2025 British Open

Don Wassall

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The last major of 2025 starts very early tomorrow morning U.S. time. The betting favorites are Scottie Scheffler, followed by Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. Xander Schauffele is the defending champion but he has been off form this year after being injured early on though he did have a nice finish at the Scottish Open last week.

This year's British Open is being played at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland, not too far from where Rory grew up, so this will be a big event for him following his completion of the career grand slam at The Masters. He's being called by many Irish sports analysts as the leading sports figure in Ireland, both north and south, and Paul McGinley the other day called him the greatest sportsman in Irish history.

The tournament was played at Royal Portrush in 2019 and was won by Shane Lowry of the Republic of Ireland, which was a very popular victory as the tensions between the two countries have settled down quite a bit in recent years. McIlroy was the favorite going into that tournament but suffered a quadruple bogey on the first hole and ended up missing the cut. It's only the third time the Open has been played outside of England or Scotland in its 153 year history.

I've actually enjoyed Golf Channel's Live From for once, as Lerner and Chamblee have toned down their usual non-stop Tiger mania as there's no way even Lerner can make Woods a factor in this one. Irishman Paul McGinley's insights about the course and about both the Republic and Northern Ireland have been great as always. He's my favorite golf analyst, so much better than Lerner and his pet monkey Chamblee. At one point last night McGinley referred to Jack Nicklaus as the greatest golfer of all time, which had to have had veteran change agent Lerner seething inside.
 
Good preview Don. Lot of interesting information for a casual fan like myself to absorb.

As an aside, I see that there are Danish identical twins in contention. The Hojgaard brothers, Rasmus and Nicolai, are at -5 and -4 as I type this. They are 24 years of age and ranked 84th and 81st respectively. Pretty cool.
 
Scottie Scheffler takes a one shot lead at -10 after two rounds. Englishman and former U.S. Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick is one shot back followed by Li from China and American Brian Harman at -8. McIlroy is seven back at -3 but not out of it. Lots of others still in contention.

Harman won the 2023 British Open, winning by six shots, which is a huge margin for a golf tournament, particularly a major. He was pretty much unknown in the UK at the time as he'd never won a big tournament before, plus he's short and "doesn't look like a golfer" so he was heckled pretty heavily by the DWFs during his runaway win. If Scheffler or McIlroy don't win it would be pretty funny if Harman unexpectedly comes through again.

I haven't watched any of the tournament yet and won't be able to tomorrow either, but will get up early Sunday to watch the final round.
 
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