This time of year, come Open Championship week, it’s trendy to pick gritty golfers. Or low-ball hitters or great wind players or guys who can move it both ways. It’s easy to like the Matt Fitzpatricks and Justin Roses and Tyrrell Hattons — the guys who grew up on this side of the Atlantic and are familiar with links golf.
But what about relatively unknown, links-golf rookies? Because one of them is leading the 154th Open Championship.
Jackson Suber, the 26-year-old second-year PGA Tour player, played the back nine at Royal Birkdale in five-under 31 on Thursday to shoot 65 and steal the Round 1 clubhouse lead from Sungjae Im and Daniel Brown (66).
Forget golf, this week is his first time in Europe. His practice round at Royal Birkdale on Monday was the first links golf he ever played, and he had 27 holes under his belt before he teed off Thursday.
How did he adjust so easily?
“I’m not really sure,” he said, “but I feel like I’ve just been playing good the last few months and just knowing that good golf is going to take care of everything, and really trusting my caddie to figure out where we’re going to hit it.”
Suber knew to avoid the pot bunkers, he said. And he checked out the course on YouTube last week. On Thursday, he parred his first four holes before a birdie-bogey-birdie-bogey stretch. He turned in even par and then got hot. Birdies on 10 and 11. Another on 14, which followed his only back-nine bogey on 13. He went birdie-eagle on 16 and 17 and then closed with a par on the difficult finishing hole.
He made six 3s on the back nine alone.
Suber entered the week without any mind-blowing statistics. He was 69th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 117th in SG: Putting, although he ranked 20th in SG: Approach. Yet on Thursday, with several players still left to finish, he was third in SG: Approach and fifth in SG: Putting. He ranked 109th in SG: Off the Tee but still was first (+6.28) in SG: Total.
“I’ve been hitting the driver well, and I feel like I’m a good iron player,” he said. “Just a lot of long irons into these holes. I think that suits my eye. Then just chipping, I like chipping off tight, firm surfaces. Kind of feeling comfortable with that I think is important for me.”
Suber grew up in Tampa, Fla., and played collegiately at Mississippi. This is his third major start, and it’s his first that isn’t a U.S. Open. He made the cut in just half his starts as a PGA Tour rookie last year, although he was still exempt through this season via his top-30 finish on the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour Points List.
He’s made nine cuts in 15 starts this season and has finished fourth twice. The most recent was at the RBC Canadian Open last month, a tournament where he held the 54-hole lead for the first time in his career. He took sixth in his last start, which was the John Deere Classic two weeks ago.
He credits some of the recent success to a few equipment changes — switching to the new ProV1 and Titleist GTS3 driver — and an increased focus on his mental game.
“This year I feel like I’ve been really coming into myself as a golfer and maturing and learning what works for me,” he said. “Just learning how to deal with my golf game on the road and playing a whole year and what I need to change when things are going a certain way and kind of how I need to be calibrating stuff every day.”
So far, so good, for his first trip to Europe. Although he’s yet to try driving on the other side of the road.
“Because I’m trying to make it here for four days,” he joked.
