At Open Championship, golf’s stars face unique opponent for final time

The Open Championship is a celebration — of golf’s beginnings, its past champions, its DNA, its homelands. For the last seven years, since the PGA Championship moved to May, it has also served as the final chapter of golf’s major season — the last chance for players to etch their names into history before the eight-and-a-half-month wait for the Masters begins.

It’s also the final time of the year that the faces of golf, the players around whom the sport revolves, face a unique opponent: grand, existential, possibly unanswerable questions about dreams, legacy, the long arc of pro golf, mortality and everything in between.

This week at Royal Birkdale has been no different. While major championships bring stress and often chippy interactions in press conferences, the players are normally in a jovial mood at the Open, happy to be playing a different style of golf in the place where the game was born and feeling good about their chances to accomplish a lifelong dream of becoming Champion Golfer of the Year (again, in some cases). So when odd, philosophical questions come their way (they always do), players seem more willing to entertain and ponder something bigger than how far their 6-iron might run this week.

The introspection started with Tommy Fleetwood, the local star who grew up in Southport and used to sneak onto Royal Birkdale as a kid. Now 35, Fleetwood is still chasing his first major championship. He has eight career major top-10s, including runner-up finishes at the 2018 U.S. Open and 2019 Open Championship. But Tommy Lad hasn’t recorded a major top-10 since the 2023 Masters, and as such, was asked to confront the possibility that he’ll never become a major champion.

As we’ve come to expect from Fleetwood, he took an optimistic view of the still-long road ahead while also admitting that his pursuit in golf can’t only come down to four tournaments a year. That would be a disservice to the work he has put in chasing his dreams.

“I’ll have to wait and find out,” Fleetwood said on Monday at Royal Birkdale. “There’s no doubt about it, I think winning majors is kind of like the ultimate accolades in our sport. It’s a difficult one. I don’t think I want to sort of look towards the future and worry about or think that I have to win a major to feel fulfilled. I think, like everyone else out here, we spend our lives giving it everything, and it might happen for me, it might not. I don’t want to think about it as if it doesn’t happen, all of those hours I spent chasing my dreams, what was it for, kind of thing. Whatever happens in my career, I will have — I’ll be able to look back and say that I gave it everything and I had an amazing time doing it. I would definitely much prefer to have a major or two or three on my resume by the time my career is over. Whether that happens or not is sometimes out of your control, but I think making sure you have a great time chasing it is the ultimate thing.

“Dreams do come true, we watch it all the time, but you’ll never find out if yours will unless you chase it. Mine might come true; it might not. I think I’ve done a lot in my career so far, but yeah, there’s still plenty more to go. Until my time is up, I’ll keep trying and keep working hard, and hopefully you can ask me that question again at some point, and I’ll be able to tell you how I actually feel.”

Monday was the appetizer for the Open Championship’s platter of big, existential questions. Tuesday was the main course.

Soon-to-be 46-year-old Justin Rose, who had his own Birkdale moment as an amateur in 1998 before missing 21 cuts in a row to begin his pro career, was asked if his career — one major, World No. 1, Olympic gold medal, etc. — is everything he envisioned when he turned pro after Birkdale in 1998 or if he would want a do-over.

One of golf’s great thinkers, Rose admitted that he would’ve liked to have done more in some areas; there are near-misses that could’ve gone his way and changed how he’s viewed. But overall, 28 years into a pro career, Justin Rose has zero regrets and believes that what he craves is still on the horizon.

“It’s almost an impossible answer, but the only way to answer it is: Would I want to do it again and think I could do better? I think I’d probably pass. I’d probably say I’ll let the chips — I’ll stay. I’ll stick,” Rose said. “I’m very happy with where I’m at. Could I have done more? Could I have won more of what I’ve already won? Yes. Would I love to be a multiple major champion? Yes. Do I feel I could have pushed towards close to a grand slam? Yes. I’ve had results that nearly put me in that realm. So a little bit of luck here and there, I could be sitting here with a very different career. But ultimately, if I look at it, I got to World No. 1. I’m a major champion, Olympic gold medalist, FedEx Cup. I’ve kind of achieved pretty much what there is to achieve in the game, albeit once only. But the highlights are great. Would I have just wanted more of it? Of course. Everyone’s greedy. But if I had to make a choice, there’s a lot of sideways and backwards moves available out here on Tour. Falling down a set of stairs, doing something stupid, whatever it might be, circumstance, life, there’s a lot of things that can get in your way over a 28-year career.”

Our philosophical golf journey ended with the two best players in the world, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.

At last year’s Open, Scheffler went viral for explaining the unfulfilling nature of winning tournaments and how things outside of golf fill the deepest desires of his heart. A year later, Scheffler explained what those who heard parts of his speech got wrong, or what he articulated poorly. What he was trying to say is that it’s important to know “your why.” That he’s driven by competition, thriving in the arena and the process that leads to it, not by the fleeting feeling that comes if he finishes on top.

The World No. 1 reflected on a frustrating year that has seen him finish runner-up four times while only winning once. Scheffler compared constant contention and the exhaustion that comes with it to an NFL team that continually goes deep in the playoffs. The grind and the pressure of being in the spotlight are a weight. He welcomes it, but it takes its toll. Then, Scheffler was asked about legacy and if he thinks about what his might be and if cementing his place in history is a motivating factor. Whereas numbers like 19 and 83 drove Tiger Woods, Scheffler said he’s uninterested in that pursuit because it won’t matter when he’s no longer here.

“I don’t really play, like, for a place in history. I’m not playing for anything like that because — this is going to sound a little morbid — at the end of the day, I’m going to live my life, and it’s going to end. When it ends, I’m going somewhere else, and I’m not going to be here anymore. Legacy and all that stuff was never really something that motivated me. For me, it was always competition. … I’ve never been one to play for history or legacy or anything like that.

“If I could be remembered — like I don’t necessarily want to be remembered for winning the tournaments that I won. I’d much rather be remembered for the way that I did it than the tournaments that I won. So if I’m doing things the right way, treating people the right way — like I said, a successful week for me is when I approach things the right way, when I’m committed to what I’m doing. But I’d much rather be remembered for doing things the right way than the guy that won all the tournaments.”

Rory McIlroy closed a pre-Open flurry of grand questions by noting he’s “learned the hard way” that chasing records and accolades is a dangerous path, one that doesn’t lead to a desired destination. A six-time major champion, McIlroy’s legacy is already cemented. Everything from here on out is gravy. But like Scheffler, that’s not a North Star for the two-time defending Masters champion.

“No, I don’t really care,” McIlroy said about whether he’s concerned about how he’ll be remembered. “I would like to think that the people that love and care about me think a certain way of me, but yeah, I’ll be long gone. I’ll be dead. I don’t think I’ll be seeing what people say about me. I’ll be six feet under. I don’t think I’ll be a ghost.

“I’m sure Scottie said something similar, but I think it would be a pretty unfulfilling pursuit if you’re just chasing records and chasing results. You have to enjoy the process. You have to enjoy the journey to get there. … If all you’re thinking about is winning and results, you’re playing the wrong game. Seeing how good I can be. Seeing if the work I’ve put in and the practice that I’ve put in can stand up to the most intense pressure that we are under, which is major championships.”

The final one of the year starts Thursday. By Sunday, more big questions will hang in the air. They’ll most likely stay there until April.