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Matt Fitzpatrick has been one of the best golfers in the world this year. He arrived at the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale with three wins under his belt in 2026 and was coming off a tie for third at the Genesis Scottish Open. Combine all that with his tie for fourth at last year’s Open at Royal Portrush, and Fitzpatrick was one of the trendiest picks to win this Open Championship.

But after back-to-back rounds of 72, Fitzpatrick will not play the weekend at Royal Birkdale, finishing with a two-day score of four-over to miss his first cut of the season. After signing his scorecard, Fitzpatrick briefly chatted with the media, pointing to bad links-golf luck and not poor play as the reason his major season will end in disappointing fashion.

“You’ve just got to look at three or four holes for me,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ve hit decent shots, gotten no luck and come away with four-over par. That’s the way links golf is. You need to have that rub of the green sometimes, and I didn’t have it this week.”

The Englishman played some practice rounds at Royal Birkdale a few weeks ago, but the course has significantly dried out since Fitzpatrick’s visit. The firm-and-fast conditions of a burnt-out Birkdale provided some strategic questions that Fitzpatrick didn’t answer properly over the first two days in Southport. While he has gotten longer off the tee in recent years, Fitzpatrick did not feel he had the length off the tee to avoid some of the perilous pot bunkers, which forced him to lay back a lot of times and rely on getting the right bounces once his ball got on the ground. In the end, Fitzpatrick felt those bounces never came. In fact, the opposite occurred on Friday as he tried to engineer a cut-line charge.

“I didn’t feel like I hit many bad shots all week.” Fitzpatrick reiterated. “It’s a golf course that’s just awkward when it plays like this. For me, I don’t feel like I’ve got my length to take out some of the bunkers, and then you’re relying on bounces, and then you’re not going to be hitting your 6-iron close with how firm the greens are. Yeah, just played for four or five fliers yesterday, didn’t get one. Played for one today — didn’t play for one today and got it. That’s the way links golf is. It’s a lot of luck of the draw and rub of the green.”

Fitzpatrick’s second round started with birdies at two and five around a bogey at the fourth. Then, Fitzpatrick ran into trouble at the par-4 sixth. The 2022 U.S. Open champion hit his tee shot into the rough and then caught a flier lie on his second, sending his ball into a bush. He made bogey. Fitzpatrick dropped another shot at the seventh when his tee shot landed on the green but didn’t hang on the putting surface, eventually settling 30 feet from the pin. He hit his second shot to 20 feet and missed the par putt. Fitzpatrick made birdie at 11 to get back within one of the cut line, but his weekend charge crashed and burned a few minutes later. Fitzpatrick’s tee shot at the par-3 12th came up short and plugged in the face of the greenside bunker. Fitzpatrick tried to blast it out, but his ball hit the face and ricocheted back into the bunker. He made double bogey.

To Fitzpatrick, those few swings encapsulated an opportunity lost.

“It is disappointing, but like I say, I didn’t really feel like I played that bad,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ve hit three shots today that I’ve hit them exactly how I wanted them, and one is in a bush 30 yards long. One has basically been on the green for basically 15 seconds and then dropped off the green, and that’s another dropped shot. Then I’ve hit one that somehow has gone less than the normal number, and there’s 15 yards of help downwind. Now all of a sudden you’re plugged in the face of a bunker. So I’ve got four shots, and three shots I’ve hit good. That’s the way links golf is. When it’s this firm, there’s a lot of luck of the bounces and luck of the lies. It is what it is.”

Fitzpatrick’s season has been the best of his career. He even says he’s played better this year than when he triumphed at Brookline Country Club to win the U.S. Open. He won the Valspar, the RBC Heritage and the Zurich Classic with his brother, Alex. But he has finished no better than a tie for 14th at any of the majors, and his major season ended with some bad links luck and a short stay at Royal Birkdale.

Whether bad luck or bad golf, Fitzpatrick kept with the theme of the week for English sports by not bringing a long-desired trophy home.

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SOUTHPORT, England — If you’re looking for a new caddie — that is, a caddie you can root for, as you maybe once did for Golf Ball (Adolphus Hull) or Fluff (Mike Cowan) or Bones (Jim Mackay) — we are proud to shine our special GOLF.com CaddieLight (trademark pending) on Nick Pugh, white-bearded Englishman bagman for Lucas Herbert, Australian golfer who carded a bogey-on-the-last 62 on Friday, here at the Royal Birkdale breezeway. Sixty-two! This LIV Golf Ripper is good. As for his caddie, Nick Pugh, he is, to recycle an old phrase, of golf. When a guy is, you know.

To go right to the “news” and please note the quotation marks: During Herbert’s round, TV viewers and viewer viewers could see Pugh using a rangefinder. You can use a rangefinder in LIV Golf play. You can’t use a rangefinder at PGA Tour events or the Masters or the U.S. Open or the British Open. (You can at a PGA Championship.) So people, including the broadcasters calling the action for Sky Sports, were asking: What is going on here — is this legal?

Totally.

Because Pugh was not using the rangefinder as a rangefinder. He was using it as a binocular. And that is permitted by R&A rules for Open play. And Pugh was super-careful to make sure he was doing the right thing the right way.

This is what he told reporters Friday afternoon:

“On LIV Golf we’re allowed to use a rangefinder for distance-measuring purposes. I know we can’t do that here or at the U.S. Open. But there was another player and caddie at the U.S. Open who was given the OK to use a rangefinder without the battery out. 

“I inquired early in the week with the R&A, with one of the rules officials. I said, ‘This is what happened in the previous tournament. Would this be OK?’ She went to the powers that be — right to the very top, and I was given the green light.

“So I informed our playing partners on the first tee yesterday. I informed our walking referee and I asked her for a second opinion. I said, ‘Can you just make sure this is absolutely correct?’ To which she came back on the second tee with a thumb’s up. 

“My eyesight isn’t great — these glasses aren’t here to make me look cool. I sometimes struggle when the ball comes down. This guy hits it a long way. He hits one 380 yards yesterday — with a 3-wood. And if he wants to know if the ball’s in the bunker or not, these old eyes don’t see it so well. So, I’ll generally use the rangefinder, which pretty clearly has no battery inside.”

With that, the veteran caddie, a former club pro who attempted to qualify for British Opens without ever making it, held up his rangefinder in the vicinity of his stylish, oval, tinted glasses and showed the gathered reporters the cavity on his rangefinder that had a hole where a battery would be, were it set up to measure distances. No battery, no capacity to measure distances, no chance of a rules violation.

News

The bunker sand at this Open Championship comes from surprising source

By: Michael Bamberger

You admire anybody who does the right thing the right way, and explains it all with a certain élan. This guy is loaded with élan. In this age of the technocrat caddie, it’s a joy to see again. Billy Foster, Seve’s old caddie, is working this tournament, his 41st Open. He can do Ballesteros better than Seve could do Seve. (How’d you four-putt there on 16, Seve? I mees, I mees, I mees, I make.) The other day, I asked Pugh about the rakes, here at Royal Birkdale. “These R&A-sanctioned rakes, with their widely spaced teeth, guarantee that there will be ridges” in the bunkers, he said. Those ridges.

On Friday afternoon, Pugh offered me a little detail. First thing in the morning, the bunkers are as smooth as an egg, raked by a machine that is more like a road-construction paver. Then the balls enter bunkers — there are 104 of them here — followed by the players and their clubs and their caddies and those R&A-sanctioned rakes. By the time the caddies leave their work sites, they leave lines of ridges behind. The ball settles deep in them. It’s challenging. Pugh raked bunkers twice on Friday. Once for his player, once for another caddie. “Some of the bunker-raking here,” he said, “is not good.” This from a man who prizes good bunker-raking.

Touring caddies are like everybody else in this world, looking for status within their peer group. “It was cool,” Pugh said, referring to how his fellow loopers responded to his man’s round of 62, tying the record for the lowest score ever recorded in a major championship. “They’re patting me on the back.

“But I’m also one wrong club away from being called an idiot again, so I won’t get too far ahead of myself.”

Now that’s the spirit.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at I asked Pugh about the rakes.

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Bryson DeChambeau has shockingly missed every major cut this season, although it looks like he’s in good shape for the final major of the year, the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

DeChambeau opened with a 67 on Thursday, and while his second round is still in progress at noon on the East Coast, he seems to be trending toward a weekend tee time.

Other stars? Not so much.

2026 Open Championship projected cut, rules

The Open Championship field is made up of 156 players, although the 36-hole cut is the top 70, plus ties. (There is no 10-shot rule.) The cut at Royal Portrush last year was one over.

As of noon ET on Friday, Data Golf projects there’s a 93-percent chance the cut is one over, with a 6-percent chance it’s even and a 1-percent chance it’s two over.

Stars flirting with 2026 Open Championship cut

A few recent major champs are already going home. 2019 U.S. Open winner Gary Woodland is 10 over through 14 holes, and 2022 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick finished four over. Two-time U.S. Open champ Wyndham Clark, and the winner of last month’s Shinnecock Hills Open, finished at three over. This year’s PGA Championship winner, Aaron Rai, finished at two over, so he’s in danger as well.

Other players flirting with the cut line: Justin Thomas is one over through seven holes; Rickie Fowler is one over through 16; and Jordan Spieth is four over through seven holes.

Viktor Hovland, who won the Travelers Championship a few weeks ago, is three over through eight, while last week’s Genesis Scottish Open winner Tom Kim finished three over.

You can check out the leaderboard and track the action here.

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The post The shocking differences between 2 history-making Open rounds appeared first on Golf.

The post The shocking differences between 2 history-making Open rounds appeared first on Golf.

SOUTHPORT, England — Lucas Herbert knew almost right away.

“I’m too much of an optimist,” the 30-year-old Aussie said Friday afternoon at Royal Birkdale. “I thought it when I hit it to about five feet on the 3rd hole. I’m a golf nerd anyway, so I know all the numbers, all the records, everything like that.”

Sam Burns, on the other hand, might not have known the history he’d accomplished on Friday at the 154th Open Championship if it came up and smacked him in the face.

“I had no idea until they told me up there,” Burns said. “I didn’t realize that was the case.”

Seven golfers in history have now finished a major-championship round with a score of 62. Two of them came on Friday morning … and were separated by a mere 22 minutes.

First up was Herbert, a LIV pro, who made the turn back toward the clubhouse on the 16th green with history firmly within his grasp. He was nine under par, tracking for a major-record round of 61, and riding nine birdies to not a single bogey.

This was a big deal for Mr. Herbert, who reveres and knows golf’s history, records and traditions. As a kid, Herbert once spent a morning huddled around a television in Australia. The reason? He wanted to see if Chad Campbell would become the first player to achieve a major-record 62 at Augusta National.

Even though Campbell went on to shoot a then-major-record-tying 63, a little part of Herbert was born on that day. He began to believe in the possibility of professional golf — of playing in the majors and setting records. He knew on that morning and on all the other mornings that followed what it might take to set the single-round major championship scoring record. That this morning, Friday morning, when Herbert surrendered a bogey on his final hole to slide from 61 to 62, tying the single-round major championship scoring record with a lip-out on the last.

“I thought about it, if one kid gets woken up by their parents to watch me finish this round because that’s the record being broken, that would be so cool, and it would tickle me pink,” Herbert said. “I hope it happened. I hope some kid’s disappointed that I shot 62 and didn’t hole that putt on the last.”

Next up came Sam Burns, the surging American dart-thrower, who back-doored his way into the mere plausibility of major-championship history. As he turned for the 18th tee, Burns had recorded three straight birdies and needed a fourth on the last to close out his own unwitting bid at greatness.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Burns’s mind was on bigger problems as he pondered his tee shot on 18. As of just seven days ago, he was preparing to pull out of the final major of the season on account of his wife, Caroline, who was nine months pregnant with their second child.

“I thought there was zero-percent chance,” Burns said. “Brett, my agent, was like, I’m just going to sign you up just in case, but I was like, ‘You can, but I’m probably not going to be able to play.'”

As luck would have it, Caroline gave birth to a healthy girl, Belle, on July 3, freeing up Burns to make the journey across the pond in time for the opening practice 10 days later.

But that didn’t mean Burns entered the Open with his usual prep. Before Friday’s 62, he had hardly touched a golf club — understandable given the circumstances.

“[Caroline] is just amazing, superhero,” Burns said. “If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t be here.”

In other words, Burns’s mind was barely on the golf as he teed off Friday morning … and not at all on a scoring record as he stepped into a greenside bunker on 18 to hit his third shot.

When his ball popped out of the bunker and paused momentarily on the top of the ridge before funneling down toward the hole, Burns’s mind never went to the lore of a major-championship 62. When it fell in the hole, he was pleased … but not nearly as delirious as the fans in attendance.

“I would say I’m not a huge fan of links golf,” Burns said sheepishly. “I just haven’t played well on links golf. It’s not something I’m very familiar with. I get to do it maybe once a year. I don’t know what to say.”

In the end, the scores were the same … but that was about it. It was impossible to miss the differences between the two golfers who made history on Friday, becoming the sixth and seventh players to hold a share of the single-round scoring record.

For one of those players, his lip-out on the last with the record on the line was a moment he’ll remember for all his life … and not only as a good memory.

“It’s pretty tough when you’ve got a putt for the major-championship record,” Herbert said. “I’m absolutely disappointed, and at the same time, so proud of today. It’s holding two emotions there at the same time.”

For the other? There’s a chance he’s already forgotten it.

“Yeah,” Burns said, “I didn’t know the 62 was a record anyway.”

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The post Open pro hits ‘0-yard’ drive and is penalized. Here are ‘interesting’ details appeared first on Golf.

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Eric Cole, one day after shooting an Open Championship score that bested only nine players, says he didn’t play that badly. He even felt he played “kind of good honestly.”  

As you can probably surmise, the circumstances were more than interesting. 

“Yesterday was a very interesting day for me,” Cole said. 

Friday, he was in good spirits to dish, after shooting one of the day’s best numbers at Royal Birkdale. On his second time around the English gem, Cole followed a 3rd-hole bogey with seven birdies for a six-under 64 that moved him inside the projected cutline when his round finished.

“I was just trying to kind of have a good day and relax and enjoy the Open Championship,” Cole said.

“Then started playing good and tried to keep it going pretty much.”

Then there was Thursday, when he shot a six-over 76. And the very interesting. 

– His double-bogey on the par-4 8th?

“I hit the wrong club [off the tee],” he said, “and went up under the lip of a bunker, made a double.”

– His double-bogey on the par-5 17th?

“I drove it, I thought a good drive, and it ended up just in the left rough,” he said. “I went to hit an iron shot, and it caught a weed and shut the face, and I shanked it about 130 yards right into these trees and had to hit that shot again, and I didn’t make any putts.”

– But his double-bogey on the par-4 11th? That was the most interesting. 

On the Open Championship’s online leaderboard, Cole’s tee shot was listed as traveling “0 yards to unknown.” He was then penalized a stroke, and he hit his third shot back on the tee. 

“My tee shot on 11,” he said, “my right foot completely slipped, and I fell down, and I hit my tee shot from here to the end of this [interview] tent with a driver [about 10 yards]. And we never found the ball. It just rolled into this gunch. So I had to re-tee. That was another double.”

Cole said he didn’t fall, but was “about to.” “Like an ugly version of Scottie Scheffler,” he said. How did the crowd react?

“I think there might have been a couple of ‘oohs,’ like ‘oh,’ that type of reaction,” Cole said. “They were probably worried if I was OK.

“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve slipped over here.”

The moment brought to mind Richard Boxall, who, during the 1991 Open, broke his left leg after hitting his tee shot on Birkdale’s 9th hole. “I have heard that story,” Cole said. 

In light of Thursday’s play, a reporter also wondered what Cole and his wife, Stephanie, talked about. He laughed. 

Flights back home to Florida. 

“Tee to green yesterday, I felt like I played great,” Cole said. “I know that’s weird to say, but I really did feel like I was hitting the ball where I was aiming and stuff and the swing felt good. 

“I’m just chalking it up to random outlier.”

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The post 2026 Open Championship Saturday tee times: Round 3 pairings appeared first on Golf.

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The 2026 Open Championship continues on Saturday, July 18, with Round 3 at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England. You can find full Open Championship tee times for Saturday’s third round at the bottom of this post once they are released Friday night.

Open Round 3 tee times: What we know

Once the final putt falls Friday evening at the 2026 Open Championship, the cut will be made, and only then will we know the exact tee times for Saturday at Royal Birkdale.

What we do know is that the players who make the cut will play the third round in pairings of two players based on leaderboard position. The leaders will tee off in the final pairings Saturday afternoon, with the players at the bottom of the leaderboard teeing off in the early morning.

If we look at past Opens, we can get a better idea of what the Round 3 tee times will be. On Saturday at last year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush, Matt Fitzpatrick and eventual winner Scottie Scheffler played in the final pairing, teeing off at 10:35 a.m. ET. Matti Schmid and Corey Conners kicked off the Saturday proceedings with a 4:35 a.m. ET tee time.

We can expect Saturday tee times for the 2026 Open Championship to fall into a similar window.

You can watch Saturday’s third round of the Open Championship on TV via NBC and USA. USA starts the coverage at 5 a.m. ET, followed by NBC at 7 a.m. ET. You can also stream online coverage via Peacock, including Round 3 featured group coverage and a simulcast of NBC’s Saturday TV coverage.

The complete Round 3 tee times and pairings for the Open Championship will be reproduced below once they are determined.

2026 Open Championship tee times for Saturday: Round 3 (ET)

(TBD)

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The post Why Collin Morikawa tested irons off a cart path for The Open appeared first on Golf.

The post Why Collin Morikawa tested irons off a cart path for The Open appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Every Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh runs you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches.

Collin Morikawa is using the same blueprint that won him the Claret Jug in 2021.

At Royal St. George’s five years ago, Morikawa benched nearly his entire set of TaylorMade P730s for a set of P7MCs.

The idea was to utilize the P7MC’s narrow sole geometry to minimize his turf interaction and get the club to enter and exit the firm links turf as quickly as possible.

This year, he’s employing the same strategy, but how he got there was a little unorthodox.

To test which irons he would use for this year’s Open Championship, TaylorMade sent both to Morikawa and he hit them off a cart path at home.

The first was a custom set of P7CBs with a unique sole geometry and leading edge grind.

“These changes were specifically designed to improve entry into firmer turf while maintaining enough effective bounce to prevent excessive digging,” TaylorMade Tour rep Adrian Rietveld said.

The other set was the MCs, which Rietveld said have one of the narrowest soles in the TaylorMade iron lineup. An iron with a narrower sole naturally presents less bounce and enters and exits the turf with little resistance.

“For players who deliver the club as precisely as Collin, this often creates a sensation of the club simply disappearing through impact rather than being redirected by the turf,” Rietveld said.

To decide between the two sets, he hit both irons off the cart path and then compared the marks on the sole with each.

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“While this may initially sound unusual, it actually provided an incredibly consistent testing environment,” Rietveld said. “Sliding each club along the firm path immediately highlighted exactly where the sole was contacting the surface. Every mark on the sole represented a point of ground interaction, allowing him to visually study how each grind, relief area and leading edge would engage the firm ground.”

The MCs produced fewer marks on the sole, indicating they had more predictable and cleaner ground interaction, which is what Morikawa and the Tour team expected.

As a result, Morikawa is playing a full set of P7MCs this week, 5-PW, in place of his normal P7CB/P730 combo while his PDHY 4-iron remains.

The change you didn’t expect pros are making for links golf

It’s ironic that old Golf Digest WITB spreads from the late 2000s and early 2010s have been trending around Twitter lately. The thing I keep noticing is many players played both 5-woods and 3-irons back then, while only playing three wedges.

For the Open Championship this year, it appears we’ve gone back in time to those setups.

We hear about the same two changes for links golf every year: swapping out fairway woods for long irons and low-bounce wedges. This year, there are plenty of those switches like normal, but some players are putting a unique twist on it by reverting to classic three-wedge setups to add more clubs to the top of the bag.

Last week in this space, we wrote about how Tommy Fleetwood made that move to keep his 9-wood in the bag along with a 3-iron.

And this week, Justin Rose revealed he was dropping a sand wedge in order to add both a 2- and 3-iron to his bag. His T200 2-iron is the same one he used at the U.S. Open while the 3-iron is a new McLaren Golf Series 3 3-iron similar to the 4-iron he played when he debuted the new irons earlier this year.

“Typically, when I’m playing in America, I’ve got up to 4-iron and then a 7-wood into a 3-wood,” Rose said on Tuesday at an extremely baked out and dry Royal Birkdale. “Typically, I think my 7 was going to come out of the bag this week, and a 2-iron is going to go in. But I feel like that does leave me a bit of a gap on certain par-4s where you’re wanting to push the ball up as far as you can towards the bunkers. So I’m feeling a 3-iron as well as a 4-iron and 2-iron. I feel like I need all of the long irons, which means I’ve got to drop a wedge somewhere.”

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Part of the reason most pros moved from three- to four-wedge setups is that iron lofts have gotten stronger over the years and a desire to have more options from scoring yardages.

But at a firm links golf setup, where some pros like Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth have said 5- and 6-irons could run out to nearly 300 yards, Rose decided to add some extra precision to the top of his bag.

A hole that typically calls for a 3-wood or even a driver, it’s possible that a 2-iron might be too much in these conditions. By using the 3-iron, Rose preserves the ability to drive it as close to some of Royal Birkdale’s penal fairway bunkers without reaching them.

But while Rose is adding long-game options, Fleetwood is actually taking them away. With the extremely firm conditions and relatively light winds this week, Fleetwood said he removed the 3-iron he played last week and added his sand wedge back in.

“I feel as the course gets faster, I don’t really have a need for something that’s kind of hot, for me, so I took the 3-iron out this morning and put an extra wedge in again,” Fleetwood said after an opening-round 69. “Ended up being the same bag setup that I have normally.”

Links golf inspires many changes, but there’s always more than one way to go about it.

DeChambeau tinkers again

Bryson DeChambeau was at it again at a major championship, making big changes to his gear setup as he attempts to make his first major cut of the season.

The more notable change is that DeChambeau was playing with his TaylorMade Qi4D Proto 200+ driver for most of the week leading up to Thursday’s opening round.

It would have been hard to believe he would move out of that driver after leading the field in SG: Off the Tee at the U.S. Open through the first two rounds, despite missing the cut. But that’s exactly what happened.

After he was spotted with it a couple of times during the practice rounds, DeChambeau ended up moving back into his Krank Formula Fire Pro driver that he won the 2024 U.S. Open with. He put a Project X HZRDUS T1100 shaft in it instead of the Titan he played in the TaylorMade.

In his opening-round 67, DeChambeau hit just four fairways but led the field in SG: Off the Tee with 1.6.

That was far from the only move he made, as DeChambeau is finally gaming his custom 3D-printed irons bearing his own logo. DeChambeau has teased the irons he has been creating with his own team for months and even used a prototype 5-iron at the Masters.

He also went back to steel shafts, opting for the Dynamic Gold X7, one of the stiffest steel shafts available in his irons and wedges, abandoning the all-LA Golf graphite setup he’s employed for the last several years.

Unfortunately, we don’t have much insight into these changes as DeChambeau declined to speak to the media after his opening round Thursday and did not have a pre-tournament press conference.

Check this out

This section is dedicated to cool photos we’ve snapped recently on Tour, but haven’t had a reason to share yet. This week, check out Sam Burns’ Callaway Apex MB Prototype irons that he used to shoot 62 in Round 2.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Cameron Young switched driver shafts to a Mitsubishi Diamana Blackboard prototype … Mizuno launched its new Mizuno Pro S-4 cavity back iron … Marcus Plunkett replaced his mini driver with a Callaway Apex UW 15˚, becoming one of the first pros to add the unique loft option … Lucas Herbert played the opening round without a driver before adding it back for his second-round 62 … Cameron Smith switched out of his longtime Scotty Cameron 009M gamer for a new Phantom 3.5 mallet … Rickie Fowler’s fourth putter in four events is a Scotty Cameron Phantom 5 mallet … Ping had both the No. 1 driver model (Ping G440 LST) and iron (Blueprint S) … Si Woo Kim switched to a new Opus SP C-Grind lob wedge with 2 degrees less bounce … Michael Brennan added a Titleist U505 1-iron … Brennan was one of seven golfers, including Bud Cauley to go without any fairway woods … Cauley also added a Titleist U505 2-iron while Cameron Young, Alex Fitzpatrick and Patrick Cantlay added T250 3-irons and Patrick Reed and Jake Knapp added T250 2-irons … Matt Fitzpatrick has been using a new Bettinardi BB1 Fitz Flow with a Honeycomb sole milling to grip the green better.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Chris Gotterup’s Bridgestone irons are a rarity. Here’s what else is cool about his setup – Chris Gotterup has become one of the best players in the game by doing it in his own unique way. Whether that’s his swing, clubs or anything else, take a deep dive into his golf bag.

Jake Knapp gets fit for the PXG Lightning driver – Watch Jake Knapp go through the entire PXG Lightning driver lineup with Johnny Wunder to show which head is the best for him.

Tom Kim’s move back to Scotty Cameron blade putter proves worth it – Tom Kim won the Genesis Scottish Open after switching back to a Scotty Cameron blade putter earlier this season. He’s only the second player to win with a blade putter this year.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@neatly-delicate-grub.edgecompute.app.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

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The post Padraig Harrington shot 80 at the Open. Then came an even bigger surprise  appeared first on Golf.

The post Padraig Harrington shot 80 at the Open. Then came an even bigger surprise  appeared first on Golf.

SOUTHPORT, England — I’m staying near the course with some friends, one of whom has such a good grip it would give Lucas Glover grip envy. In other words, he knows golf. He said, speaking of Padraig Harrington’s first-round 80, “He must be so embarrassed.”

“I can almost guarantee you, he’s not,” I said.

We were both doing the same math. Harrington won the Open, here at Royal Birkdale, in 2008, playing the final round in the final twosome with Greg Norman his own self. (Nick Faldo, doing TV commentary, looked at Norman’s yip-free putting stroke, at age 53, and said, “It’s not fair.”) Earlier this month, Harrington won the U.S. Open at Scioto, the senior one, for the 50-and-over crowd. Paddy is 54.

“Why do you say that?” Bob asked. His hands are as tan as George Hamilton’s face. All that gardening, of some kind.

Because Paddy’s thing, forever, has been this: Do the best you can, and what you shoot you shoot.

Harrington followed his 80 (10 over, ‘round here) with a 69 ( one under). After he signed his card, I told him what Bob said, and I told him how I responded and I asked him to weigh in and take over. He weighed in and took over. This is what he said, lightly edited. Padraig Harrington doesn’t need much editing.

Saith Padraig:

“I was trying to beat the fat lady for quite a while on Thursday. The fat lady is 88. Two fat ladies: 88. I tried on every shot, and I was trying to break 80. I shot 80.

“Today, 69. The difference between Thursday and Friday? Just golf. I didn’t play any better today than I did yesterday. I can tell you after yesterday, I was keen to go out there and shoot a good number. I didn’t play well yesterday and probably should have shot 75. I didn’t play much better today. Yesterday I had a few breaks that didn’t help me. Today I got a few breaks that did. But there wasn’t a massive difference.”

In summation:

He wasn’t embarrassed by his 80.

He wasn’t particularly impressed by his 69.

He’s annoyed to have missed the cut.

But that’s how it goes. As Harrington says, “It’s golf.”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.

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The post 5 things you missed while sleeping Friday at the Open Championship appeared first on Golf.

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Good morning, golf fans. Particularly those who are just waking up in America. The second round of the Open Championship is well underway at Royal Birkdale. Here’s what you missed this morning.

Don’t let the leaderboard alarm you

A common fallacy golf fans (and media!) can fall into is demanding a leaderboard of recognizable names early in a tournament. That’s just not realistic given how deep the fields are, and how long these days can be. There are just too many holes to play. As of noon local time, the leading group is … Herbert, Suber, Cauley, Wallace. Not exactly the biggest names in the game.

But for those who want a bunch of headliners in contention, you may have to be patient. There is a group of heavy hitters waiting in the wings, and one (or many) of them will charge at this group of less-proven leaders. I’m talking about Scottie Scheffler (-2), Cameron Young (-4) and a bunch of others who are just off the first page of the board: Chris Gotterup, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Reed, Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton. 

If you’re non-plussed by the names they’re chasing, keep the faith. Dive into some work for the next couple hours and come back to the Open for the late-morning rounds. It’ll improve. It always does. 

That said … Cut Watch is officially ON

Wyndham Clark’s reign as the most recent major champ was always likely to come to an end this week, but it’s likely ending even earlier than he thought. The U.S. Open winner shot 73 in the opening round and began his second round with a string of lost shots. The cutline, as of noon local time, is looking like one over or better, but could slide down to two over. Clark sits at seven over with just nine holes left.

Other notables to keep an eye on: Jordan Spieth (+3, 18 to play), Hideki Matsuyama (+2, 18 to play), Joaquin Niemann (+4 thru 36), Rory McIlroy (E, nine to play), Matt Fitzpatrick (+3, nine to play)

Lucas Herbert has gone nuclear

The Australian, who plays most of his golf on LIV, shot a genuinely startling 28 on his front nine Friday, racing up the leaderboard. He then added another pair of birdies early on the back nine to reach eight under for the tournament and a three-shot lead.

One thing to know: it’s not like he’s just hooping putts from everywhere on the course. Yes, he’s making plenty, but he’s also just not finding the kind of trouble that can halt a round in its place — which exists basically everywhere at Royal Birkdale. He’s peppering greens and plodding his way around in an unstressful manner.

England’s (surprising) great hope

Between Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Aaron Rai and the Fitzpatrick brothers, England held plenty of hope that one of its own could win the Open Championship for the first time since Nick Faldo in 1992. 

We just didn’t really consider that England’s best hope might come from someone way off that big board: Matt Wallace. 

Wallace has been playing his typically solid golf this season, bouncing between Europe and the United States and trying to maintain status on each tour. He’s finished second in one event on each tour as well, just hanging around. 

And thanks to a solid opening 69 Thursday, and an early start Friday in barely any wind, Wallace quickly became England’s top golfer on the board. He felt it, too.

“That was seriously special,” he said after his round. “And I know you won’t believe it in terms of early in the day, but from the 5th hole, the short one over there, man, the amount of people saying, ‘go on, Matt,’ and egging me on and pushing me because you’ve got an Englishman at the top of the lead. When was the last Englishman to win an Open in England?”

It was 1969, when Tony Jacklin won up the coast at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

Does experience … matter?

I’ve been waffling on that question all morning, as links rookies Jackson Suber and Pierceson Coody sit near the top of the leaderboard. Shane Lowry put it plainly in his Thursday comments: 

“I pity the guys that have never played links golf coming here. You’re hitting 4-irons off tees, and they’re going over 300 yards. Sometimes it’s hard to mentally and visually see that.”

For a while there, it seemed like what Lowry said didn’t matter, as Suber spent part of his Friday morning with a two-shot lead. Then, he rode the bogey train for three holes and it felt like the equalizer of links golf was finally having its way with him. But Suber (and Coody as well) settled in and will enter the weekend at six under and with as good of a shot as anyone on this baked-out course. 

Suber will continue learning about links golf (and this course) with each passing hole, it seems. It was only last week that he was first introduced to Royal Birkdale … by watching drone videos of it on YouTube. If he said anything worth noting on Thursday, it was describing his approach:

“Just keep being patient and keep being disciplined and knowing that you can get in spots where bogey is a great score and taking that and just moving on.”

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The post 2026 Open Championship Friday TV coverage: How to watch Round 2 appeared first on Golf.

The post 2026 Open Championship Friday TV coverage: How to watch Round 2 appeared first on Golf.

The second round of the 2026 Open Championship begins early Friday morning at Royal Birkdale in England. Here’s everything you need to know to watch the tournament on Friday, including full Open Championship TV coverage, streaming details and complete Round 2 tee times.

How to watch the Open on Friday

Heading into Friday’s second round at the Open, plenty of big-name stars can be found near the top of the leaderboard.

There you’ll find Bryson DeChambeau (three under), Cameron Young (three under), defending champion Scottie Scheffler (two under) and Collin Morikawa (two under), to name just a few.

But the name that rose above all the rest on Thursday was one most golf fans are likely unfamiliar with: Jackson Suber.

The 26-year-old American pro surprised everyone when he went out and shot a 65 on Day 1 at Royal Birkdale. That gave Suber a one-shot lead heading into Round 2, but with lots of firepower on his tail.

You can watch the second round of the Open Championship on TV via USA, which will start the TV coverage at 4 a.m. ET on Friday morning. Before that, Peacock will open the streaming coverage at 1:30 a.m. ET. Peacock will also provide featured group coverage all day Friday.

Below you will find everything you need to know to watch the second round of the 2026 Open Championship.

How to watch on TV Friday

USA will air second-round TV coverage of the 2026 Open Championship from 4 a.m.-3:30 p.m. ET on Friday.

How to stream online Friday

You can stream the second round of the 2026 Open Championship via Peacock, which will provide early streaming coverage and featured group coverage. USA’s telecast can be streamed via Golf Channel Mobile.

Here’s the full Open Championship streaming schedule for Friday:

Open Round 2 Coverage: 1:30-4 a.m. (Peacock)
Featured Groups: All Day (Peacock)
Open Round 2 USA Coverage: 4 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (Golf Channel Mobile)

SIGN UP FOR PEACOCK PREMIUM TO WATCH EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE OF THE 2026 OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

2026 Open Championship Round 2 tee times (ET)

Tee No. 1

1:35 a.m. – John Parry, Eric Cole, Tiger Christensen
1:46 a.m. – Eugenio Chacarra, Matt Wallace, Max Greyserman
1:57 a.m. – Michael Brennan, Sahith Theegala, Laurie Canter
2:08 a.m. – Cameron Smith, Keith Mitchell, Stuart Grehan (a)
2:19 a.m. – Sepp Straka, Joaquin Niemann, Kurt Kitayama
2:30 a.m. – Sami Valimaki, Shaun Norris, Jackson Suber
2:41 a.m. – Darren Clarke, Adrien Saddier, Bernd Wiesberger
2:52 a.m. – Keegan Bradley, Corey Conners, Casey Jarvis
3:03 a.m. – Matt McCarty, Harry Hall, Haotong Li
3:14 a.m. – Padraig Harrington, Marco Penge, Michael Hollick
3:25 a.m. – Tom Kim, Billy Horschel, Mason Howell (a)
3:36 a.m. – Johnny Keefer, Pierceson Coody, Keita Nakajima
3:47 a.m. – Aldrich Potgieter, Jesper Svensson, Jack Buchanan (a)
4:03 a.m. – Bud Cauley, Jayden Schaper, Lucas Herbert
4:14 a.m. – Kristoffer Reitan, Patrick Reed, J.T. Poston
4:25 a.m. – Chris Gotterup, Sam Burns, Adam Scott
4:36 a.m. – Collin Morikawa, J.J. Spaun, Nicolai Højgaard
4:47 a.m. – Shane Lowry, Aaron Rai, Brooks Koepka
4:58 a.m. – Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Ludvig Åberg
5:09 a.m. – Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick
5:20 a.m. – Jacob Bridgeman, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Tim Wiedemeyer (a)
5:31 a.m. – Patrick Cantlay, Daniel Berger, Nico Echavarria
5:42 a.m. – Peter Uihlein, Alistair Docherty, Francesco Laporta
5:53 a.m. – Cameron John, Austen Truslow, Sam Bairstow
6:04 a.m. – Naoyuki Kataoka, Marcus Plunkett, Baard Skogen
6:15 a.m. – Kazuki Higa, Jiho Yang, Nevill Ruiter (a)
6:41 a.m. – Matthew Baldwin, Thomas Detry, James Nicholas
6:52 a.m. – Michael Kim, Daniel Hillier, Andy Sullivan
7:03 a.m. – Ryan Fox, Andrew Novak, Matthew Jordan
7:14 a.m. – Henrik Stenson, Max Homa, Joe Dean
7:25 a.m. – Robert MacIntyre, Rickie Fowler, Alex Fitzpatrick
7:36 a.m. – David Duval, Martin Couvra, Matthew Southgate
7:47 a.m. – Sungjae Im, Daniel Brown, Fifa Laopakdee (a)
7:58 a.m. – Gary Woodland, Jake Knapp, Jordan Smith
8:09 a.m. – Francesco Molinari, Tom McKibbin, Lev Grinberg (a)
8:20 a.m. – Hennie Du Plessis, Jose Luis Ballester, Dan Bradbury
8:31 a.m. – Angel Ayora, Victor Perez, Mateo Pulcini (a)
8:42 a.m. – Stewart Cink, Scott Vincent, Joakim Lagergren
8:53 a.m. – Michael Thorbjornsen, Kota Kaneko, Travis Smyth
9:09 a.m. – Alex Smalley, Sam Stevens, Ryo Hisatsune
9:20 a.m. – Akshay Bhatia, Harris English, Rasmus Højgaard
9:31 a.m. – Ben Griffin, Hideki Matsuyama, Min Woo Lee
9:42 a.m. – Russell Henley, Justin Rose, Viktor Hovland
9:53 a.m. – Justin Thomas, Alex Noren, Jason Day
10:04 a.m. – Scottie Scheffler, Tyrrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau
10:15 a.m. – Jordan Spieth, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm
10:26 a.m. – Brian Harman, Si Woo Kim, Nick Taylor
10:37 a.m. – Ryan Gerard, Maverick McNealy, David Puig
10:48 a.m. – Kazuma Kobori, Tom Sloman, David Howard (a)
10:59 a.m. – Antoine Rozner, Ren Yonezawa, Caleb Surratt
11:10 a.m. – M.J. Daffue, Frederic Lacroix, Jack McDonald
11:21 a.m. – Jeongwoo Ham, Ryutaro Nagano, Alejandro De Castro Piera (a)

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