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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Scottie Scheffler eases to four-shot win in The Open
It was never in doubt really. When the world No 1 extended his healthy overnight lead to five shots after just two holes of the final round, the fat lady was packing up her microphone, flinging her crumpled song-sheet into the bin and heading off to find another gig. Garry Harvey, the Scot who chisels the champion's name onto golf's most cherished clump of silverware, was probably on a Stena Line ferry back across the water by the time Scheffler got through the fifth. Job done. Even the rare stumble of a double-bogey on the eighth – he had to give the rest something to cling to, didn't he? – was no great cause for concern. Normal service was swiftly resumed. In typical Scheffler fashion, he bounced back with purposeful aplomb and birdied the very next hole. You half expected the R&A high heid yins to wheel a trestle table out to the ninth green and do the prize giving ceremony there. In the end, the unflappable, relentless 29-year-old signed off with a three-under 68 - his fourth sub-70 round of the week – for a 17-under aggregate of 267 and won by four shots from his American compatriot, Harris English. To be truthful, the margin of victory felt like it should've been greater, such was Scheffler's majesty and his magnificent front-running. At one stage early on in the final round, he had extended his advantage to a whopping eight shots. In fact, he was so far ahead of the rest, he may as well have been playing in the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale. As Scheffler ambled off into the distance at the top of the leaderboard, the golf writers were eagerly leafing through the record books and wondering if he would beat the 13-shot winning record set by Old Tom Morris at Prestwick way back in 1862. From just 24 major starts as a professional, Scheffler has four major titles on his cv. With two Masters green jackets, a US PGA crown and now The Open, he's already three-quarters of the way to the career grand slam. It's a remarkable career. In the eyes of Xander Schauffele, the defending Open champion who shared seventh with Rory McIlroy and Oban's Robert MacIntyre, Scheffler is the king of all he surveys. 'I don't think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger (Woods) come through so soon, and here's Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,' said Schauffele of a man who has racked up 14 wins in his last 38 events. The praise and plaudits may be tumbling forth, but Scheffler himself is not a fan of comparisons with the 15-time major winner Woods. 'I still think they're a bit silly,' said the new champion, who is only the second world No 1 after Woods to win The Open. 'Tiger won, what, 15 majors? This is my fourth. I think Tiger stands alone in the game of golf. He was inspirational for me growing up. But I don't focus on that kind of stuff." In his pre-championship press conference earlier in the week, Scheffler delved deep into the pointlessness of golf in the grand scheme of life. 'Why do I want to win The Open Championship so badly?,' he said during an existential examination. 'I don't know because, if I win, it's going to be awesome for two minutes.' Surely this was awesome for more than 120 seconds? 'At the end of the day, there's more to life than playing golf,' said Scheffler whose faith and his family remain his driving forces. 'I'm pretty excited to go home and celebrate this one. But we're going to start all over in Memphis (his next event), and we're all back to even-par. The show goes on.' Take Scheffler out of the equation and this would've been a thrilling Open Sunday show as the rest jockeyed for position on a bunched up leaderboard. The charging Bryson DeChambeau certainly generated a buzz with a terrific seven-under 64 to barge into a tie for 10th. As salvage operations go, this was up there with the raising of the Mary Rose. After the wreck of his first round 78 on Thursday, it looked like the American would sink without trace. By Sunday afternoon, the former US Open champion was shipshape and Bristol fashion. Hats off to him. The 31-year-old basically gave Scheffler a 10-shot head-start after that opening day of toil and trouble. DeChambeau was 16-under for his next 54-holes, the second lowest three-round tally in Open history. It would've done well at a LIV event, eh? McIlroy, six shots behind Scheffler heading into the closing round, had spent the evening before watching 'Oppenheimer', the film about the fellow who oversaw the development of the nuclear bomb. He was probably thinking that an atomic strike was the only way to stop Scheffler. McIlroy, urged on by a huge home support, couldn't conjure the fireworks the galleries craved and his 69, which featured a deflating double-bogey on the 10th, left him seven shots behind the winner. 'I know I wasn't the fan favourite today,' said Scheffler with a smile as he snuffed out hopes of a McIlroy fairytale with another ruthless display. English, who was also second to Scheffler in this year's PGA Championship, closed with a 66 to take another runners-up spot while Chris Gotterup, fresh from his Scottish Open win a week earlier, completed a brilliant Open debut with a 67 and finished third. Wyndham Clark's 65 vaulted him into a share of fourth with Matthew Fitzpatrick and Haotong Li. Like everybody else, though, they were footnotes in the Scheffler success story. 'Scottie's in a league of his own right now,' said the aforementioned DeChambeau. 'I played with him a lot in college, and he was not that good, so he's figured out a lot of stuff since then.' He certainly has.
The National
a day ago
- Sport
- The National
Scottie Scheffler eases to four-shot win in The Open
Whatever you want to call it, Scottie Scheffler produced it here at Royal Portrush to win the 153rd Open in a quite emphatic fashion. It was never in doubt really. When the world No 1 extended his healthy overnight lead to five shots after just two holes of the final round, the fat lady was packing up her microphone, flinging her crumpled song-sheet into the bin and heading off to find another gig. Garry Harvey, the Scot who chisels the champion's name onto golf's most cherished clump of silverware, was probably on a Stena Line ferry back across the water by the time Scheffler got through the fifth. Job done. Even the rare stumble of a double-bogey on the eighth – he had to give the rest something to cling to, didn't he? – was no great cause for concern. Normal service was swiftly resumed. In typical Scheffler fashion, he bounced back with purposeful aplomb and birdied the very next hole. You half expected the R&A high heid yins to wheel a trestle table out to the ninth green and do the prize giving ceremony there. In the end, the unflappable, relentless 29-year-old signed off with a three-under 68 - his fourth sub-70 round of the week – for a 17-under aggregate of 267 and won by four shots from his American compatriot, Harris English. To be truthful, the margin of victory felt like it should've been greater, such was Scheffler's majesty and his magnificent front-running. At one stage early on in the final round, he had extended his advantage to a whopping eight shots. In fact, he was so far ahead of the rest, he may as well have been playing in the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale. As Scheffler ambled off into the distance at the top of the leaderboard, the golf writers were eagerly leafing through the record books and wondering if he would beat the 13-shot winning record set by Old Tom Morris at Prestwick way back in 1862. From just 24 major starts as a professional, Scheffler has four major titles on his cv. With two Masters green jackets, a US PGA crown and now The Open, he's already three-quarters of the way to the career grand slam. It's a remarkable career. In the eyes of Xander Schauffele, the defending Open champion who shared seventh with Rory McIlroy and Oban's Robert MacIntyre, Scheffler is the king of all he surveys. 'I don't think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger (Woods) come through so soon, and here's Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,' said Schauffele of a man who has racked up 14 wins in his last 38 events. The praise and plaudits may be tumbling forth, but Scheffler himself is not a fan of comparisons with the 15-time major winner Woods. 'I still think they're a bit silly,' said the new champion, who is only the second world No 1 after Woods to win The Open. 'Tiger won, what, 15 majors? This is my fourth. I think Tiger stands alone in the game of golf. He was inspirational for me growing up. But I don't focus on that kind of stuff." In his pre-championship press conference earlier in the week, Scheffler delved deep into the pointlessness of golf in the grand scheme of life. 'Why do I want to win The Open Championship so badly?,' he said during an existential examination. 'I don't know because, if I win, it's going to be awesome for two minutes.' Surely this was awesome for more than 120 seconds? 'At the end of the day, there's more to life than playing golf,' said Scheffler whose faith and his family remain his driving forces. 'I'm pretty excited to go home and celebrate this one. But we're going to start all over in Memphis (his next event), and we're all back to even-par. The show goes on.' Take Scheffler out of the equation and this would've been a thrilling Open Sunday show as the rest jockeyed for position on a bunched up leaderboard. The charging Bryson DeChambeau certainly generated a buzz with a terrific seven-under 64 to barge into a tie for 10th. As salvage operations go, this was up there with the raising of the Mary Rose. After the wreck of his first round 78 on Thursday, it looked like the American would sink without trace. By Sunday afternoon, the former US Open champion was shipshape and Bristol fashion. Hats off to him. The 31-year-old basically gave Scheffler a 10-shot head-start after that opening day of toil and trouble. DeChambeau was 16-under for his next 54-holes, the second lowest three-round tally in Open history. It would've done well at a LIV event, eh? McIlroy, six shots behind Scheffler heading into the closing round, had spent the evening before watching 'Oppenheimer', the film about the fellow who oversaw the development of the nuclear bomb. He was probably thinking that an atomic strike was the only way to stop Scheffler. McIlroy, urged on by a huge home support, couldn't conjure the fireworks the galleries craved and his 69, which featured a deflating double-bogey on the 10th, left him seven shots behind the winner. 'I know I wasn't the fan favourite today,' said Scheffler with a smile as he snuffed out hopes of a McIlroy fairytale with another ruthless display. English, who was also second to Scheffler in this year's PGA Championship, closed with a 66 to take another runners-up spot while Chris Gotterup, fresh from his Scottish Open win a week earlier, completed a brilliant Open debut with a 67 and finished third. Wyndham Clark's 65 vaulted him into a share of fourth with Matthew Fitzpatrick and Haotong Li. Like everybody else, though, they were footnotes in the Scheffler success story. 'Scottie's in a league of his own right now,' said the aforementioned DeChambeau. 'I played with him a lot in college, and he was not that good, so he's figured out a lot of stuff since then.' He certainly has.
USA Today
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
In 2019, Royal Portrush hosting Open was huge for Northern Ireland. This year, it'll be bigger
About this time last year, I wrote a column celebrating my 25th Open in a working capacity. It turned out to be a load of cobblers. The statistic, that is, not the column. Then again? Anyway, I'd forgotten, you see, about the cancellation of the 2020 championship due to the COVID pandemic, so it was only 24. This week, then, is my actual silver jubilee, so one presumes that the good folk at the R&A have commissioned a limited-edition range of commemorative tea towels, porcelain thimbles and decorative hinged trinket boxes to mark the occasion. I'll have an amble over to the Royal Portrush merchandise tent to check out the shimmering wares later in the week. Part of this column was composed yesterday in the shadow of a wonderful, awe-inspiring edifice of maritime magnificence. Yes, that's right. The check-in terminal of the Stena Line ferry at Cairnryan. The Scottish golf writers went in two by two? Well, we tried to do it in an orderly fashion but, because this correspondent was running late, the embarking process descended into a nautical nonsense that featured the kind of flustered bellows and tortured grunts that Noah probably had to deal with as he tried to shepherd the last few biblical beasts up his bloomin' gangplank. We made it, though. It's going to be a busy old week here on the Antrim coast. Back in 2019, the last time The Open was staged at Portrush, the tickets for the championship days were gobbled up in the time it took you to say, 'tickets for the championship days have gone on sale.' It was the first-ever sold-out Open. That wasn't surprising, of course. Portrush hadn't staged the championship since 1951. It was a hugely significant moment for Northern Ireland after a troubled past. I always recall an Irish colleague observing the giddy scene six years ago and writing, 'When Darren Clarke steps to the tee at Royal Portrush at 6:35 am and gets the Open underway, he will become the first Northern Irishman to fire a shot here and have it universally welcomed.' The masses lapped it up. 'It will be mayhem, but merry, Irish mayhem, which is the best kind,' said the late, great Peter Alliss, who played in The Open when it first came to this parish back in '51. He was right. Here in 2025, there will be an additional 40,000 spectators flooding through the gates with a total of 278,000 people expected over the course of the week. It will be the second-highest attended Open in history after the 290,000 souls who shoehorned themselves into St Andrews in 2022. I hope there are enough of my 25th anniversary dish cloots on sale for the masses to purchase as a keepsake? The infrastructure these days is as big and as bold as you would expect from a sporting and corporate beast that constantly grows arms and legs. A hierarchy has developed in terms of Open venues as the organisers look more favourably at hosts that can easily accommodate the 200,000-plus mark. That we're back at Portrush within just six years speaks volumes for the R&A's mantra of the bigger, the better. This emphasis on how many punters they can cram in gently elbows certain esteemed courses into the margins. That's a pity for some truly magnificent venues. To be honest, I find an Open almost too big for my liking. But maybe I'm just getting on in years? Each to their own, eh? In the build-up to the eagerly anticipated 2019 showpiece, I had a sit down with a lovely gentleman called Ian Bamford, who was a young 'un back in 1951 and went on to become an Irish Amateur champion and a great, cherished doyen of Royal Portrush Golf Club. 'I still remember queuing to watch a western at the cinema that week and was in touching distance of Dai Rees and Norman Von Nida,' reflected Bamford of a couple of well-known golfers who were killing a bit of time. I'm not sure we'll see Rory McIlroy or Scottie Scheffler popping into the Portrush Playhouse. The past is a different world. 'When Royal Portrush was founded in 1888, there were only 1,600 people in the town,' noted Bamford. 'There were four pubs and four churches.' Given the volume of bodies in town over the next few days, the queue to get a libation at the Harbour Bar will probably stretch to the Giants Causeway. I may have better luck in the church? The final major of the men's season is upon us already as the season hurtles by at a furious rate of knots. I find the condensed nature of the global golf schedule a trifle unsatisfactory. When the Claret Jug is handed out on Sunday, it'll be nine months until the Masters. At least there's a Ryder Cup in September to fill part of this void Once the prolonged wait for Augusta is over, the majors come at us thick and fast in a crash, bang, wallop configuration that does them something of a disservice in a jam-packed scene. There's barely a moment to draw breath. Come Sunday night, the men's majors will have passed in a flash again. As my 25 years at The Open prove, time really does fly. Now, where's my celebratory tea towel? Nick Rodger is a correspondent for The Scotland Herald, which is owned by Newsquest/Gannett.
The Herald Scotland
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Twenty five years at The Open shows that time really does fly
This week, then, is my actual silver jubilee so one presumes that the good folk at the R&A have commissioned a limited-edition range of commemorative tea towels, porcelain thimbles and decorative hinged trinket boxes to mark the occasion. I'll have an amble over to the Royal Portrush merchandise tent to check out the shimmering wares later in the week. Part of this column was composed yesterday in the shadow of a wonderful, awe-inspiring edifice of maritime magnificence. Yes, that's right. The check-in terminal of the Stena Line ferry at Cairnryan. The Scottish golf writers went in two by two? Well, we tried to do it in an orderly fashion but, because this correspondent was running late, the embarking process descended into a nautical nonsense that featured the kind of flustered bellows and tortured grunts that Noah probably had to deal with as he tried to shepherd the last few biblical beasts up his bloomin' gangplank. We made it, though. It's going to be a busy old week here on the Antrim coast. Back in 2019, the last time The Open was staged at Portrush, the tickets for the championship days were gobbled up in the time it took you to say, 'tickets for the championship days have gone on sale.' It was the first ever sold out Open. That wasn't surprising, of course. Portrush hadn't staged the championship since 1951. It was a hugely significant moment for Northern Ireland after a troubled past. I always recall an Irish colleague observing the giddy scene six years ago and writing, 'when Darren Clarke steps to the tee at Royal Portrush at 6:35am and gets the Open under way, he will become the first Northern Irishman to fire a shot here and have it universally welcomed.' The masses lapped it up. 'It will be mayhem, but merry, Irish mayhem, which is the best kind,' said the late, great Peter Alliss, who played in The Open when it first came to this parish back in '51. He was right. Here in 2025, there will be an additional 40,000 spectators flooding through the gates with a total of 278,000 people expected over the course of the week. It will be the second highest attended Open in history after the 290,000 souls who shoehorned themselves into St Andrews in 2022. I hope there are enough of my 25th anniversary dish cloots on sale for the masses to purchase as a keepsake? The infrastructure these days is as big and as bold as you would expect from a sporting and corporate beast that constantly grows arms and legs. A hierarchy has developed in terms of Open venues as the organisers look more favourably at hosts that can easily accommodate the 200,000-plus mark. That we're back at Portrush within just six years speaks volumes for the R&A's mantra of the bigger, the better. This emphasis on how many punters they can cram in gently elbows certain esteemed courses into the margins. That's a pity for some truly magnificent venues. To be honest, I find an Open almost too big for my liking. But maybe I'm just getting on in years? Each to their own, eh? In the build-up to the eagerly anticipated 2019 showpiece, I had a sit down with a lovely gentleman called Ian Bamford, who was a young 'un back in 1951 and went on to become an Irish Amateur champion and a great, cherished doyen of Royal Portrush Golf Club. 'I still remember queuing to watch a western at the cinema that week and was in touching distance of Dai Rees and Norman Von Nida,' reflected Bamford of a couple of well-kent golfers of ye day who were killing a bit of time. I'm not sure we'll see Rory McIlroy or Scottie Scheffler popping into the Portrush Playhouse tonight. The past is a different world. 'When Royal Portrush was founded in 1888, there were only 1600 people in the town,' noted Bamford. 'There were four pubs and four churches.' Given the volume of bodies in toon over the next few days, the queue to get a libation at the Harbour Bar will probably stretch to the Giants Causeway. I may have better luck in the church? The final major of the men's season is upon us already as the season hurtles by at a furious rate of knots. Regular readers – yes, there are some small pockets of loyal support – will know that I find the condensed nature of the global golf schedule a trifle unsatisfactory. When the Claret Jug is handed out on Sunday, it'll be nine months until the Masters. At least there's a Ryder Cup in September to fill part of this void Once the prolonged wait for Augusta is over, the majors come at us thick and fast in a crash, bang, wallop configuration that does them something of a disservice in a jam-packed scene. There's barely a moment to draw breath. Come Sunday night, the men's majors will have passed in a flash again. As my 25 years at The Open prove, time really does fly. Now, where's my celebratory tea towel?
Wales Online
14-07-2025
- Business
- Wales Online
Storm Darragh battered Welsh port's reopening delayed again
Storm Darragh battered Welsh port's reopening delayed again Weather conditions have made it 'unsafe' for works at a Holyhead Port terminal to be completed Stena Line has pushed back the re-opening of terminal three (Image: Getty Images ) The re-opening of Holyhead Port has been delayed yet again. Stena Line has pushed back the opening of terminal three at the port as high winds have made it impossible to complete necessary works safely. The ferry company, which owns the port, had planned to reopen on July 15. It had originally planned to reopen on July 1. All ferry services at the north Wales port, operated by Stena Line, were cancelled before the Christmas period after Strom Darragh damaged Terminal 3 – with Terminal 5 also impacted to a lesser extent. Depending on weather, it is now hoped that the terminal will finally reopen within the next few days. A statement from Stena Line read: 'Due to high winds, it has become unsafe to complete the final work to Terminal 3 today, the lifting of the fender panel onto pile D2.2. "As the safety of our staff and contractors is our top priority, we have made the decision to delay the terminal's reopening, until conditions allow the work to be completed safely. Article continues below "If weather conditions improve, we only anticipate a short delay of a few days.' Two million passengers a year use the port, with 1,200 lorries and trailers crossing every day. Traders in Holyhead have reportedly seen a significant fall in footfall and earnings since the damage to the port. Article continues below
