Key events
Matt Fitzpatrick rolls in a 12-footer at 2 to get himself to +1. Or, through a sibling lens, to within a shot off his brother Alex. And, perhap lifted by seeing a white ball going into a little hole after being hit with a stick, McIlroy converts his seven-footer so he’s also back to +1. That’s more like it. Rory is 36th in Strokes Gained: Putting on the PGA Tour this year so yesterday’s mishaps on the greens were out of character.
Rory McIlroy has just 58 yards left at this 414-yard second. He nips a wedge that settles down seven feet from the hole. The first leg of his bid to get into red figures for the tournament this morning? Lots of slumped shoulders from McIlroy yesterday with short putt after short putt missing so this will be a confidence builder if he can knock it in.
Up at 12, Norris birdies and ties the lead with Suber at -5. An unlikely pair of pacesetters.
Thanks Scott. And good morning from Royal Birkdale. I’ve just walked the first hole and, blimey, it’s busy. There’s a bottleneck down the left side of the fairway which was tricky to negotiate with Rory in the vicinity. Beautiful day out there. A very light breeze.
Jackson Suber throws a bit of a hissy fit as he sends a short iron into 11. He considers burying the hosel of his club into the ground, but checks himself just in time. No idea why he’s so vexed: he’s pin high, 20 feet to the left. And then he rolls in the birdie putt. This is a seriously impressive response to that earlier sticky patch from the unheralded young American. He’s back to where he started the day! Meanwhile more birdies for Shaun Norris and Lucas Herbert, at 11 and 5 respectively, and here’s how the top of the leaderboard looks like now …
-5: Suber (11)
-4: Wallace (15), Norris (11), Coody (7), Herbert (5), Im, Brown
… and with that, I’ll hand you over to your friend and mine, Mr David Tindall. See you again later!
Rory McIlroy is out and about. On the 1st green in regulation, facing an 18-foot birdie putt. He doesn’t hang about taking it, but it’s always missing on the right. Still, he got the pace pretty much spot on, which was his big problem yesterday. He remains at +2.
So much for giving Cameron Young the big build-up. He knifes a chip from tousled greenside rough at the 1st a good 12 feet past. He can’t make the one coming back and slips to -2. His playing partner, the new US Open champion Wyndham Clark, takes putter from a similar lie … and holes it. Birdie, and it’s nice to hear the gallery give him a warm reception as he moves to +2. A big smile on his face … which then quickly disappears as he flays his tee shot at 2 into thick cabbage down the left … but you get the general point.
Jackson Suber gets moving in the right direction again! After that miserable sequence towards the back end of the front nine, the overnight leader warms that misbehaving putter at long last. He rolls in a 20-footer for birdie at 10, and he reclaims a share of top spot at -4.
The veteran South African Shaun Norris is going well. Birdies at 5 and now 9 sees him hit the turn in 32. He’s -3 and, capitulation notwithstanding, is well on course to snap a run of four consecutive missed cuts at the Open. Also at -3: the 2021 champ Collin Morikawa, who rolls in a 50-foot left-to-right swinger from the fringe at the back of 2.
-4: Wallace (13), Coody (5), Im, Brown
-3: Norris (9), Suber (9), Cauley (4), Herbert (4), Morikawa (2), C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
The Players champion Cameron Young sends his opening tee shot towards the rough down the left … but gets a fortunate bounce back out onto the short stuff. The 29-year-old New Yorker, who came second in this championship at St Andrews in 2022, is surely a major champion in waiting, having also finished high at the Masters, PGA and US Open. Yes, we said this sort of thing about Rickie Fowler and Colin Montgomerie also, but it’s way too early for that sort of defeatist talk. A 67 yesterday, and perhaps this, finally, is his time. We’ll know a lot more in the next couple of hours.
Lucas Herbert picks up the consecutive-birdie baton from Eric Cole. The 30-year-old Aussie, who finished in a tie for 15th behind his compatriot Cam Smith at St Andrews in 2022, adds to his birdies at 1 and 2 with another at 3. The perfect start, and he joins the group tucked in behind the leaders at -3. As does his playing partner Bud Cauley, the new Canadian Open champ, who curls in a 40-footer from the fringe at the back of 3.
Gritty work from Matt Wallace. He wedges from a tight spot to the right of 13, from 40 yards to six feet, and tidies up for his par. That keeps him in a share of the lead. Meanwhile Eric Cole’s run of four consecutive birdies comes to an end with par at 14. He remains at level par for the tournament.
-4: Wallace (13), Coody (4), Im, Brown
-3: Suber (8), C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
Jackson Suber is getting really ragged now. After those two three-putt bogeys, he now flays his drive at 8 into thick oomska, and that ends up in another dropped shot. Three consecutive bogeys, and it’s barely three-quarters of an hour since he had a two-stroke lead; he’s now one off the pace at -3. Leaderboard update in a moment, because Matt Wallace is out of position on 13, having carved his approach into thick rough to the right.
The conditions are clearly ripe for low scoring this morning. Eric Cole and Matt Wallace we already know about. Marco Penge has birdied 1, 4 and 5; Max Greuserman is three under for his round through 12. Johnny Keefer, who qualified after finishing third at the Scottish Open last week, birdies 2 and 3. Lucas Herbert birdies 1 and 2. These lads will want to make hay while the sun shines … or more literally before the wind switches, which it usually does around 11am or so. It’ll pick up a bit later as well.
A fourth birdie in a row for Eric Cole. This is getting old. This one’s the result of whipping an iron from 204 yards to three feet, one of those that lands softly on the front of the green before rolling regally towards the pin. He’s six under for his round, currently on course for a 64 with two par fives still to come. A reminder that Branden Grace became the first men’s player to shoot 62 in a major here in 2017. It’s on.
Unforced errors by Matt Wallace and Pierceson Coody. The former sends a hot chip 12 feet past, from a swale to the side of 12, while the latter fails to get up and down from the back of 3, to the extent of requiring a five-footer for his bogey. Dropped strokes for both, and the top of the leaderboard has been getting a little bit excitable of late.
-4: Wallace (12), Suber (7), Coody (3), Im, Brown
-3: C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
Eric Cole and Matt Wallace are the two hottest properties out on the course this morning. They’re five under and four under for their rounds respectively, through 12 and 11. Meanwhile the 2022 champion Cameron Smith is going along nicely too: he’s hit the turn in 31 after birdies at 2, 4, 7 and 8, and bogey at 6. Smith’s form fell off a cliff back there, missing six major cuts in a row until breaking the run with a top-ten finish at this year’s PGA. This could be another staging post on the road to recovery, defying yesterday’s downbeat 73.
Jackson Suber’s putting woes continue. Another (!) birdie putt raced a few feet past, this time at 7, and now he’s missing the ones coming back. A second three-putt bogey in a row, and the overnight leader slips off the top of the board. He’s replaced there by Matt Wallace, who cards his fifth birdie of the day by making a 15-footer on 11.
-5: Wallace (11), Coody (2)
-4: Suber (7), Im, Brown
-3: C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
Eric Cole’s dad, Bobby Cole, came close to winning the 1975 Open. He was the 54-hole leader, but a final round of 76 did for the South African, who ended up in a tie for third behind the eventual winner Tom Watson. His mother Laura Baugh won the 1971 US Women’s Amateur. And he grew up playing golf with Arnold Palmer. So the 38-year-old Californian has pedigree, if not too much on his resumé. A 76 yesterday, followed by bogey at 3 this morning, and you’d assume Cole was going home today. However he’s since been on a heater, with birdies at 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and now 12, whistling his way up the leaderboard to +1. That’s a jump of 81 places from the start of play. Imagine what he might get up to on Moving Day.
All change at the top! Jackson Suber charges another birdie putt six feet past – that’s the third time he’s done it in the first six holes – but this time he can’t make the one coming back. Meanwhile over on 2, his old mucker Pierceson Coody rakes one in from downtown, and all of a sudden, two good pals on debut are joint leaders of the Open!
-5: Suber (6), Coody (2)
-4: Wallace (10), Im, Brown
It was a bit of an inauspicious start for Sahith Theegala this morning. The 28-year-old Californian let go of his driver on the follow-through of his opening tee shot, the club bouncing apologetically around the tee box. He was fortunate to stay in bounds down the right, and ended up with bogey. But since then he’s found some form, with birdies at 4, 5 and now 8. He’s -1 overall.
You can’t keep a good man down. Padraig Harrington won his second Open title here in 2008 – remember Sunday’s 5-wood into the heart of 17 for eagle – but he’s 54 now so we’re not expecting too much. An 80 yesterday, and he starts the day propping up the entire field at +10. Then he zig-zags his way up 1, from a native area on the left to another on the right. Hacking out, he does well to limit the damage to bogey … and follows up with a textbook birdie on 2: a fairway finder, a wedge to eight feet, one putt. He’s back to +10, and with the cut expected to be around the +2 mark, the great man won’t be here for the weekend … but he’s not going to go down without a fight, is he?
Birdie at 1 for Pierceson Coody! And a bounceback birdie at 9 for Matt Wallace, who hits the turn in an extremely impressive 31. Wallace making hay while the wind is relatively low and coming in from the direction of least hurt.
-6: Suber (5)
-4: Wallace (9), Coody (1), Im, Brown
-3: C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
I’ve not got a huge data set to work with, but based on the few clips I’ve seen, Jackson Suber doesn’t hang about over his putts. You have to wonder whether slowing down a little bit might help, on account of his trundling another wild birdie effort six feet past the hole, this time on 5. But he springs into action when it’s his turn again, and rattles the par saver into the cup in short order. No fuss, no faff, really positive. Great to see, though like I say, small data set, so don’t be quoting this if he turns out to be the second coming of JB Holmes. He’s -6.
Jackson Suber understandably grabbed all the headlines with his Open debut round of 65. But his pal – and fellow Liverpool tourist, the aforementioned Pierceson Coody – was dipping his toe in these waters for the first time as well, and to similar effect. A 67 on debut for the 26-year-old Texan, the grandson of 1971 Masters winner Charles Coody. He’s out and about now, having sent his opening drive into semi rough down the left of 1. Eyes will be kept peeled.
A backwards step for Matt Wallace. He sends his tee shot at 8 onto the top of a grassy knoll to the left of the fairway. He can’t reach the green from there, and though he wedges his third to eight feet, his putt heads right straight off the bat, and that’s bogey. Meanwhile Suber isn’t able to convert his birdie chance at 4.
-6: Suber (4)
-4: Im, Brown
-3: Wallace (8), Coody, C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
Jackson Suber holes his second staunch par saver of the day. This one comes at 3, where he’s left a 60-foot lag putt six feet short. But he sends the second putt straight into the middle of the cup to remain at -6. If he is suffering from understandable nerves, unexpectedly in the spotlight, he’s not letting them overwhelm him for too long … and now he’s sent his tee shot at the par-three 4th to 13 feet. All very impressive.
Some top-drawer effin’ and jeffin’ from the 2011 PGA champion Keegan Bradley. Having sent his opening drive into a large bush down the left of 1, he’s forced to take a penalty drop. Then a bogey putt lips out. EFF! JEFF! A small tanty-stamp of the feet, too, and so Sky Sports are forced to issue their boiler-plate pre-watershed apology. The lads on commentary then point out that poor Keegan has never been the same since last year’s Ryder Cup captaincy and concomitant heartache. He’s certainly cutting a pained figure. After yesterday’s fine 69, he topples down the standings to +1.
Matt Wallace should make it three birdies in a row, after sending his tee shot at the par-three 7th dancing and prancing to 12 feet. But he misses the putt on the low side. A big chance to move to within one of Jackson Suber’s lead gone. He does his best to keep the fume inside, a brave effort featuring a barely perceptible thin-lipped smile. He remains at -4.
Matt Wallace is on a roll! He bangs a big drive past the dogleg right on the long par-four 6th, then finds the centre of the green, from where he peers after a 21-foot putt that only just drops into the cup. Birdie on a hole that played the hardest on day one with a stroke average of 4.35. That’s a huge gain on the rest of the field.
-6: Suber (2)
-4: Wallace (6), Im, Brown
-3: Coody, C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
An opening birdie for the 2011 champion Darren Clarke. He’s +2. Apropos of nothing, and just because I happen to have the stat to hand, so may as well share it, Clarke is joint holder of the record for most appearances by an Open champion before his first victory. That’s 19, after his 2011 win, and he shares the number with Phil Mickelson (2013). Nick Price (1994) is next on the list.
Birdie for Jackson Suber at 2, and the leader stretches his advantage at the top! He tugged his drive into the rough down the left, but got a decent lie, and was able to wedge over the flag from 90 yards to 12 feet. One fairly straight roll later, and he moves to -6. Meanwhile Laurie Canter nearly aces the 4th. His tee shot lands just past the bunker guarding the front left and serenely glides to kick-in distance, though it was never threatening to drop, always on a route below the hole. The 36-year-old Englishman is -2.
-6: Suber (2)
-4: Im, Brown
A second birdie of the morning for Matt Wallace. He lays up at the drivable par-four 5th, and it’s a good decision. A wedge to eight feet, and a putt poured straight into the cup. A fast start, and the first significant change to the overnight leaderboard.
-5: Suber (1)
-4: Im, Brown
-3: Wallace (5), Coody, C Young, Detry, MacIntyre, Molinari, Smalley, DeChambeau, Gerard, Daffue
Suber wedges his second at 1 to 12 feet, and he’s left with a very makeable putt. A little bit of left-to-right movement. He absolutely rattles it through the break, and leaves himself a testing five footer coming back. That one goes in confidently to save his par. A strange mix of three nerveless strokes and one jittery one. He made 207 feet of putts yesterday; there’s another 22 feet and seven inches to his running total.
If Suber is feeling the nerves this morning, they’ve not been betrayed by his opening tee shot. A confident drive, striped down the middle of the fairway. He’s going around with Sami Valimaki, who became the first Finnish player to win on the PGA Tour last year, with victory at the RSM Classic. It was Valimaki’s 28th birthday yesterday, and the gallery sang Happy Birthday to him on 18. “I thought that was pretty cool,” said Suber.
Suber seems to be enjoying discovering life on this side of the pond. He’d never been to Europe before, but has travelled “pretty much everywhere in Latin American and Canada”. He thinks the UK is “awesome … the golf is really cool, and just the towns, how the train system works.” He went into Liverpool earlier this week with pal Pierceson Coody and partners. “That was really cool to see a European city.” And when he was asked why he’s not going to try driving on the other side of the road, he gave a reply as tinder-dry as the Birkdale rough: “Because I’m trying to make it here for four days.”
Now then, our 18-hole leader Jackson Suber. Or to give him his full name, John Weatherington Suber III. He’s 26 years old, from Tampa, Florida, and is in his second year on the PGA Tour since moving up from the Korn Ferry. His best finish to date is the tie for fourth at this year’s Canadian Open that got him into this championship. He subsequently missed the cut at the US Open, and only played his first round of links golf this Monday. And now he’s bidding to become the 11th player to win the Open on debut. For the record, here are the other ten …
Willie Park Sr (Prestwick) 1860
Tom Kidd (St Andrews) 1873
Mungo Park (Musselburgh) 1874
Jock Hutchison (St Andrews) 1921
Denny Shute (St Andrews) 1933
Ben Hogan (Carnoustie) 1953
Tony Lema (St Andrews) 1964
Tom Watson (Carnoustie) 1975
Ben Curtis (Royal St George’s) 2003
Collin Morikawa (Royal St George’s) 2021
Matt Wallace has never really built on his early promise of the late 2010s, when he won four European Tour events and tied for third at the 2019 PGA Championship. But the Londoner got his career back on track a couple of years ago with a win at the European Masters and a PGA Tour alternate event … so perhaps, now 36, it transpires that he’s going to be a late bloomer after all? A decent opening round of 69 yesterday afternoon, and now he’s birdied the opening hole this morning. He’s -2.
The surprise leader Jackson Suber is out early, at 7.30am BST. Other than that, it’s a nice quiet start to day two. The calm before the storm. Though of course there’ll be no actual storm. On that subject, hats off to Sky Sports for their continued use of …
Preamble
… and we’re back. Just over nine hours ago, the first day of the 154th edition of the Open Championship came to a close. Now we’re up and running again! Friday promises to be another monster trek, and we’ll be blogging about it ♫♪ all day looooooonng♫♪. Here’s how the very top of the leaderboard looked at the end of play last night …
-5: Jackson Suber
-4: Im Sung-jae, Daniel Brown
-3: Thomas Detry, Robert MacIntyre, Francesco Molinari, Alex Smalley, Bryson DeChambeau, Ryan Gerard, MJ Daffue, Pierceson Coody, Cameron Young
… and here are the tee times (BST). Off we go! It’s on!
6.46 am: Eugenio Chacarra, Matt Wallace, Max Greyserman
6.57 am: Michael Brennan, Sahith Theegala, Laurie Canter
7.08 am: Cameron Smith, Keith Mitchell, Stuart Grehan (a)
7.19 am: Sepp Straka, Joaquin Niemann, Kurt Kitayama
7.30 am: Sami Valimaki, Shaun Norris, Jackson Suber
7.41 am: Darren Clarke, Adrien Saddier, Bernd Wiesberger
7.52 am: Keegan Bradley, Corey Conners, Casey Jarvis
8.03 am: Matt McCarty, Harry Hall, Haotong Li
8.14 am: Padraig Harrington, Marco Penge, Michael Hollick
8.25 am: Tom Kim, Billy Horschel, Mason Howell (a)
8.26 am: Johnny Kiefer, Pierceson Coody, Keita Nakajima
8.47 am: Aldrich Potgieter, Jesper Svansson, Jack Buchanan (a)
9.03 am: Bud Cauley, Jayden Schaper, Lucas Herbert
9.14 am: Kristoffer Reitan, Patrick Reed, JT Poston
9.25 am: Chris Gotterup, Sam Burns, Adam Scott
9.36 am: Collin Morikawa, JJ Spaun, Nicolai Hojgaard
9.47 am: Shane Lowry, Aaron Rai, Brooks Koepka
9.58 am: Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Luvig Aberg
10.09 am: Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick
10.20 am: Jacob Bridgeman, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Tim Wiedemeyer (a)
10.31 am: Patrick Cantlay, Daniel Berger, Nico Echavarria
10.42 am: Peter Uihlein, Alistair Docherty, Francesco Laporta
10.53 am: Cameron John, Austen Truslow, Sam Bairstow
11.04 am: Naoyuki Kataoka, Marcus Plunkett, Baard Bjoernevik Skogen
11.15 am: Kazuki Higa, Jiho Yang, Nevill Ruiter (a)
11.41 am: Matthew Baldwin, Thomas Detry, James Nicholas
11.52 am: Michael Kim, Daniel Hillier, Andy Sullivan
12.03 pm: Ryan Fox, Andrew Novak, Matthew Jordan
12.14 pm: Henrik Stenson, Max Homa, Joe Dean
12.25 pm: Robert MacIntyre, Rickie Fowler, Alex Fitzpatrick
12.36 pm: David Duval, Martin Couvra, Matthew Southgate
12.47 pm: Sungjae Im, Daniel Brown, Fifa Laopakdee (a)
12.58 pm: Gary Woodland, Jake Knapp, Jordan Smith
1.09 pm: Francesco Molinari, Tom McKibbin, Lev Grinberg (a)
1.20 pm: Hennie Du Plessis, Jose Luis Ballester, Dan Bradbury
1.31 pm: Angel Ayora, Victor Perez, Mateo Pulcini (a)
1.42 pm: Stewart Cink, Scott Vincent, Joakim Lagergren
1.53 pm: Michael Thorbjornsen, Kota Kaneko, Travis Smyth
2.09 pm: Alex Smalley, Sam Stevens, Ryo Hisatsune
2.20 pm: Akshay Bhatia, Harris English, Rasmus Hojgaard
2.31 pm: Ben Griffin, Hideki Matsuyama, Min Woo Lee
2.42 pm: Russell Henley, Justin Rose, Viktor Hovland
2.53 pm: Justin Thomas, Alex Noren, Jason Day
3.04 pm: Scottie Scheffler, Tyrrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau
3.15 pm: Jordan Spieth, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm
3.26 pm: Brian Harman, Si Woo Kim, Nick Taylor
3.37 pm: Ryan Gerard, Maverick McNealy, David Puig
3.48 pm: Kazuma Kobori, Tom Sloman, David Howard (a)
3.59 pm: Antoine Rozner, Ren Yonezawa, Caleb Surratt
4.10 pm: MJ Daffue, Frederic Lacroix, Jack McDonald
4.21 pm: Jeongwoo Ham, Ryutaro Nagano, Alejandro De Castro Piera (a)
