Read below for highlights from the tournament:
Morikawa coolly wins his second major
Collin Morikawa used a string of three birdies, timed to Louis Oosterhuizen’s struggles, to overtake Oosterhuizen and hold off Jordan Spieth and Jon Rahm for his first British Open win at the tender age of 24.
Morikawa finished 15-under, two strokes ahead of Oosterhuizen and four ahead of Spieth and Rahm, whose late-round challenges weren’t enough to overtake Morikawa. The victory in the final golf major of the year was the second for Morikawa who has played in only eight majors, and comes less than a year after he won the PGA Championship. Spieth, for instance, won two in his 10 first majors.
Morikawa stays cool as heat increases
It might have felt as if Collin Morikawa was on the ropes with Jordan Spieth, Louis Oosterhuizen, and Jon Rahm going birdie crazy behind him, but that was not the case.
Morikawa deftly and calmly sank a long par putt for a birdie on No. 14, extending his lead over Spieth to two strokes. Another two strokes back, at 11-under, were Oosterhuizen, with only his second birdie of the day on 14, and Rahm, who was on a streak. His birdie at 16 was his fourth in a row (and he had an eagle at No. 7).
Spieth chips away at Morikawa’s lead
Jordan Spieth cut Collin Morikawa’s lead to a single stroke, pouncing on a birdie opportunity at the par-5 14th hole and bringing the British Open down to a duel over the final few holes.
Spieth, bidding for a fourth major and his second Claret Jug, cut into Morikawa’s 14-under score with his fifth birdie of the day. Morikawa, looking poised and confident despite being a pro golfer for just over two years, sank a par putt on the 13th hole.
Oosterhuizen nearly aces No. 11
The “oh, my” moments were coming fast and furious for Collin Morikawa as he went on a birdie run, but Louie Oosterhuizen supplied one of his own at No. 11.
Trailing Morikawa by four strokes, Oosterhuizen uncorked a drive that very nearly was an ace, stopped only by its collision with the flagstick. That left Oosterhuizen with a short putt for birdie and, coupled with Morikawa’s par putt, moved Oosterhuizen to 11-under, three strokes back of Morikawa.
The birdie was the first of the day for Oosterhuizen, who desperately needed a break.
Morikawa gets hot, but so does Spieth
The pressure has moved to the 24-year-old shoulders of Collin Morikawa, who apparently is feeling none of it as he bids for his second major championship.
If he felt footsteps, he didn’t show it, taking birdies on three straight holes (7, 8, 9).
But Jordan Spieth was finding his groove, too, with two birdies that left him three strokes behind Morikawa at 11-under. Louis Oosterhuizen, hoping to win the tournament after leading each of the first three rounds, slipped to 10-under.
Oosterhuizen stumbles on easiest hole on the course
Louie Oosterhuizen found sand, landing in a bunker on No. 7 and compounded his error by sending his bunker shot into orbit — and into another bunker. This, on a par-5 hole on which there have been eight eagles Sunday.
His second bunker shot sailed long, leaving him with a difficult putt that he placed just a few inches from the hole. That dropped him to two strokes back of Collin Morikawa.
Morikawa, sensing the chance to take the lead outright, nicely putted out for a birdie and a two-stroke lead. Lurking in third at 9-under remains Jordan Spieth.
Jordan Spieth, Corey Conners make eagle moves
Jordan Spieth and Corey Conners made big moves with eagles on No. 7.
That dropped them into a tie for third at 9-under.
Meanwhile, Brooks Koepka finished the round with a five-under 65 that put him at 8-under for the tournament.
Louis Oosterhuizen and Collin Morikawa remained tied for the lead at 11-under as they headed to the eagle-able par-5, 561-yard seventh hole, where there have been eight eagles Sunday.
Collin Morikawa shoots for another major at all of 24
Only one golfer was within one stroke of Louis Oosterhuizen going into the final round of the last of golf’s major tournaments in 2021. That distinction means that Collin Morikawa is paired with Oosterhuizen, playing in the final pairing for the first time in a major.
The 24-year-old golfer, winner of the PGA Championship last year, had struggled with his irons on the Sandwich course, using two putting strokes in his first test on links golf. Morikawa was four shots back after 10 holes, before making a strong push and finishing with a two-under 68.
“I don’t have much experience on links golf, and pretty much all the highlights in my head are from this week,” Morikawa said Saturday. “Thankfully there is quite a few. Hopefully we can just use that momentum from the first three days and just bring it into the last 18.”
The last man to win the tournament in his first appearance was Ben Curtis, who won in 2003 when the tournament, like the 2021 version, just happened to be played Royal St. George’s.
Oosterhuizen falls into a tie with Morikawa
Both Louie Oosterhuizen and Collin Morikawa sent their second shots wide of the green on the par-four 500-yard fourth hole.
But Morikawa left the hole still at 11-under par while Oosterhuizen took a bogey, falling into a tie with Morikawa.
Oosthuizen, Morikawa steady through three
The first five holes are among the most difficult on the Royal St. George’s course and Louis Oosthuizen and Collin Morikawa took pars on the first three.
Oosthuizen had a tricky time of it on the par 3, 227-yard No. 3 hole, leaving his tee shot short of the green, but, like the other two men, he converted his par putt. At the moment, he seems determined to hold off the challengers and win after finishing second in the PGA Championship and U.S. Open.
Weather conditions on the Sandwich course are ideal, warm and windless as play begins.
Oosthuizen, Morikawa, Spieth start strong
No yips yet. Louis Oosthuizen, trying to win a major after finishing second in the last two, started strong, as did his playing partner, Collin Morikawa, and Jordan Spieth.
Spieth, playing in the second pairing, managed par on the par-four, 417-yard first hole to remain at 9-under. Oosthuizen and Morikawa both found the fairway off the tee, with Oosthuizen driving his shot 281 yards and Morikawa going for 320.
Oosthuizen and Morikawa maintained the status quo from Saturday, with Oosthuizen still leading Morikawa by a stroke, at 12-under, after both left their birdie putts short on the first hole.
A position of strength (and danger) for Louis Oosthuizen
How good has Louis Oosthuizen been in the British Open? He finished Saturday’s round in a tie for the second-best 54-hole score in Open history with a score of 198, trailing only Shane Lowry in 2019.
He has led after all three rounds and a wire-to-wire win in the Open would be something that only Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have done in the last 30 years (via ESPN Stats and Info).
The leader after 54 holes has gone on to win four of the last eight Opens. The other four times, the winner trailed by at least three shots after 54 holes.
Royal St. George’s has seen British Open pain and agony and joy
The 149th British Open is being played at the southernmost course on the rota, a course less revered than most of the others in the rotation, yet a course that has seen 14 previous Opens and untold pain mingled with sporadic joy.
Royal St. George’s is the course where 42-year-old Darren Clarke notched a wildly popular win by three over Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson at the 2011 Open, then met reporters the next morning and said, “I had quite a few pints and quite a few beers and quite a few glasses of red wine.”
It’s the course where 26-year-old Ohioan Ben Curtis won as a 750-1 shot in his first major in 2003 but also where one of the most horrifying late-major sights yet seen happened on the par-3, 163-yard No. 16: Thomas Bjorn needed three shots to get out of one of the 106 bunkers on the course.
It’s the course where a 38-year-old Greg Norman topped a spectacular leader board at the 1993 Open. And it’s the course where a golfing comet named Bill Rogers epitomized his four wins in his stunning 1981 by claiming the Open by four shots.
Louis Oosthuizen, who knows the pain of falling short, nears another British Open title
A proper mensch might say the 149th British Open ought to go to Louis Oosthuizen on Sunday because — come on, man, anybody who has contended that routinely ought to get rewarded.
Sports don’t work that way, of course, so Oosthuizen, a runner-up at the 2021 PGA Championship and the 2021 U.S. Open — and at four other majors since 2012 after his 2010 British Open title at St. Andrews — must do some serious fending-off. The 38-year-old South African must fend off, for starters, Collin Morikawa, a phenom of mesmerizing skill and nerve whose absurd age (24) might make a proper mensch say, Come on, man, you will have lots of chances left.
That thought can’t enter the fray, either, so Oosthuizen at 12 under par and Morikawa at 11 under will form the final pairing again Sunday. Oosthuizen will also have to conquer the others lurking behind Morikawa: famed Texan Jordan Spieth, Canadian Corey Conners and 25-year-old Texan Scottie Scheffler, and three pursuers further back — South African Dylan Frittelli, Canadian Mackenzie Hughes and Spaniard Jon Rahm,
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