2026 Open Championship - Friday

Tonight's SGS dispatch from Brendan, KVV, and Joseph - full of live reaction as the Bryson saga was unfolding: https://youtube.com/live/qqyhr1vkhO0

Brandel still firing on Bryson. He has called him "childish" multiple times, said he "danced all over the path behind the ball" and "he did everything but lay down behind it or take a weed whacker to the tall grass". Not letting up at all.

Bryson DeChambeau has been assessed a two-shot penalty after an R&A review of his actions on the 5th hole.

The official Open Championship leaderboard now shows Bryson DeChambeau dropped down two shots to 5-under.

Not looking great for Bryson with these live re-enactment scenes

Thank you, Jon Rahm, for allowing the R&A's much-discussed new conduct policy to come into play!

In my personal opinion, you can't make a big deal out of your new policy and NOT enforce it - but we shall see!

The thing about Bryson is that he's never going to be "cooked." Not until his body breaks down, at least. And I'd expect him to stay in pretty good shape over the next 20 years.

Yes, he'll have long dry spells. Yes, at times he'll seem to care more about YouTube than traditional competitive golf. Yes, basic science suggests that his one-length irons will continue to steer the ball left.

But with a driver or putter in his hands, he's amazing. It's inevitable that he'll have weeks when the rest of his game clicks, too.

We just have to remember that next time he misses three major cuts in a row. If we say, "Oh, he's definitely done now," we're just setting ourselves up to be proven wrong in short order.

That was a professional birdie from Bryson DeChambeau on No. 11. A 191-mph bullet and a wedge to four feet into the wind - albeit not a ton of wind. The 11th can be a beast, and a lot can go wrong when you hit a driver that hard.

On paper, the 11th hole is the type of hole that could trip up Bryson, one that you wouldn't expect to take advantage of with distance. So far in this championship, though, DeChambeau has largely been under control and playing beautifully.

I keep waiting for the train to wreck, given that there are some spots he could get into serious trouble off the tee. But DeChambeau has done an excellent job answering skepticism surrounding his form and his ability to play links golf in this tournament.

Can he keep it in play off the tee and hit his irons well for the duration of the tournament? Those, per usual, will be the questions for Bryson this weekend.

Aaaaand we'll step away for a minute to check in on our good friends at Spieth Tracking Enterprises

Tiger from the clouds! Sun Day Red stock on the move 📈

I truly do not understand the coverage strategy...if I only wanted to watch the featured groups that's what I would watch?

I love seeing Alex Fitz play so well. His play the last few months has certainly justified him getting his card at the Zurich. Probably not the brother some would have expected to be up near the top of the leaderboard. Hope he keeps it rolling.

Foul ball tee shot vs. Provisional for Bryson on 5

The 5th hole rules. We're watching an entertainment product, and you cannot say this has not been incredibly entertaining. Sorry if this offends.

A dystopian thought: Bryson could run himself a very nice Kalshi scam by starting a market on whether he'll talk to the press each day.

Keegan Bradley is still sad about the Ryder Cup

I am one of those people who (briefly) liked the idea of Keegan Bradley getting the Ryder Cup captaincy, in part because it annoyed me the way he was boxed out by the Boys Club as a player. I can concede that it didn't go particularly well, although I still believe he was put in a terrible position by the PGA of America (including the fact that he didn't even get the set up that he wanted).

It's also clear Bradley continues to be haunted a bit by the experience, and not just because his play has been mediocre this season. Unprompted, he brought up the Ryder Cup twice with reporters on Friday after his second round 72.

Q. How would you describe your year? How are you playing this year?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Not that great, but it's been a challenging year. Coming off of last year and the Ryder Cup and everything, just trying to get back to normal.

Q. Are you surprised that you did take a little while to try to get things figured out this year?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, it was just -- I don't know, it's so tough coming off these Ryder Cups. Like I'm in, again, a unique position of a person that's going back out and supposed to be a premier, top player trying to win tournaments and trying to navigate that, but we're getting there.

---

I can't help but feel for Bradley. This isn't the first time he's brought up the Ryder Cup, and how it threw off his whole game in the middle of his career. He wanted badly to play in a Ryder Cup again, not to captain one. He let the Full Swing cameras film his heartache, and suddenly he became a sympathetic character. Now he's trying to put the pieces back together for his golf game. He was asked to save the PGA of America from their own disfunction, and it's been difficult to escape the wreckage of Bethpage.

He would likely never admit it, but I wonder at this point if he wishes he'd turned down the job.

Sam Burns Ties History

Well, make that seven 62s or lower in major championship history. As Herbert was wrapping up his television interviews, Sam Burns holed a green-side bunker shot on 18 to match Herbert and record a 62 of his own.

Again, steroid era, but an impressive round nonetheless.

Lucas Herbert Ties History

Lucas Herbert shot 62 (-8) on Friday morning at Royal Birkdale, tying the lowest score in men's major championship history. He made nine birdies against one lone bogey at the last and didn't birdie either of the course's only two par 5s. It could have been even lower.

Any time a player shoots a record-breaking low number in today's game, it is worth recognizing that we are in golf's steroid era, so to speak. There have been six rounds in major championship history of 62 or lower and they've all come since 2017. If you can't acknowledge the role that equipment has played in letting the modern athlete dismantle golf courses, you're willfully ignoring a mountain of damning evidence.

But it isn't Herbert's fault the game has been governed poorly.

The 30-year-old Australian took advantage of benign Friday morning conditions and played a brilliant round of golf. Until the final hole, Herbert hadn't missed a putt inside 10 feet. But with a 61 on the line, his five-foot par attempt slid just left of the hole, and he tapped in for a record-tying 62.

"It was kind of odd feelings," Herbert told Todd Lewis after the round. "It's the second round of a tournament so you're trying to push as far ahead as you can. I'm half a golf geek, so I knew all the records. I knew the numbers. I knew what people had shot."

Herbert said that though he was nervous on 18, he thought he hit a good putt but it just wasn't meant to be. As of writing this, Herbert holds a two-shot lead as some of the afternoon rounds get underway. But he'll need to put Friday's historic round in the rearview mirror if he is to accomplish the bigger task of winning his first major championship in his 18th career major start.

"There is still so much golf to play so try not to get too caught up in this," Herbert said. "It's a really great experience to be leading the Open for however long this lasts...It's a really cool experience, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it regardless of the outcome."

“Hey Mike, what do you think this round does for Lucas Herbert’s trade value? Think the Rippers might be able to flip him for La Sasso and picks? They need to get younger, could be selling at the right time. I’ll hang up and listen.”

Came out to witness Rippers history. Amazing recovery shot by Herbert on 17 from a sandy path (everything is sand around here if you haven’t heard.)

NBC/USA running production of the 2005 Masters

Echoing a bit of what Kevin just wrote about, major championships and especially The Open, have a tendency of exposing poor strikes far more frequently than a normal stop. This morning especially, the conditions have the guys FLUMMOXED. Matty Fitz in particular looks like he's locked in an escape room and can't remember the capital of Brazil in order to unlock the final clue. He's catching fliers, getting "bad" bounces...the whole nine yards. One of the best ball strikers in the world is getting battered around by firm conditions and I'm hooting and hollering the whole way around

As he makes the turn T-4 at 4 under for the championship, I’m excited to see how Pierceson Coody fares on the back nine and this weekend.

Coody was a four-year star at Texas and a key player on the 2022 national title team, but his professional career has been a little slow to go compared to similar college talents. The 26-year-old yo-yoed between the Korn Ferry and PGA Tour for a few seasons but has since risen to 61st in the world. He’s still missing too many cuts, but in the 14 he’s made this season on Tour, he’s earned 10 top-25 finishes, including a T-2 at the Farmers.

His grandfather, Charles, won the 1971 Masters, so he’s got major pedigree if you buy into that sort of thing, but he’ll need to clean up his approach play if he’s to add to the family legacy. 

The leaderboard is shaping up for a great weekend at the Corales Puntacana Championship.

(Jk lots of golf left, but this is the current state of affairs)

As previewed by the SGS crew, it's good to wake up and see an Open Championship "regular feature", big, bad Shaun Norris in the mix.

Winter is Coming

Rory McIlroy is spending a good bit of time on the putting green with his putting coach Brad Faxon almost an hour before his tee time today. His putting was poor in the first round, and he noted afterwards that the greens gave him trouble.

I struggled the first two holes to get the speed of the greens. I felt like they were very inconsistent, just because some parts of the greens are still alive and growing and other parts have went really dead.

This probably sounds both silly and obvious -- man that's a terrible combination ... but today feels like a fairly critical opportunity for McIlroy. It sounds silly because he's accomplished just about everything in this game already, including a Masters win a few months ago. It sounds obvious because, well, no shit, it's a major. It will be a successful year for Rory no matter what happens, but going quietly and with an MC or languishing weekend out of contention would sting, and maybe even draw blood. It's clear and he's on record that it's all about the majors at this point in his career. After winning the Masters in April, he played in only two non-major golf tournaments until last week's Scottish. We're playing for legacy, not bank accounts or an endorsement renewals or FedExCup points.

Now comes the last opportunity for more than eight months. Almost everything he's playing for at this point in his career condenses into a four-month window, especially in a non Ryder Cup year, and that window closes this weekend, or even today if he's not careful. There's not immense pressure, but there is great importance to today and that much is evident on the putting green as he gets set to go.

Matthew Wallace, an English hope, arises here at Birkdale and is challenging for the lead. Now he must just overcome the scripting by Thomas Tuchel.

Good morning from Birkdale! Another glorious day of sunshine is expected here. I truly cannot overstate how delightful the weather has been. Do not listen to the malcontents about it being "too hot" with not enough AC.

An early course setup note: the 15th hole, the new beastly par-3 whose construction was member-driven but also brought variety to yardages for this championship, is playing on the up tee again today. I noted the circulating theory yesterday that they may do that all four days as the hole, and fall-offs around the green, come under some scrutiny with the players. Some of this has to do with wind directions that we have gotten this week, to be clear. Tom Mackenzie, the architect behind Birkdale's changes, articulated some regret about the hole in an article from Gabby Herzig yesterday:

“I’m slightly disappointed on No. 15. The idea was it would be the long par-3 playing downwind,” Mackenzie said. “The idea was to create one of the only par-3’s where you could land the ball short and run the ball on. Whereas they’ve actually brought the tee forward because it’s playing into the wind today. They’ll be able to hold it up in the wind. They probably won’t be landing it short and running it on. So I think there’s a little tinge of regret there, if I’m honest.”

The setup yardages for today. For the second straight day, the 15th hole is the only one coming with a note in the comments section.