SOUTHPORT, England — There have been plenty of surprising first-round leaders in The Open the past few years.
Two years ago, England’s Dan Brown, who grew up on a pig farm, dropped out of college and nearly quit playing golf, grabbed the first-round lead with a bogey-free 65 at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland. Brown had missed the cut in all but one of his previous eight starts and was ranked 272nd in the world.
The year before, amateur Christo Lamprecht, who played at Georgia Tech, posted a 5-under 66 for a share of the 18-hole lead. It was the lowest score by an amateur in the first round of The Open in a dozen years.
Jackson Suber is a more accomplished player than Brown and Lamprecht, but the fact that he’s atop the leaderboard after the opening round of the 154th Open underway at Royal Birkdale Golf Club is just as astonishing for this reason: Suber had never been to Europe before Saturday and had never played on a true links course.
Yet, the 26-year-old from Tampa, Florida, posted a 5-under 65 and carries a one-stroke lead over Sungjae Im and Brown heading into Friday’s second round on a course that is considered one of the most difficult in The Open rota and was playing especially firm and fast in dry conditions.
“I’m not really sure, but I feel like I’ve just been playing good the last few months and just knowing that good golf is going to take care of everything, and really trusting my caddie to figure out where we’re going to hit it,” Suber said, when he was asked to explain how he’s been able to adapt to links golf so easily.
Suber, a former Ole Miss star, said he watched YouTube videos of each of Royal Birkdale’s holes last week and worked with his statistician and caddie, Greyson Porter, to prepare.
“This is my fifth day here,” Suber said. “Monday was my first round of links golf, so I’ve played 27 holes before I played the first round today.”
It was certainly a memorable one. After carding two birdies and two bogeys on the front, Suber got things going with back-to-back birdies on Nos. 10 and 11. After making a bogey on the par-4 13th, Suber played the last five holes in 4 under.
Suber made an 11-footer for birdie on the par-5 14th, a 6-footer for birdie on the par-4 16th and then a 7-footer for eagle on the par-5 17th.
After blasting his 323-yard drive into the semi-rough, he choked up on a 4-iron from 233 yards and hit his approach onto the green.
“Choked up pretty far on it, almost to the shaft,” Suber said. “[The] ball was way above my feet, but got it over that bunker and in that collection area and got a good bounce up on to the green.”
Suber has played well over the past couple of months — he credits working with a mental coach, a former Ole Miss assistant and switching to a new Titleist golf ball and driver — and had three top-six finishes in his past six starts on the PGA Tour.
According to stats guru Justin Ray, Suber is the seventh golfer to start an Open Championship at Royal Birkdale with a score of 65 or lower. Craig Stadler is the only golfer who went lower, with a 64 in 1983.
Suber and his fiancée visited Liverpool earlier this week with Pierceson Coody and his wife. Suber hasn’t tried to drive on the left side of the road.
Why not?
“Because I’m trying to make it here for four days,” he said.
DeChambeau has taken a lot of criticism for missing the cut in the first three majors. Three-time Open Championship winner Nick Faldo criticized the LIV Golf League for not having a strategy while playing links golf, and Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee questioned why DeChambeau was spending so much time doing YouTube videos, instead of working to chase down Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler.
DeChambeau bounced back in the opening round on Thursday, posting a 3-under 67 to grab a share of fourth place. A bogey on the 18th hole prevented him from getting closer.
“Yeah, definitely satisfying,” DeChambeau told a staff member of The R&A. “Any time you get off to a great start, it’s awesome, but there’s three more days, dude. There’s still a lot of golf to be played. But ultimately from my perspective I was really excited about the way I played.”
DeChambeau is playing with a full set of 3D-printed irons that he fabricated for the first time in a major. He gained 2½ strokes on approach, which is a good thing because he didn’t hit many fairways. He also lost about 1.3 strokes on the greens.
According to Ray, it was the 14th time DeChambeau hit four or fewer fairways in a round in a major, the most of any player over the past 10 years. His 15 greens in regulation were his most in a major round when hitting four fairways or fewer.
Can he keep it up for three more rounds?
“There’s some driving holes out there I’ve got to work on,” DeChambeau said. “Other than that, I played really well.”
After missing his first cut in nearly four years at last week’s Scottish Open, Scheffler got off to a sizzling start at Royal Birkdale. He made birdies on four of his first six holes, hitting all five fairways and all six greens in regulation. He sank 72 feet, 2 inches of putts, according to ESPN Research, while grabbing the lead at 4 under.
But while Scheffler continued to hit fairways over the final 12 holes, his putter cooled off considerably. He hit seven of the last 12 greens and made 25 feet, 8 inches of putts. Scheffler caught a bad break on the par-5 17th when he hit his approach shot to the right. His ball landed under a wire in deep rough, leading to his second bogey of the round.
The defending Open Championship winner finished 2-under 68 and is in a tie for 13th.
Still, it was a good start for Scheffler.
“I felt like the few shots I hit offline today, I didn’t get up-and-down on 7 and then missed the fairway on 10,” Scheffler said. “I’m in a pot bunker, and then on 17 was really the only other shot I hit offline and I end up in that spot. That’s a pretty good assessment.
“I felt like I could have gotten a little bit more out of it, but yeah, if I continue to do what I did today with the ball-striking, I’ll be in a good spot as the week goes on.”
McIlroy had to work to get back to 2 over after 18 holes and it could have been worse. He made four birdies with six bogeys.
The reigning Masters champion lost 2.72 strokes on the green — he two-putted from inside 4 feet on No. 7 and missed a 4-footer for par on No. 10 — and ranked 148th out of 156 golfers in putting. His short game wasn’t much better; he was 144th in strokes gained: around the green (-1.25).
“I struggled the first two holes to get the speed of the greens,” McIlroy said. “I felt like they were very inconsistent, just because some parts of the greens are still alive and growing and other parts have [gone] really dead. It sort of reminds me a bit of Pebble Beach when Pebble Beach gets like that for a U.S. Open. It’s just hard to judge the speed sometimes.”
McIlroy carded bogeys on both par 5s on the back nine. On the 14th, he hit his drive into the rough and pitched into a deep fairway bunker. On the 17th, he hit his third shot over the green and into a greenside bunker and couldn’t get up and down.
It was the sixth time in McIlroy’s career that he posted a score over par in the first round of The Open. He missed the cut three previous times and tied for 25th in 2011 and for fourth in 2017.
But McIlroy was happy with the way he drove the ball and feels that he isn’t out of it yet.
“I felt like I learned quite a bit today about how the course is playing, how the ball is reacting out of the first cut of rough,” McIlroy said. “Definitely when it gets that burnt and that dry, it can sort of do some weird things. I feel like it exaggerates the spin quite a lot. If you’re hitting a draw or hitting a fade, it seems to exaggerate the spin on the ball a lot. [That] happened to me a few times out there.”
Work to do on Friday
There are plenty of big names other than McIlroy who are going to have to go low Friday to be around for the weekend at Royal Birkdale.
Many of them will probably get more benign conditions in the Friday morning wave. The wind shifted to off the Irish Sea in the Tuesday afternoon wave, making conditions even more difficult.
“It was important I didn’t get caught leaderboard watching and see what the leader guys were doing,” said Shane Lowry, who finished 1-under 69. “I feel like hopefully we’re going to get that nice easterly wind that they had tomorrow morning. I felt like it was tricky.”
Among those who are in danger of missing the cut: Gary Woodland (8 over), Joaquín Niemann (6 over), Justin Rose (5 over), Sam Burns (3 over), Cameron Smith (3 over), Jordan Spieth (3 over), Jason Day (3 over), Harris English (3 over), Wyndham Clark (3 over), Matt Fitzpatrick (2 over), Adam Scott (2 over), Patrick Reed (2 over) and Hideki Matsuyama (2 over).
“I don’t think it was all really that bad,” said Smith, the 2022 Open Championship winner. “Got a lot of crosswinds off the tee and hit it into the rough by 1 or 2 [yards] a few times and ended up making bogey. It was tough out there, though.”
