Five Things You Might Have Missed

There was so much going on at The 149th Open that you may have struggled to keep up with all of the action.

Here is a rundown of five things you might have missed from a fascinating Championship.

Morikawa’s record total

In the immediate aftermath of the Championship, much attention understandably focused on Collin Morikawa becoming the first man in history to win in his debut appearances at two majors.

Yet this stunning achievement somewhat overshadowed another record achieved by Morikawa. By posting a total of 265, he recorded the lowest-ever score in any Open at Royal St George’s.

Morikawa’s 15-under aggregate was two better than Greg Norman’s winning mark of 267 in 1993.

Only Henrik Stenson, who carded an extraordinary 20-under 264 at Royal Troon in 2016, has managed a lower 72-hole total in The Open.

Rahm shows major consistency

Jon Rahm arrived at Royal St George’s as the reigning U.S. Open Champion and the only man to have finished inside the top 10 at each of the first three majors in 2021.

The Spaniard easily completed a full set of top-10s by finishing tied for third in The Open, his best finish in the Championship to date.

After starting his bid for the Claret Jug with a disappointing 71, Rahm charged up the leaderboard on Friday with a superb 64 – the joint-lowest score of the week. He then posted scores of 68 and 66 to finish four behind Morikawa.

Had his putter been a touch hotter over the weekend, Rahm would have mounted an even stronger challenge. In any case, a major record in 2021 of T5, T8, 1 & T3 is hugely impressive.

Driving accuracy not so crucial?

Given some of the fearsome rough at Royal St George’s, finding the fairway from the tee felt particularly important.

However, that was not necessarily borne out by the week’s driving accuracy statistics, as three of the five players to have hit the highest percentage of fairways missed the cut.

Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano was comfortably the most accurate player off the tee, hitting 82.14% of fairways, but he failed to make the weekend.

Morikawa hit 60.71% of fairways on his way to securing victory, placing him joint-59th in the field. However, the Champion Golfer fared notably better in other areas, tying for sixth in the Greens in Regulation (GIR) standings and fifth in the average number of putts per GIR.

Kisner’s rapid round

Yuxin Lin and Kevin Kisner played on their own in rounds three and four respectively, after an odd number of golfers (77) made it through to the weekend.

And Kisner was certainly not hanging about when it came to his final 18. The American opened up a huge gap between himself and game two on Sunday morning as he went round in just two and a half hours.

The fast pace of play clearly suited Kisner, who carded his best score of the week, a two-under 68, to improve on his previous day’s score by 10 and finish the Championship on five over.

Almost a full set of pars for Poom

Playing in the group behind Kisner on Sunday, Poom Saksansin came close to a rare feat.

The 28-year-old Thai stood on the 18th tee having parred every single hole of his final round.

A closing four would have resulted in a card of rare symmetry, but Saksansin finished with a bogey five, dropping him into a tie for 76th at eight over.