his fifth major, finished a disappointing third at 18-under. He now has eight full seasons since winning his last major at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla.
McIlroy can at least take solace in not losing that major; Smith won it with one of the best final rounds in major championship history. McIlroy clearly had the crowd behind him.
McIlroy didn’t play poorly and still had a nice cushion on the back nine. He just didn’t give himself enough birdie chances and could only manage Smith with a par.
Here are five observations from the final round at St Andrews:
Along with Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay and Hovland, Smith was perhaps among the best players in the world without a major championship win before Sunday. He is ranked sixth in the Official World Golf Ranking. He has now won six times on the PGA Tour and four other times around the world.
Smith had a chance to grab the 54-hole lead on Saturday, but his usually reliable player let him down. He told reporters afterward: “The golf gods were not with me today.”
That certainly wasn’t the case for Smith on Sunday. He had cut McIlroy’s lead to 3 strokes when he made the turn. Remarkably, by the 14th hole, Smith was 1 stroke ahead. He had five straight birdies starting at the 10th.
One of the best putters in the world, Smith drained putts of 5 feet on No. 10, 16 feet on No. 11, 11 feet on No. 12 and 18 feet on No. 13. Then on the par-5 14th, Smith almost 87-foot eagle putt and chipped in for birdie and a 1-stroke lead.
Smith is the only player in the last 20 years to birdie the first five holes of the back nine in the final round of a major, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Smith put the field away when he nearly hit the green on the 18th hole. From 75 feet, he increased to 2 feet and made his eighth putt of the round.
He became the first player to win his first major at St Andrews, overcoming a deficit entering the final round, since Dick Burton in 1939.
Smith seemed to arrive with the players in March when he won $3.6 million, the richest purse for a winner in PGA Tour history. He became just the fifth player to win both the Players and a major in the same season, joining Jack Nicklaus (1978), Hal Sutton (1983), Tiger Woods (2001) and Martin Kaymer (2014).
McIlroy’s disappointment
McIlroy has endured a lot of grief since winning his last major at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla. He had close calls at the Masters and The Open in 2018 and the US Open at Torrey Pines last year. It was the ninth time he finished in the top five at a major since the last win.
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Sunday’s loss, in which McIlroy had a 4-shot lead at the start and a 3-shot lead at the turn, may prove to be the most devastating.
“[I’m] disappointed, obviously,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, I felt like I didn’t do a lot wrong today, but I didn’t do a lot right either. 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.
“But look, I was beaten by a better player this week. Twenty under par for four rounds of golf here is a really, really impressive game, especially to go out and shoot a 64 today to do it.”
Again, most of the galleries were behind McIlroy. Smith and everyone else probably felt like outsiders compared to him. But Rory’s roars never came on Sunday.
Playing one group behind Smith, McIlroy birdied the par-4 10th to move to 18-under. He didn’t make another birdie the rest of the way.
McIlroy narrowly missed a 14-foot putt at the 12th before nearly sinking a 61-footer at the 13th. McIlroy didn’t capitalize on the par-5 14th. His second shot from 248 yards missed the green, so he putt from the fairway to 18 feet. Another late one left him with a disappointing level. McIlroy also had near misses of 28 feet on No. 16 and 22 feet on No. 17.
“Yeah, I’m going to regret a couple of missed shots that went by,” McIlroy said. “But it was a good week overall. I can’t be too down about how this year went and how this year is going. I’m playing some of the best golf I’ve played in a long time. So it’s just a matter of keep knocking on the door and eventually one will open.”
McIlroy has finished in the top 10 in each of the four majors this season. He finished second at the Masters, eighth at the PGA Championship and tied for fifth at the US Open.
“Yeah, obviously, not just with his scores this year, but he’s come an awful lot closer and played really well this year,” said Hovland, who finished tied for fourth at 14-under. “But at the end of the day he keeps playing the way he does, at least I think he’ll get one pretty soon. Still, yes, it’s hard. You have to finish it.”
The next generation of Golf is good
Smith, 28, is the sixth consecutive major winner by a player in his mid-20s. Matt Fitzpatrick (27) won the US Open, Justin Thomas (29) won the PGA Championship and Scotty Scheffler (26) took the Masters. Last year Collin Morikawa (25) won The Open and Jon Rahm (27) took the US Open.
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If you take out Phil Mickelson’s surprise victory at the 2021 PGA Championship, in which he became the oldest major champion at 50, that would make it seven in a row. Hideki Matsuyama won the 2021 Masters at age 29.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, 20-year-olds had not won six straight majors from 1921 to 1923, when Walter Hagan, Gene Sarazen, Arthur Havers and Bobby Jones combined to do it.
Cameron Young is real
For most of the week, with so much attention on McIlroy and Woods, you may have barely noticed that PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young was in contention. But the New York golfer shot under steam in every round, including a 7-under 65 on Sunday. He had an eagle on the par-14 18th to grab solo second at 19 under.
After finishing in a tie for third at the PGA Championship, Young is only the second player after Morikawa to finish in the top three in his debut at these events. Morikawa won the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park and the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s.
“It probably hurts a little bit worse if you don’t get one hit,” Young said. “If you lose by eight, you don’t really care. But, yes, I played well [on Sunday]. I was going to sign up for 65 this morning. And watching Cameron film what he did was pretty amazing.
Is St. Andrews too easy?
The R&A knew that St Andrews, ‘the home of golf’, would be vulnerable to modern equipment and the world’s best players, especially if the wind wasn’t blowing hard from the North Sea.
The wind didn’t blow much in the last two rounds, so the scores were very, very low. Smith’s 20-under total is the lowest for an Open at St. Andrews. The average score is 71.619. There were 929 birdies and 29 eagles.
“I think we’re definitely hitting it too far for the course, probably if I had to guess,” Xander Schaufele said. “Maybe it’s just too firm. I’m not too sure to be completely honest.
R&A pushed the pins in as best they could but it didn’t seem to make much difference.
“The way they made it difficult was a little difficult in my opinion,” Schaufele said. “Some of those pins that they put in — I mean, if you’re on the right side, you’re going to be 30 feet, 40 feet. But if you try to hit it up close, you get a little greedy, like I did [Saturday]there is no grass at the top of some of these slopes.
“[Sunday] it was much softer. The ball somehow stayed on the ground. [Saturday] there was no friction. It almost felt like a USGA event in ’15 or ’16.”
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