Bryson controversy caps a tight 36 holes at The Open. Plus: Sam Burn’s surprise showing
Golf Briefing ⛳ | This is The Athletic’s newsletter for the 2026 Open Championship. Sign up here to receive the Golf Briefing directly in your inbox.
Good afternoon! I’m Alex, keeping you updated on The Open Championship from my command center back stateside. Gabby will share more from North West England shortly. Here’s a peek at the top of your 36-hole leaderboard:
1. Lucas Herbert (-8)
T-2. Jackson Suber (-6)
T-2. Cameron Young
T-2. Ryan Gerard
T-5. Sam Burns (-5)
T-5. Bryson DeChambeau
T-5. Si Woo Kim
🚨 Controversy: DeChambeau ruling overshadows the day
Quickly: The big drama Friday came after the golf ended, when R&A officials escorted Bryson DeChambeau to the fifth hole. At the time, DeChambeau had been in the clubhouse at 7 under, in solo second place. He would not remain there for long.
The officials wanted to know what DeChambeau had been up to when he paced around the area of his golf ball in a thicket of deep rough on Royal Birkdale’s fifth hole, right of the fairway. It sure looked, on the footage, like DeChambeau had taken more steps than necessary to access his ball and may have improved his chances of taking a clean backswing as he advanced his ball. (He made bogey.) An animated DeChambeau pushed back.
When the dust settled, the R&A assessed a two-shot penalty for what it said was an “inadvertent” move that helped his backswing. That moved DeChambeau to 5 under, in a tie for fifth. As we send you this newsletter, DeChambeau is at least inviting speculation that he may not continue in the tournament in protest. His agent told a group of reporters after the ruling that we’d see if his player would show up Saturday. (Personally, I’ll believe he’s opting out of a real shot to win a major when I see it, and not a moment before.)
Much more here, in a file that will be updated throughout the night. We’ll move now to the rest of the tournament.
Round 2: A PGA Championship breaks out at The Open
Tell me if this sounds like a major you know: Through 36 holes, the leaderboard has a few stars up top, but most prominently features little-known players from the depths of the world’s major tours. The scores are low, and commentary is mounting that suggests the golf course has no defense for the best players in the world. Purists are disappointed that the venue is not “rewarding great shots” or “punishing misses” like a major should.
Almost line-for-line, you could slot in those details for any number of recent PGA Championships. That major, the one that gets criticized for not having an identity, is not the one being played at Royal Birkdale this week. Instead, at The Open Championship, we’re getting a decidedly PGA-like spectacle. Just a few of the details:
- An unheralded leader. Thirty-year-old Aussie Lucas Herbert, whose lone PGA Tour win is the 2021 Butterfield Bermuda Championship, leads at -8 through 36 holes. (He has six other professional wins, including three on the European Tour and one on LIV Golf earlier this year.)
- A forgiving, if rock-hard, golf course. An English-record heat wave should make golf harder, not easier, one would think. The course is baked out, and golf balls are bouncing and running all over the place. But the weather around Royal Birkdale has seemingly taken the teeth out of the fescue that comprises most of the rough at this links course, and the best players in the world are all strong enough to hack through it with ease.Hence, DeChambeau missing 10 of 14 fairways Thursday but still managing to be the best tee-to-green player in the field. Or, for example, Scottie Scheffler saying on TV that he re-added his driver to his plans mid-round after watching how little his playing partners DeChambeau and Tyrrell Hatton were paying for being offline.
- A lack of separation based on precise play. Contrary to what most of us thought pre-tournament, Birkdale is favoring bombers off the tee because of its easily conquerable rough. The field’s 36-hole scores have produced, on standard deviation terms from Data Golf, a much more bunched field than either a typical PGA Tour event or what Birkdale has produced in the past. The tighter and more jumbled the field, the less likely that a star capable of a runaway will actually produce that outcome.
Not everyone has found the place so easy to tear apart, of course. The week’s prominent cut-missers include the winners of the last two majors, Wyndham Clark and Aaron Rai, plus last week’s winner at the Scottish Open, Tom Kim. Goodbye as well to Cam Smith, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland and, perhaps saddest of all, Jordan Spieth. Full rundown here.
None of that means that whoever hoists the Claret Jug in two days will not have earned it. But it does mean this championship (or the weather) has some work to do for the 154th Open to go down as a classic. Now, here’s Gabby on one star who could help make that happen.
The Turn: A baby, a change of plans and a 62 on the card
Sam Burns’ mother was sure of it. His swing coach was pretty positive about it. And Burns himself was dead set on it: The 29-year-old was not supposed to play The Open at Royal Birkdale.
That’s what I (Gabby) reported back in June, after Burns finished in second place at the U.S. Open, a close call that tortured him more than people realized. After all, it was supposed to be Burns’ final major appearance of the season. The absence would be coming as his game was peaking, but family is first for the Burnses.
This week, Burns was supposed to be back home in Choudrant, La., taking care of his wife, Caroline, as she prepared to give birth to the couple’s second child. An international flight and a week on the northwest coast of England with a mid-July due date was simply not in the cards.
That’s why Burns’ mother, Beth, definitely told me at Shinnecock Hills that her son “won’t go to Europe.”
“I thought there was zero percent chance,” Sam Burns said.
That is, until baby Belle came 11 days early — a birth that turned out to clear the way for one of the lowest rounds in Open Championship history Friday.
- Sometimes, things just work out. Burns is lucky that his agent, Brett Falkoff, kept him signed up for The Open until the very last moment.
- He did not decide to tee it up in the championship until last Friday, and he did it after several long talks with Caroline, weighing his options. He only flew into England on Monday and didn’t arrive at the course until the middle of the day.
“We ended up having her on the 3rd,” Burns said. “Even then, I still wasn’t expecting to play by any means. Had a bunch of conversations with my wife, and she encouraged me to come over here and play, and here we are.”
The Open is now more than a “here we are” situation for Burns, because he went out Thursday and carded an 8-under 62 — a massive bounce-back from his opening 73 — to match history for the lowest score recorded in a major. He ended the day at 5 under for the championship, good for a tie for sixth.
I bumped into Burns’ brother, Chase, and his coach, Brad Pullin, on Thursday as they were following Sam’s round. They marveled at the fact that he was getting the opportunity to play in this tournament, and at that point, he was making a mess of Royal Birkdale.
Friday was a different story: Burns carded two birdies on his front nine and six on his back nine, including a hole-out from the greenside pot bunker on No. 18, to post the record-tying score. He did not know he’d accomplished such a feat until he was informed during an interview.
“I had no idea until they told me up there,” he said. “Yeah, I’m very pleased with it.”
Sounds like quite the understatement, but let’s chalk that up to lingering jetlag.
By the way: It wasn’t just Burns who filled up his card with birdies and shot a 62. Herbert, your leader, matched him. Two 62s in one day at a major, sheesh.
The Schedule
Times for Saturday are U.S. Eastern:
- Streaming: 5 a.m. onward on Peacock
- TV: 5 a.m. on USA, 7 a.m. onward on NBC
No need to highlight notable tee times on the weekend, but you’ll be able to find all of them right here.
Our third-round live blog will be accessible here by early in the morning. And here’s the leaderboard again, which, coincidentally, is the tee times list in reverse order.
See you tomorrow!
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