Issue No. 231 | July 18, 2025 | Read Online

It obviously did not come even close to happening, but I was rooting for Shane Lowry’s moving ball to lead to a penalty stroke that somehow moved the cut line.

Can you imagine?

Well, I was planning on trying to make a move on the weekend at The Open, but this Irishman’s golf ball moved 1/32 inch while I was sitting at home so now I’m headed back to Florida instead of attempting to shoot 65-65 at Royal Portrush.

Incredible (and incredibly dumb) sport.

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OK, now onto the news.

15 Thoughts on Round 2 of The Open

1. It’s early afternoon, I’m making a smoothie for what feels like dinner, and thinking to myself, “Hmm … nothing truly crazy has happened so far today.” Not 15 minutes later I’m back at my desk, and Kevin Kisner is diving under his desk in the broadcast booth.

Why?

There was apparently a bat in the booth, which led to Dan Hicks flailing like — as one reader said — a drowning dog, and Kisner hiding under his sports coat.

What a scene!

Outdoor sport!

If this isn’t in The Open Shop by Sunday, what are we even doing?

2. It’s not over, but boy it felt over at times on Friday during Scottie’s 64. Two reasons I don’t think it’s quite Vince Carter time yet.

Scottie made a LOT of putts on Friday.
The quality of players underneath the top of the board is insane.

Also I might be trying to talk myself into something here because tight majors are the best majors, and two of the four Opens since Covid have been blowouts.

Here’s the problem if your name is not Scottie Scheffler.

He can’t miss an iron. He’s working them into every hole location from every distance and every angle. If he can keep driver in play, I just think this is going to win the day over the weekend.

Look at this!

A short one on 5.

A medium one on 14 (to a difficult back pin, and he’s on the correct side … of course).

And then a long one on 16.

It’s just 15 feet, 15 feet, 15 feet, 15 feet until everyone else gives up.

You could make a lengthy list of reasons he’s the best player since Tiger (for an extended period of time), but distance control is in the top five, and that is on display this week as much as it has ever been.

Like I said on Thursday, the surprise is not that he’s leading, it’s that he hasn’t been more successful at this tournament before.

3. Matty Fitzpatty will play with Scheffler on Saturday and try to snap a 33-year streak in which no Englishman has won The Open.

The only question is: Is Fitzy dawg enough?

I’m not positive he has the firepower to roll with Scottie given how unsteady his play has been this year, but I do think one underrated aspect when it comes to him is his competitiveness. He’s a dog, which you love to see, and I enjoyed this quote from him after firing a 66 that really should have been a 64.

There's nothing better than being in contention.
It feels a bit uncomfortable at the time, but that's what you're searching for. You want to feel that. It means you're doing something right for the most part.
Yeah, it's great to have an opportunity over the next two days, and it was last week, as well, and the week before. It must be fantastic for Scottie.
Matt Fitzpatrick

And as a fan, there’s nothing better than watching guys deal with being in contention.

This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …

A deep dive on the Rules of Golf (fun!).
Some Ryder Cup (!!) takeaways.
Why Rory may still have a bit of magic in the bag.

If you aren’t yet a Normal Club member, you can sign up right here.

If you are, keep reading!

Welcome to the members-only portion of today’s newsletter. I hope you both enjoy it and find it to be valuable to your golf and/or personal life.

Reporting live from the streets of Portrush.

4. OK, I guess we’re getting steep on this Lowry ruling, which actually did nearly move the cut line. He went from 2 under to E, and the cut was at +1.

Anyway, here’s some thoughts.

1. He obviously moved the ball. Watch this video. It moved. He hit a brown piece of grass or a stick, and the ball moved.

2. I thought it was weird that both he and Scottie acted like they couldn’t tell if it moved. They must not have had this video. There were a lot of videos floating around in which it was difficult to tell. Maybe those were the ones they were shown in scoring.

3. I don’t know what you do about this, but I find it unfair that stars have cameras on them at all times, and most of the field does not. Although this can be both a benefit and a detriment at times so maybe it’s a wash in the end.

4. I’m not sure I agree with the rules of golf when you can legally move your ball out of the rough because of a sprinkler head, but then you accidentally clip a stick and your ball rotates 1/32 inch, and you’re penalized two shots.

Here’s Scottie at the U.S. Open in June on No. 17 at Oakmont.

And here’s Lowry’s ball on Friday at Portrush.

This is before and after!

Those are very different situations, one caused by the player and one not caused by the player. I understand this, but the spirit of what we’re trying to get at here — play the ball as it lies — seems pretty inconsistent.

And that’s not a “don’t penalize Lowry” subtweet. I think he should have been penalized a shot (not two), but I also think that we can’t be dragging golf balls out of the rough (!) in situations like Scottie did on the 71st hole at Oakmont.

5. Last night, my wife — Mrs. Normal — was gloating about how well her fantasy team did on Day 1 of The Open. Our family picks teams every year, and she was near the lead after Thursday. Her comment was something like, “I know my Europeans.”

I informed her that her best player was, in fact, an American to which she responded, “No, he’s English.” Very cool stuff.

And yes, I’m in last. Or I was after Round 1. Need to go add ‘em up tonight.

6. Here’s an interesting one. I think if Scottie wins this weekend, he’s immediately a top 20 player ever. Reminder, four years ago at this time, he had zero (ZERO) PGA Tour wins. Now, he’s legitimately 36 holes from being a top 20 player ever.

That would be 17 PGA Tour wins with two Masters, a PGA and an Open at Portrush. Bonus points for doing it in this era — I think unquestionably (?) the toughest era to win on the PGA Tour and in major championships ever — and there aren’t 20 guys you can legitimately put above Scottie with that resume.

He’s 28 years old.

7. Is this the greatest 36-hole leaderboard of a major ever?

No. It’s really good but not quite elite.

However, the leaderboard surrounds — those within 10 of the lead — are pretty wild. Here’s a list of players at even or better (all within eight of Harman in third). This probably won’t matter because of who’s at 10 under, but I find it interesting.

Phil
Henley
DJ
Hovland
Spieth
Rahm
Lowry
JT
Fleetwood
Rose
Xander
Ludvig
Burns
Rory
Keegan

That’s 25 majors between that crew, though none are currently in the top 10 on the leaderboard. Why so many great players at or around the lead?

Data Golf has a good theory: Portrush is slightly more penal in terms of accuracy off the tee compared to other Open venues, which makes it more similar to … the regular PGA Tour courses on which these guys have become stars. It makes sense that you would get more stars piling up here than at, say, Royal St. George’s.

“What a place to be a dog” - overheard on The Open Radio

8. I had four boxes going on YouTube TV for most of the day, and the playing through box on the main broadcast killed me. It’s like 1 inch by 2 inches!

Me trying to see playing through.

I should have used my Precision Pro instead.

9. Ryder Cup corner. Lots of questions were raised this week. Some answers were also provided. We won’t get steep, but a quick rundown.

• Reed? ✌️

• Koepka? ✌️

• Cantlay?

• What about Morikawa?

• Is Gotterup a lock if he finishes top 10 this weekend?

• Is Gotterup a better choice than Cantlay? Is Spieth a better choice than Cantlay? Would you rather have Gotterup and Spieth or Morikawa and Cantlay?

• Keegan is going to take himself, right? I mean, if he finishes top 10 here and plays well in the playoffs, I think we’re getting into “it would be irresponsible not to” territory.

And he seems to know it.

No, I wouldn't yet [mentally put myself on the team if I finish top 10]. I'd wait. Again, I want to make sure I put the team in the best position to play. I have to really figure out how this would work.
But I've got great vice captains. Jim Furyk is, like, the best. He knows how to do this. Sneds and Webb and Gary, they're a great team to lean on.
Keegan Bradley

• Also lose me on the “Bryson might not be a lock” talk. Kisner noted that it was important that Bryson shot 65 to make the cut on Friday because of the Ryder Cup points at stake over the weekend. What?!

Listen, if you’re not taking Bryson, the Great Exhibitionist — currently No. 4 in the Data Golf rankings — to the greatest exhibition in sports, then what are we even doing?

How quickly we forget!

A quick collage to see how it’ll look when today repeats itself in September.

10. Speaking of Bryson … what a show on Friday. He almost did the Full Rory and barely made the cut in the process. Rory went 79-65 in 2019 to miss the cut by one. Bryson went 78-65 in 2025 to make the cut on the number. It would have been so easy to mail it in, and he went out and played like a champion. That’s not a given — not everybody does that — and I loved seeing it.

Also, he got deep on a ball he’s trying to (personally?) manufacture.

I need a golf ball that on wedges can click on the face more consistently. I get a lot of slipping on the face just because of how vertical I am and how much loft I have, and it just rolls up the face and launches with no spin most of the time on my shots, so getting something that comes off at a more consistent trajectory in adverse conditions is really the goal.
Bryson DeChambeau

Imagine a normal person reading that.

I get a lot of slipping on the face just because of how vertical I am.

11. One thing that for sure doesn’t always come through on TV is something Darren Clarke talked about on Thursday after his first round.

There's so much slope on these greens that, if you do miss them, it takes a helluva shot to get it within a couple of feet. You're going to have the 5-, 6-footers a lot. You've got to be solid with those. It's tricky out there when the breeze is blowing and raining a bit. Those are tough ones to keep on knocking in. That's what you've got to do. Swings.
Darren Clarke

You don’t really think “huge falloffs and slopes” when it comes to links golf, but there were a handful of camera angles on Friday that really got at this idea.

It makes the golf course look so, so difficult.

Here’s how Harman described it.

I think that places like this force you to be a little bit more creative. It's not so much of an aerial attack. There's probably 10 different types of clubs, irons, drivers, woods that you can hit off the tee. There's different ways to attack into the green, and there's almost always a hill that will kind of kill a shot coming into the green.
I just enjoy the creativity and trying to think your way around. You're not forced to hit certain shots. You can kind of do it your own way.
Brian Harman

Both of these were on No. 6, but you could pull them from any number of holes.

Then this was Matt Jordan on No. 16 on Thursday.

12. Folks, I am here to report that No. 5 absolutely slaps. You can almost see the discomfort it creates in players depending on where they are, what the wind is doing, what the lie is like and (mostly) where the pin is.

It is an incredible golf hole, primarily because it makes players think, and it makes them hit consequential golf shots. Sure, you can take that one. But do you want to? Do you want to fly it or bump it or maybe putt it? Have you seen how close the stakes are to the pin today? My gosh, I could watch that hole all day.

Also, Rory did something today that I would never even dream of even thinking about. Third shot, on the green, OB barely long of the green, and he’s like, “Yeah, gonna spin this one with a wedge.”

Sick, sick stuff.

His drop and par save on 2 were equally sick in a different way.

13. Fitz, who is a fast play proselytizer, was amped about how slow the first two rounds have been.

I do think it's ridiculous; the pace of play has been a combination of the way the golf course is, reachable par-5s and all that normal stuff. But it starts with the players as well and starts with the rules officials.
Matt Fitzpatrick

No solutions really, but I do like that he starts with players and officials instead of starting with ideas and abdicating the people enforcing and participating in them.

14. This Justin Rose scene was sending me.

Look how many humans are looking for his golf ball!

Jason heard the whole thing on Open Radio.

While Justin Rose was looking for his ball, someone emailed Open Radio from a trampoline park and they said “I bet Justin Rose wishes he was at a trampoline park right now and not in the jungle.” Then one of the radio folks looking for his ball said, “I feel like I’m on a trampoline jumping in these bushes.”

I don’t know why that made me laugh so much.

15. Rory. Three under, seven back, a home Open still on the table. There’s almost nothing he hasn’t done now. St. Andrews. A fast U.S. Open. Portrush. He’ll get one more good rip at the Old Course, several at a proper U.S. Open, but honestly … this might be it in his prime for an Open in Northern Ireland.

I don’t think he’s going to win, but I do think we’re going to get a moment or maybe a couple of them this weekend that make you dream a little bit.

In Paolo’s excellent profile of Rory nearly going to East Tennessee State, he quoted the old ETSU coach who recruited Rory, Fred Warren, talking about him.

McNamara and Shaw (as well as O'Callaghan) were part of Ireland's boys teams. So when Warren was recruiting them and traveling to tournaments all over the United Kingdom and Ireland, the name of a younger player kept coming up. "They're the ones who told me about Rory," Warren said. "I started watching him when he was about 13 or 14.
“You could tell then he had it, whatever you want to say 'it' is, he had it."
ESPN

This is true. It’s a kind of magic. This sounds so stupid, I realize, but we all know people like this. They have something different, seemingly extra about them.

None of that means he’s going to run down Scottie, of course. In fact, it’s almost certain that he won’t. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a 64 or something silly somewhere in there. Just something that reminds you how different he is from all the others and how special this championship remains.

The image I imagine when I think of The Open.

Maybe not. Probably not! But … also maybe so.

Yeah, it's incredible to play in front of these fans. I was saying [earlier] it was 20 years ago that I played the North of Ireland here, and never in my wildest dreams did I think that I'd be coming back as a grand slam champion with the support of a nation behind me trying to win an Open Championship.
Rory McIlroy

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