HOYLAKE, ENGLAND | The grandstands which surround the 18th green at the Open Championship have always featured the flags of every competing golfer in the championship. It has been less common for golfers from so many of those nations to be featured so high on the famous yellow scoreboards which top those bleachers.
On Saturday evening at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, there was an Indian, an Austrian, a Frenchman, a Norwegian, an Australian, two Englishmen, a Spaniard and two Americans on those boards. It sounded like the start of a joke. Add in a Belgian, a Dane, an Argentine, a Northern Irishman, a Japanese and two Koreans and you actually had 14 nations represented in the top 23 at the 54-hole stage.
It is always dangerous to get giddy about a golf tournament before the final round has been completed, and yet there was undoubtedly something very cosmopolitan about an Open conducted under very English grey summer skies.
That so many of those names were European and, moreover, that so many of them were golfers under discussion for inclusion in Luke Donald’s Ryder Cup team in September, felt significant even if it was worth pointing out that the perma-drizzle conditions in Hoylake are highly unlikely to be repeated in Rome in two months’ time.
Donald’s team will include an unprecedented six captain’s picks, a decision made following input from vice captain Edoardo Molinari, whose shrewdness with statistics is well-known. The Italian argues that form in the two-month period before the match will be key and, as such, the Open marked a good starting point – not so much the final circuit of a middle-distance track event as the start of a one-lap sprint to the line.
With that in mind, last week also began with the live possibility of one of the great left-field selections in the shape and form of Europe’s most recent captain, Pádraig Harrington. The Irishman is, of course, a senior golfer these days, one who claimed four wins on the PGA Tour Champions last year and added another last month.
“This is the best I’ve played in a long time,” he told Sky Sports after heading into the third round of the Scottish Open in the top 10. “The Champions Tour has got me focused better, and I’ve started putting better.”
It’s widely assumed that Europe has a core of eight players who will qualify by right or reputation. They are Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Shane Lowry and Justin Rose.
So far, so nice, but he then added: “I’m in a nice place, I’ll see how I play over the next two weeks then have a chat with Luke, and if I’m genuinely in contention, then I’m prepared to change my schedule and come back and prove it.”
Harrington, a three-time major champion who will turn 52 before the Ryder Cup, ended the Scottish Open outside the top 40 and repeated the result at Royal Liverpool. A sneaky idea, therefore, might have run out of steam before it even got started (not least because in practising hard to prove his case, he injured an ankle in Hoylake).
An alternative take, and not an especially fair one, might be that the very fact Europe is even considering such a notion suggests the younger generations are underperforming.
From there, Donald is mostly looking at rookies. In other words, it becomes immediately apparent why he might at least consider an in-form Irish veteran.
Aside from four of his stars contending last week, the captain will have been most pleased to see Sepp Straka continue to thrive at the highest level.
When asked about the biennial match last week, the Austrian said: “I’ve been hitting the ball pretty well and then starting a couple weeks ago the putter came around, too, and hopefully I can keep that momentum going till September.”
Amen to that. After opening the John Deere Classic with a 73 to sit outside the top 130, Straka responded with rounds of 63-65-62 to win by two shots for his second PGA Tour title. His joint runner-up last week sits alongside seventh in the PGA Championship as elite-level performances.
Scotsman Robert MacIntyre, so close to victory in Denmark and on home turf in the two weeks before the Open, made the cut at Royal Liverpool but did little else. “This is my fifth week in a row, so I’m ready for a break,” he said. “My attitude has been unbelievable for the last kind of five weeks, and this week it was poor.”
The manner of his near-miss in Scotland – going low and head-to-head with eventual winner Rory McIlroy in the final round, pulling off a sensational shot on the 72nd hole – has him in a strong position if he plays well over the next two months, not least because he won the Italian Open at Ryder Cup host course Marco Simone last autumn.
Germany’s Yannik Paul missed the cut in Hoylake, and Poland’s Adrian Meronk landed a top-30 result. Paul narrowly leads in the points race, but the latter’s three wins in the last 12 months, including his own success at the Ryder Cup venue in May, gives him the slight edge.
Meronk is aware that he is in a tricky situation. He’s keen to qualify by right and avoid leaving the decision to Donald. He also knows that concentrating on a future goal might trip him up, as it very notably did to Alexander Levy in 2018.
“It’s definitely in the back of my mind for sure, and yet I know there’s a lot of time,” Meronk said before departing England. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I would love to make that team in September. I’m going to rest for a while and then get ready for the final stretch.”
The 22-year-old Højgaard twins of Denmark are on the fringes of selection. Rasmus has more wins (four), including on home turf at the start of this month when displaying skill and nerve in an extended playoff, but he defied a rib injury to achieve that success, and two missed cuts since suggest it remains a problem.
Nicolai is yet another winner at Marco Simone (in 2021), and his T23 (even par) last week was his first top-40 major-championship finish off the back of a tie for sixth in the Scottish Open. If there is a late bolter from this side of the pond, then it might be this thrilling Dane, but he will need sustained quality rather than the hit-or-miss returns that have been more typical in his short career so far.
And there was one: Ludvig Åberg, the 23-year-old Swede who turned pro in June and has contended in two of his three PGA Tour starts since. He needs something spectacular to be genuinely in with a chance of a wildcard, but many on both sides of the Atlantic suspect he is capable of it. The problem is that his chances will be few. It might be a year too soon for him.
E-MAIL MATT
TOP PHOTO: DAVID CANNON, GETTY IMAGES