The Open was as good as ever. There are other weeks where we completely dive in and bathe ourselves in all a major has to offer, but none more so than the Open. I got sucked in again, reviewing every player comment, looking through the stats, reading everything I could about the course, and taking in almost every hour of TV coverage. We’ve got the winner and the course covered in our newsletter by my more capable colleagues so here are some more notes on the week that was beyond our new Champion Golfer of the Year, Xander Schauffele.

Two Vets That Fought

Justin Rose was a lion the entire week. He played on the tough side of the draw, through what multiple players called the hardest golf conditions they’ve ever faced late on Saturday, and then went toe-to-toe in a pairing with the champion until the final hour. He did not run away and hide, either, making birdie at 16 and 18 to post a final round 67. Rose has had a magnificent career, but these late-stage moments at last year’s Ryder Cup and this again week have created a further appreciation of his longevity. In an era of invite-only signature events and limited fields, it also created a further appreciation of truly open championships, and players like Rose who go through the qualifying process despite having accomplished (and earned) so much already. “It’s still my dream,” he said on another chance to win another major. “In a few years it’ll be someone else’s dream. But yeah, still my dream right now.”

The same praise for Rose should be directed at Billy Horschel, who had almost no major record to speak of prior to this week. Played in the toughest possible environment, his Saturday back nine featured just one bogey despite only one green in regulation thanks to otherworldly scrambling through the wind and rain. It was one of the most memorable recent stretches of golf, and it took place during one of the most memorable recent viewing blocks at a major.

Horschel may never contend at a major again, but he was adamant he’d cracked some code about not trying to be “perfect” and getting in his own way at the game’s biggest events. Your perception of him may be as some insulated American, but he’s embraced world golf and playing different styles on the DPWT more than just about any other player from the States. That helped him this week, and brought more fans into his corner. He’s a colorful character, and both his personality and his game were quite additive to this Open.

The Golf World Order

There was about an hour or so where it looked like Thriston Lawrence would be the champion. I saw some Euros taking offense to American press not knowing enough about him. If you follow the DP World Tour with any interest, you’d be well aware of Lawrence and his success there. But if we’re being cold and calculated about this, the Euro Tour is not what it once was. It’s a certified feeder tour now.

That doesn’t mean I agree with it. But all week, players like Ewen Ferguson, Tom McKibbin, and Matteo Manassero were asked about and admitted to the ongoing chase and goal of securing top-10 status on the DP World Tour in order to earn a PGA Tour card.

And how many pure DPWT players have won majors recently? The last one was Danny Willett in 2016. Beyond Willett, there’s really only Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell in the last 15 years, and expanding the search back to the start of this century only adds Michael Campbell to the group. The last couple of decades have seen plenty of European winners at majors, yes, but that’s not a lot of DPWT-first winners out of the last 100 or so majors contested. But we’re not in the 1980s or 90s anymore. For better or worse, pro golf has grown quite homogenous, the recent LIV disruption notwithstanding. Just like there’s not a lot of variety in the kinds of golf courses played, there’s a pretty clear stratification of world golf tours these days. Maybe the Open serves as an equalizing chance, or at least a representation of one. Lawrence’s showing was extremely impressive, and a victory would not have been a total shock to those of us paying attention. But there’s a reason he wasn’t well-known: he plays on a tour that’s objectively been relegated to minor-league status.

Scottie’s Maddening Weekend 

With no more majors to satiate us, the media will now debate Scottie Scheffler vs. Xander for player of the year honors. There will absolutely be an attempt to add weight to the FedExCup as part of this. Wherever you land on that, it’s likely Scheffler clinched “shot of the year” honors with his laser 3-wood into 17 on Saturday night.

As someone aptly put to me on Twitter, “not sure how to describe the best shot I’ve ever seen but also not the best shot on that hole today.” That’s the take: Scottie hit a shot so good that it had Those Who Know salivating over it more than the longest hole-in-one in major championship history from Si Woo Kim, which happened at the same hole on the same day.

That tee shot was one of the few times Scheffler removed the putting uncertainty otherwise on display all weekend. He was among the worst in the field on Saturday, then putted himself out of it on Sunday with a three-putt from seven feet at the ninth. Like his issues with the unpredictably of offline hits into the wiregrass at Pinehurst, Scheffler did say the greens were good for a links course but “not the truest of surfaces” to putt on, adding that they affected some of his rolls on Saturday.

He may change putters, coaches, approaches, or styles, but, like an elite talent in some other sport with a chronic injury concern, the putting unreliability is just going to be a part of the Scheffler package in varying degrees of severity, however maddening you might find it.

Diminishing Chances

Rory McIlroy’s resilience has been commendable after recent major heartbreaks. Given how he continues to perform, it’s hard to doubt the genuineness of his mindset when it comes to learning from the losses, getting over Pinehurst, and the benefit of continuing to put yourself in the fight as much as possible. But weeks like this, when you get the shit end of the draw or maybe just don’t have it, accentuate the actual lost opportunity and pain of coming so close and not getting it done. Time, place, and other circumstances out of your control may limit those next chances, and actually taking advantage of the opportunities you do get becomes all the more valuable.

Mother Nature’s Rollback

Daniel Hillier, of all people, re-emphasized one of the more interesting points to be taken from this week. The distance debate tends to get muddied by framing it entirely around the ball going 400 yards. But the larger issue for most is the penalty for mishits being lost, devaluing real skill as players push the speed limit without much fear of punishment. The winds actually brought that penalty back into play for a moment, as Hillier outlined: “When it’s blowing 30, 40K’s an hour, if you slightly mis-hit it, you can spin one up in the air, and the difference between hitting a good shot and a bad shot is really drastic,” he said on Saturday. This seems to be getting us closer to an ideal test of skill that we’d want at the pro level — a real difference between a good hit and bad hit. Wind is nature’s rollback, in a way, but the obvious problem there is that we hardly even try to replicate these conditions on the PGA Tour.

Postal Service

I used to think the Postage Stamp was over-covered. Not overhyped, just over-covered because it had a cool name. I am an idiot. These are all subjective debates, but I think it might be the best short par 3 in the world. The wind, while not ever-present, is a more reliable factor at Troon than at most championship courses.

The direction of that wind is extra spicy, as the eighth hole presents a player’s first shot into a new direction. I’ll let Austin Eckroat explain further: “I think what makes it so difficult is for us all week it was off the right for the first seven holes and then it’s the first down-off-the-left shot you have all week,” he said. “But it’s the first time you’ve hit a ball out of the left because the range is off the right as well, so you’re kind of guessing on how much the wind is going to move the ball.”

In addition to this natural advantage, I also tend to rank the uncertainty its hazards bring into play ahead of the binary nature of the surrounding punishment for its short par 3 competition: water. The bunkers surrounding the Postage Stamp could end you, but you’re not really sure until you get up there. It’s possible to get out and make a three, or even a four that has you feeling good about yourself. Or you could make a quick double or quintuple bogey. The variety of scores reinforced its greatness again this week. Matt Fitzpatrick, who loves his numbers, said he thought bunkers should have somewhere around a 70-30 split in terms of having no shot or being able to have a chance to pull something off. Whether you agree or disagree with his calculation, it seems more exciting than the black and white result of a water hazard. Everything about this hole–where it sits in the round, the variety it creates, the mental exam–is perfect. It cannot be overhyped or overcovered.

Quote of the Week

As I wrote on Wednesday before we teed off, the Open, more than any other event, gets the golfers talking about real golf and their craft. Maybe they’re just humoring us at this point, but they seem to love waxing about it as much as we sickos enjoy hearing it. Troon provided conditions and a stage for too many soliloquies to choose from this week, but I’ll zero in on Max Homa’s answer about having to chip a 7-iron as one of my favorites.

“I feel like those are oddly freeing because you’re not supposed to know how to do it,” he said of the inventiveness around such a shot. “You just kind of feel like a kid again and just chip them. There’s no science to it on those. You just really have some feel and like a shot on a basketball court, just see it and try to make a 7-iron go that far.”

I’ll take that and so many other comments with me from Troon as we apply what we heard and learned at the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities.

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For more coverage of the Open Championship, visit our Open hub.