TROON, Scotland — Royal Troon delivered again on Friday, with higher winds in the afternoon providing a sterner test for the world’s best.
Here are the top numbers and notes to know from Round 2 of The Open Championship.
1. Five years after his triumph at the 2019 Open, Shane Lowry has a chance to head back to Royal Portrush in 2025 and return the Claret Jug to where he won it. Lowry was tied for the 36-hole lead that week – this time, he’s got a two-shot advantage entering the third round.
On Friday, Lowry didn’t have the sparkling putting performance he flashed on Day 1, but his ball striking was excellent. The Irishman gained more than a full stroke on the field with his drives and well over three shots with his approaches. Lowry hit 15 greens in regulation, three more than he did in the first round.
Lowry has been strong on the weekends recently in majors. Since the beginning of 2021, he ranks among the top 15 players in both scoring average and strokes gained total in Rounds 3 and 4 of major championships. Only three European players in the last 50 years have won The Open multiple times: Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros and Padraig Harrington. Lowry can join that short list of luminaries with a win this weekend.
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2. Nobody would discredit the week of Daniel Brown if he faded into the pack on Friday. After all, his 61st-place finish last week at the Scottish Open was his best result anywhere since mid-March. But Brown will be a big part of the Saturday story at Royal Troon after a second-round 72 to back up a bogey-free opening 65.
Brown leads all players in both strokes gained off the tee and putting. He’s a perfect 29-of-29 inside 10 feet and made seven putts from 11 feet and beyond. Since 1900, there are three instances of a man winning his major championship debut: Francis Ouimet at the 1913 U.S. Open, Ben Curtis at the 2003 Open and Keegan Bradley at the 2011 PGA.
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3. Much like eight years ago, the players who went out in the late/early half of the draw at Troon received a significant advantage in terms of wind and difficulty. In 2016, about two-thirds of the players who made the cut played in the morning on Friday. That number was 58 percent this year. Across the two rounds, there was a 2.3 stroke differential in the scoring averages: 149.8 vs 147.5.
Within that context, the performance Justin Rose put on through two days at Royal Troon has been even more impressive. In the tougher side of the draw, Rose went 5-under and sits in a tie for second, his best 36-hole position at The Open since his scene-stealing debut in 1998. Rose has been excellent through the bag this week, ranking 21st or better in the field in every strokes gained category.
Rose won the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion. Since the beginning of 2014, his 13 top-10 finishes in majors are the most of any player without a victory in that span. An 11-year gap between sequential wins in a major career would tie the record in the men’s game, something last achieved by Tiger Woods (2008 U.S. Open, 2019 Masters).
Biggest roar of the week so far.
A birdie on the 18th for Justin Rose.
What a round. pic.twitter.com/4qSnbLEISG
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 19, 2024
4. The most daunting name among the trio at 2-under is undoubtedly Scottie Scheffler, world number one and reigning Masters champion. After a tough day on the greens in Round 1, Scheffler putted much better on Friday, needing five fewer strokes to complete his round (30 vs 25). Scheffler gained more than two strokes putting – a number he’s hit in only 8 percent of his rounds the last two seasons.
Last month, Scheffler became the first player since Arnold Palmer in 1962 to win six times in a PGA Tour season before July 1. Palmer got his seventh win that July at The Open at Royal Troon. Tacking on another numerical omen, Palmer and Scheffler have both recorded the same 36-hole total score of 140.
With a win, Scheffler would be the only player to win The Players Championship and multiple majors in the same season. He would be the first to win the Masters and The Open in the same season since Woods in 2005.
5. Xander Schauffele is firmly in the top 10 entering the weekend for the third consecutive major. Schauffele has driven it brilliantly through two rounds, hitting 10 fairways and gaining well over a stroke on the field each day. Now 30 years old, Schauffele was long touted as a player who could pick off a handful of majors once he broke through with his first. He will try to become the first to win The Open and the PGA in the same season in a decade.
Schauffele will have a comfortable tee time Saturday paired with Ryder Cup teammate and good friend Patrick Cantlay. Now the major-less one of the duo, Cantlay truly contended in one of the game’s four marquee events last month at Pinehurst, finishing tied for third. This will be just the second time they have been grouped together in a major, but the last instance was recent: the final round of last year’s Open, when neither were in contention. The stakes are a touch higher Saturday.
6. Nobody has come from eight shots back through two rounds to win The Open since Gary Player in 1959, but I’ll let you share that fact with the players sitting at 1-over-par heading into the weekend. Four multiple major champions – Dustin Johnson, Collin Morikawa, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm – are among the five players there entering the weekend (Mackenzie Hughes, no slouch in his own right, is the other.).
With easier winds forecasted, could one of these men make a run at Troon on the weekend? The last men’s major winner to be eight or more off the lead through two rounds and win was Tom Kite at the 1992 U.S. Open.
What a read.
Jon Rahm chips in for his first birdie of the day on the 9th. pic.twitter.com/59wfL50tA9
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 19, 2024
7. Last month, Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy provided riveting drama, passion and, for the latter, heartbreak, in the final round at Pinehurst No. 2. Both will be heading home early this week after combining for a score of 20-over-par in the first two rounds.
For McIlroy, it completes one of the more confounding decades of major championship golf ever seen. This completes 10 full major seasons since his last win, during which he had the most top-10 finishes, 21, of anybody. McIlroy is the only player in men’s golf history with 21 top-10 results in a 10-year span of majors but no victories.
After averaging more than 4.5 birdies or better per round in the majors this season, DeChambeau managed just one score better than par each day this week. In two days, DeChambeau dropped nearly four full strokes to the field with his approach play, a sharp contrast from what he did in his first 12 major rounds of the year (+10.5).
8. How tough was Royal Troon Friday? If you took the highest score recorded by the field on every hole and made a horrific amalgamation of golf carnage, you would get a score of 128. Punctuating that was the unfortunate statistical footnote created by Aguri Iwasaki, winner of last year’s Japan Open.
Iwasaki carded nine on holes 13 and 14 today. Since The Open has reliably tracked hole-by-hole data – 30 years or so – it’s the only time a player has made a score of nine or worse on consecutive holes in the same round.
Robert Macintyre made a pair of triple bogeys on Friday but fought back to make the cut with a shot to spare. The winner of last week’s Scottish Open, Macintyre is the first player in 19 years to make multiple triples or worse in the second round of a major and still make the cut.
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9. Woods’ Friday 77 completed a 36-hole total score of 156, tying his worst in a major championship. Woods also required 156 strokes to get around Chambers Bay twice at the 2015 U.S. Open. Tiger hit just 14 of 36 greens in regulation for the week, his fewest through two rounds in any major championship as a professional.
This was Woods’ 10th official start since his car accident in February of 2021. In those 10 tournaments, he’s completed 72 holes just three times. Woods stated to reporters after the round that his next tournament will be his own Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in November.
10. Over the last 50 years, 88 percent of Open Championship winners have been in the top 10 entering the third round. Across all majors in the men’s game, 21 of the last 23 have been in the top six of the leaderboard entering Round 3.
The third-round scoring average of the last nine Open winners is 67.7. With easier scoring conditions expected, the eventual winner might need to best that Saturday.
(Top photo of Justin Rose: Andrew Redington / Getty Images)
