British Open: Xander Schauffele claims his second major of 2024 with exceptional Sunday performance

Sometimes you win a major by solving the course, as Scottie Scheffler did in the Masters this year. Sometimes, you win a major by facing down a rival, as Xander Schauffele did at the PGA, and Bryson DeChambeau did at the U.S. Open. And sometimes, you win a major by just hanging out, waiting for the right moment … and then launching into orbit.

In a week where Scotland threw all it could at Royal Troon Golf Club — wind from three directions, sideways rain, haze and chill — Schauffele survived the elements and 158 other challengers to win the British Open. One stroke back coming into the day, Schauffele shot a final-round 65 to finish at 9 under par, two shots ahead of Justin Rose and Billy Horschel.

Twelve players entered Sunday within four strokes of the lead. At one point on Sunday, 10 players were within two strokes of the lead. Four players held the solo lead for at least some point on Sunday. But Royal Troon ground them all down, one after the other, and only Schauffele was able to go low. He carded six birdies over 11 holes in the middle of his round, turning a three-shot deficit into a three-shot lead and all but engraving his name on the Claret Jug long before Saturday’s leaders got within sight of the clubhouse.

In adding the win at Troon to his PGA victory at Valhalla, Schauffele now joins some elite company. He’s the first player since Brooks Koepka in 2018 to win two majors in a year. Only three other players since 2000 have won both the PGA Championship and the Open Championship: Tiger Woods (2000 and 2006), Padraig Harrington (2008) and Rory McIlroy (2014).

Schauffele, the defending Olympic gold medalist, now heads to Paris as part of Team USA’s golf contingent, and could put the finishing touches on one of the more remarkable golf seasons in recent memory. The rest of the field will be left wondering what went wrong, and what could have been if the Scottish weather had been a bit more forgiving.

Royal Troon seems to exist outside of the modern golf era. The town around the club is microscopic. A commuter train runs right beside a hole, so close and so loud that players often need to step away from their shots as it barrels past. The Atlantic Ocean beckons nearby, and the wind blows in unpredictable directions. Royal Troon demands your complete attention, and perhaps that’s the reason why most of the pre-tournament discussion focused on the Open itself, not the many issues surrounding golf’s murky future.

Golf ends yet another major season with no solution to its ongoing woes, but on the course, the four majors have delivered fascinating storylines for the last four months. Scheffler established his dominance in the game with a second Masters victory in April, then found himself in stunning, if brief, trouble with the law at the PGA Championship. Schauffele held off DeChambeau to win that PGA and claim his first career major; DeChambeau turned around and outdueled McIlroy for the U.S. Open one month later in one of the best finishes in recent major history. For sheer competitiveness, the Open Championship topped them all, with the lead shifting hands over and over throughout the week and especially on Sunday … right up until Schauffele decided to take over the tournament and run away from the field.

The troubles began from the jump on Thursday, as the early draw took rain and wind to the face. That meant the two heroes of last month’s U.S. Open — DeChambeau and McIlroy — saw their scores balloon. DeChambeau was looking for validation of his new role at the leading edge of the golf world, McIlroy was looking for redemption after his Pinehurst collapse, but Troon doesn’t much care for narratives, and both meekly exited the tournament after two days.

Also done early: Tiger Woods, who once again failed to make the cut at a major. Woods hasn’t finished out a weekend at a major outside of Augusta since 2020. This time, however, Woods at least acknowledged that he plans to be back playing majors next year. Between injuries, surgeries and a lack of tournament reps, Woods simply doesn’t have the form to compete at this level, but that’s not stopping him from taking cuts.

Dan Brown — who had never played a single round in a major before Thursday — ended the afternoon as the surprise leader, putting the finishing touches on a -6 round after 9 p.m. local time to claim the lead over Shane Lowry by a stroke. Justin Thomas, the only real survivor of the morning wave, opened with a -3 round, while seven players sat at -2.

Friday belonged to Lowry, whose lovely 69 gave him a two-stroke cushion on the field heading into the weekend. Friday also belonged to the wind, which gusted up over 30 miles an hour and annihilated the hopes of most of the unlucky afternoon wave. Five of the world top 10 missed the cut as a result of the wicked conditions.

Lowry claimed a three-stroke lead early in the third round, reaching as low as -8, but his easy march to another Claret Jug lasted all of 7 ½ holes on Saturday. In spitting rain, Lowry double-bogeyed the Postage Stamp 8th, and went on to butcher the inward nine to tumble down the leaderboard. Thriston Lawrence and Sam Burns, who played in the more mild half of the morning, posted low numbers early that held up. Rose and Brown kept pace, and a pair of 2024 major winners — Scheffler and Schauffele — lurked not far down the leaderboard. Billy Horschel, who has all of two top 10s in more than 10 years of major competition, held the lead by a stroke at -4 as Saturday ended.

An astounding 12 players began Sunday within four shots of the lead, and the early holes tightened that up even further. Jon Rahm, who has struggled mightily in majors this year, began a too-little, too-late charge with three birdies to open his round. He got to within two strokes of the lead, but ran out of holes and gas.

Of the overnight contenders, Thomas was the first on the day to eject from the tournament, triple-bogeying the first hole to fall to +3. Brown’s storybook week wrapped early, when he couldn’t get out of the greenside bunker at No. 4. Burns bogeyed the third and fourth holes to remove himself from the conversation. Scheffler got to within one stroke of the lead … and then his balky putter betrayed him once more, as he double-bogeyed No. 9.

The outward nine proved favorable territory for a handful of players. Rose, Horschel, Lawrence and Schauffele all held at least a share of the lead in Sunday’s early going. Lowry found his game once again, shaking off an early bogey to card four birdies in five holes and get back within a shot of the lead.

Lawrence closed off the outward nine by claiming the lead by a single stroke, birdieing the ninth to reach -7. Rose was a stroke back at -6, with Schauffele and Horschel at -5 and Russell Henley at -4. The stage was set, then, for one of the most dramatic horse races to the finish in recent major history … if Schauffele hadn’t caught fire, that is.

Horschel was the first of the front-nine leaders to start leaking oil. A double-bogey at the 10th dropped him to -4, three strokes off the pace. Schauffele birdied the treacherous 11th to close to within a stroke, and minutes later, Rose gave one back to the field, bogeying the 12th to drop to -5.

Schauffele, who has played exceptionally well in all three majors prior to Royal Troon — finishing 8, 1, T7 — started to apply the pressure on the inward nine. He followed the birdie on 11 with another at 13 to tie the lead, and when Lawrence bogeyed the 12th right behind him, Schauffele had the lead with five holes to go. He threw down another birdie on the 14th to extend his lead to two strokes, and yet another on the 16th to push the lead to three and effectively ice the tournament.