Smith is only the third winner to shoot 64 or better in the final round of The Open, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Henrik Stenson (63 at Royal Troon in 2016) and Greg Norman (64 at Royal St. George’s in 1993) were the others. Smith’s 20-under score also matches Stenson’s 72-hole total in 2016 for the lowest score in Open history. PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young birdied the 18th hole to finish in solo second, 1 shot behind Smith. McIlroy, who was trying to win his fifth major, finished a disappointing third at 18-under. It has now been eight full seasons since he won his last major at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla. McIlroy can at least take solace in not losing that major. Smith won it with one of the greatest final rounds in major league history. McIlroy clearly had the crowd behind him. McIlroy didn’t play badly and still had a nice cushion on the back nine. He just didn’t give himself enough birdie opportunities and could only match Smith with pars. Here are five takeaways from the final round in St. Andrews: Along with Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay and Hovland, Smith was arguably among the best players in the world without a major championship win before Sunday. He is ranked sixth in the Official World Golf Ranking. He has now won six times on the PGA Tour and another four times around the world. Smith had a chance to grab the 54-hole lead on Saturday, but his usually reliable player let him down. He then told reporters: “The golf gods were not with me today.” That certainly wasn’t the case for Smith on Sunday. He had cut McIlroy’s lead to 3 shots when he made the par. Remarkably, by the 14th hole, Smith was 1 shot ahead. He had five straight birdies starting at the 10th. One of the best putters in the world, Smith drained putts of 5 feet on No. 10, 16 feet on No. 11, 11 feet on No. 12 and 18 feet on No. 13. Then, on the par-5 14th, the Smith nearly made an 87-foot eagle putt and chipped in for birdie and a 1-shot lead. Smith is the only player in the last 20 years to birdie the first five holes of the back nine in the final round of a major, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Smith left the course when he nearly missed the green on the 18th hole. From 75 feet away, he putt to 2 feet and made his eighth birdie of the round. He became the first player to win his first major at St Andrews by overcoming a deficit entering the final round since Dick Burton in 1939. Smith appeared to have reached the Players in March when he won $3.6 million, the largest purse for a winner in PGA Tour history. He becomes only the fifth player to win both the Players and a major in the same season, joining Jack Nicklaus (1978), Hal Sutton (1983), Tiger Woods (2001) and Martin Kaymer (2014).
McIlroy’s disappointment
McIlroy has suffered a lot since winning his last major at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla. He had close calls at the Masters and The Open in 2018 and the US Open at Torrey Pines last year. It was his ninth top-five finish in a major championship since the last win. Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports The loss on Sunday, in which McIlroy had a 4-shot lead at the start and a 3-shot cushion at the turn, may end up stinging more. “[I’m] disappointed, obviously,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, I felt like I didn’t do much wrong today, but I didn’t do much right either. It’s just one of those days where I played a really controlled round of golf. I did what I felt I needed to, except to take advantage of the easier holes — around the bend … 9, 12, 14. If I had birdied there from good positions, it probably would have been a different story. “But look, I got beat by a better player this week. Twenty-under par for four rounds of golf here is really, really impressive to play, especially to go out and shoot 64 today to make it.” Again, most of the galleries were behind McIlroy. Smith and everyone else probably felt like outsiders compared to him. But Rory’s roars never came on Sunday. Playing a group behind Smith, McIlroy birdied the par-4 10th to move to 18-under. He didn’t make another birdie the rest of the way. McIlroy narrowly missed a 14-foot birdie at the 12th before nearly sinking a 61-footer at the 13th. McIlroy didn’t take advantage on the par-5 14th. His second shot from 248 yards was a little short of the green, so he putt from the fairway to 18 feet. Another near miss left him with a disappointing par. McIlroy also had near misses from 28 feet on No. 16 and 22 feet on No. 17. “Yeah, I’m going to reveal some missed mistakes that have gone by,” McIlroy said. “But it was a good week overall. I can’t be too disappointed with how it went this year and this year. I’m playing some of the best golf I’ve played in a long time. So it’s just a matter of keep knocking on the door and eventually one will open”. McIlroy has finished in the top 10 at each of the four majors this season. He finished second at the Masters, eighth at the PGA Championship and tied for fifth at the US Open. “Yeah, obviously, not just with his results this year, but he’s come really close and played really well this year,” said Hovland, who finished tied for fourth at 14 under. “But at the end of the day, he keeps playing the way he does, he’s going to get one pretty soon, at least I think. Still, yeah, it’s tough. You’ve got to finish it.”
The next generation of golf is good
Smith, 28, is the sixth straight major winner by a player in his 20s. Matt Fitzpatrick (27) won the US Open, Justin Thomas (29) won the PGA Championship and Scotty Scheffler (26) took the Masters. Last year, Collin Morikawa (25) won The Open and Jon Rahm (27) took the US Open.
1 Related If you take out Phil Mickelson’s surprise win at the 2021 PGA Championship, in which he became the oldest major champion at age 50, that would be seven in a row. Hideki Matsuyama won the 2021 Masters at 29. According to ESPN Stats & Information, players in their 20s haven’t won six straight major league games since 1921 through 1923, when Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Arthur Havers and Bobby Jones combined to do it.
Cameron Young really is
For much of the week, with so much attention on McIlroy and Woods, you might not have noticed that PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young was in contention. But the New York golfer shot under par in every round, including a 7-under 65 on Sunday. He had an eagle on the par-14 18th to take sole second at 19 under. After finishing in a tie for third at the PGA Championship, Young is only the second player after Morikawa to finish in the top three in his debut at these events. Morikawa won the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park and the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s. “It probably hurts a little bit worse to go up a shot,” Young said. “If you lose by eight you don’t really care. But, yeah, I played well [on Sunday]. I would have signed up for 65 this morning. And to see Cameron shoot what he did, it was amazing.
It is very easy St. Andrews?
The R&A knew that St. Andrews, the ‘home of golf’, would be vulnerable to the advanced equipment and the best players in the world, especially if the wind wasn’t blowing hard off the North Sea. The wind wasn’t blowing much in the last two rounds so the scores were very, very low. Smith’s 20-under total is the lowest for an Open at St. Andrews. The average score was 71.619. There were 929 birds and 29 eagles. “I think we’re definitely taking it too far for the course, probably, if I had to guess,” Xander Schauffele said. “Maybe it’s too stable. I’m not too sure, to be perfectly honest. The R&A collected the pins as best they could, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. “The way they made it difficult was a little difficult in my mind,” Schauffele said. “Some of those pins that snapped — I mean, if you’re on the right side, you’re going to get 30 feet, 40 feet. But if you try to hit it close and you get a little greedy like I did [Saturday]there is no grass over some of these slopes. “[Sunday] it was much softer. The ball kind of stayed on the ground. [Saturday] there was no friction. It almost felt like a USGA event in ’15 or ’16.”
