2024 Highlights: Royal Troon Starring, Xander Schauffele Cast as Justin Rose, Billy Horschel Goes All Out

Scottie Scheffler called it the toughest nine holes he’d ever played. Dustin Johnson said it was the toughest nine holes possible. Others mentioned not being able to remember the last time they hit a 3-wood driver into a hole and missed. Royal Troon, with Mother Nature’s help, delivered the most comprehensive test imaginable and the best end-to-end test we’ve seen in years at the 2024 Open Championship last week.

Fairways and greens, sure? Check. Memorable holes marked by distinct features? Absolutely. There are long holes, short holes, tough holes, easy holes. And of course, the variable that makes any major twice as good (or more) than it should be: the wind. Crosswinds, inwinds, downwinds, wind jams — it’s a windfest at Royal Troon. Some shots go 405 yards, while others require a long driver just to get into chip range on par 4s.

Nothing frustrates professional golfers more than wind. Nothing. It ruins their plans and confuses them. It confuses and frustrates them. It brings doubt and hesitation when the primary goal of all good professional golfers is to eliminate both.

It takes great golf courses like Royal Troon to become legendary.

The 2023 Open at Royal Liverpool had weather, but not much wind. St. Andrews and Royal St. George’s before that didn’t have it either. Royal Portrush had a little, but nothing like this. Royal Troon emerges as one of the most complete tests a major has offered in the last 10 years — maybe even the last 20.

These are not conditions that can be created. Golf authorities can control a lot of things, but they can’t control the weather. But it’s nice to have them, because the most difficult golf isn’t made of silly tee boxes and transparent greens. The simple “you have to hit every shot” type of golf is the best.

“I like to hit the short game,” said Billy Horschel, who finished T2. “I find golf boring when you hit a full-on shot and you lean a certain number and then stop. I like when you have to be creative and find a way to move around the golf course, and I think I do that most of the time.”

I liked it too. Most people who watched it liked it. And for the first time in a while, The Open was actually a Open. It’s always weird, bizarre and terrible, but rarely exactly what comes to mind when considering the Open Championship. That was this year, and it was fantastic.

Justin Rose’s Last Fight

I’ve become a sucker for the “old lion gets one last shot” trope, and 43-year-old Justin Rose embodied that this week. Every shot is like a full round, every round is a full tournament. He has to be emotionally “empty.”

The thing is: Rose had the second-best round of the entire tournament on Sunday from the bottom third. He played great. Someone else just played (much) better.

“That was the deal I made with myself today to have no regrets,” Rose said. “Obviously, yeah, of course I’ll have a few more chances, but you know this was a great opportunity today. You want to walk off the course and say, ‘Yeah, I didn’t waste that opportunity.’ I made the putt today. I felt like I had a chance. I felt like I made a lot of shots. But I felt so comfortable out there, the fact that I haven’t really competed much this year, that’s what I’m excited about.”

Rose hasn’t always been the most exciting golfer, but the idea of ​​someone who’s been so good for so long finally winning the Open really appealed to me this week.

Rose, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia — three of the greatest players of the past two decades have had very little playing time left. And so whenever it happens, it’s easy to see what’s written all over their faces.

They know. We know they know. And it seems like there’s more going on than just golf. There’s a reckoning with a person’s career and age and everything that goes with it. It’s great to see Rose rise to that occasion. Even though he didn’t win, he can take that and be proud of it.

Billy Ho is impressive.

Speaking of a proud man, Horschel stood up in the toughest major tournament of the year and won the trophy with everything he had, it was truly inspiring.

“I’m disappointed,” Horschel said. “I should be disappointed. I had a chance to win a major. I was in a really good position. I just made too many mistakes today when I didn’t need to make mistakes. But we’ll look back at this in an hour, I’ll be happy with how I played, I’ll be happy with what I did this week. I did a lot of great things that I can carry with me into the next few years of majors, and hopefully, one of these will be the moment I walk through the door and win one of them.”

Horschel shot 84 at last year’s Memorial in the first round and left the day in tears. And now he’s out there in the final round of an Open? In weather like that?

Golf is a crazy game, and you have to be a little crazy to play at that level. It drives even the calmest of us crazy. And while it was a week to marvel at the physical gifts of so many players, it was the mental and emotional resilience that Horschel displayed (and has displayed over the past 15 months) that was more impressive than anything else.

Tournament photos

Scottie Scheffler didn’t win, but he did hit a mighty ball on the penultimate hole of his final round — a 238-yard 3-wood into a 2-stroke fairway that hit and checked and stopped a few feet short of the pin. That’s a hole that averages 3.3 in the afternoon swell. Come on. I’ll think about that for a while.

The Return of Jon Rahm

Rahm is in the midst of his worst major season as a pro and desperately needed something this week at Royal Troon. He found it, finishing inside the top 40 at a major for the first time this year (T7). In doing so, he turned a season-long “What’s wrong with Rahm?” into “Okay, Rahm seems to have settled down a little bit of late.”

He’s at the professional level where every tournament and every round is being dissected, and that seemed to wear him out over the course of the season. I don’t know if he’s fully recovered from that, but at least it’s a step in the right direction when everything he did before seemed to be the exact opposite.

Justin Thomas’ Crazy Week

This week, Justin Thomas had seven different nine-hole scores, ranging from 31 to 45. Seven!

He led The Open, and then he almost missed. And then he was back in the lead only to end up hitting a wide right off the first tee on Sunday, settling for T31. As JT has said for weeks, mostly better than the last two years. (That says more about the last two years than it does this week.)

Both Thomas and Jordan Spieth, who have missed the cut more times (two) than they have finished top 10 (one) in majors since the start of 2023, will have to work hard if they really plan to regain the buzz they once had heading into these big weeks. They haven’t done that yet, and until they prove it, I’m not sure it will happen in the future.

Overall Champion

One of my favorite silly (but meaningful) stats of the year is determining the overall major champion. Of all the golfers who played all 16 rounds at major tournaments, who had the best score? This year, there was one escape champion.

It’s always impressive to be on this list — notables not on it include Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Ludvig Åberg, Wyndham Clark, Spieth, Rahm and several others — but it’s even more impressive to see Schauffele win by such a margin. It highlights exactly what a major season he’s had, with four top-eights and two wins. one of the greatest seasons of all time.