SERGIO Garcia will miss the British Open for the third time in four years after the Master champion failed to get among the 20 spots on four courses during 36-hole qualifying.
For Matthew Baldwin, it’s a major championship on his home course at Royal Birkdale.
Baldwin was among five qualifiers at Dundonald Links in the west of Scotland, joining medalist Jake McDonald, amateurs David Howard and Nevill Ruiter, and West Point graduate Marcus Plunkett, who served five years in the Army.
“I get emotional just thinking about it. It will be incredible,” Baldwin said. “Fortunately I have done it a couple of times before in the northwest at Hoylake and at Lytham so it will be a dream come true to do it in front of my family. It will be amazing.”
The British Open is July 16-19 at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England.
A trio of Americans — Peter Uihlein, Caleb Surratt and James Nicholas — qualified for both of golf’s oldest championships. They also made it through 36-hole qualifiers for the US Open.
Uihlein, the 2010 US Amateur champion, was among five qualifiers at Royal Cinque Ports along with medalist Baard Bjoernevik Skogen, M.J. Daffue, Matthew Southgate and Antoine Rozner. Nicholas and Surratt qualified at Burnham & Berrow with Tom Sloman, Austen Truslow and amateur Alejandro de Castro Piera.
Sam Bairstow led the five qualifiers at West Lancashire, joined by Kazuma Kobori, Josele Ballester, Tiger Christensen and Matthew Jordan, who got the final spot in a playoff.
Among those who failed to make it through were LIV Golf players Thomas Detry and Anirban Lahiri, and Thriston Lawrence of South Africa, who finished fourth in the 2024 British Open at Royal Troon. Also missing out were 2016 Masters champion Danny Willet and Florida junior Luke Poulter, the son of Ryder Cup stalwart Ian Poulter. AP
CROMWELL, Connecticut — The year is at the halfway point. The PGA Tour season is not.
Two months, and only one major, are all that remain for the PGA Tour in 2026 to find some definition. There have been good tournaments, great finishes, redemptions and breakthroughs, and Scottie Scheffler as steady as he has always been.
It’s just that no one has stood out this year.
Rory McIlroy became only the fourth back-to-back Masters champion, and the first since Tiger Woods in 2002. It was an example of how much freedom he felt from finally having the green jacket and the career Grand Slam. But that’s his only win this year, and except for a late rally at Riviera, he really hasn’t come close.
The eight signature events were won by eight players, no different from last year when seven players won the seven $20 million tournaments. But a year ago, all seven winners were among the top 25 in the world when they won. This year that applied to only three winners — Collin Morikawa (19) at Pebble Beach, Matt Fitzpatrick (7) at Hilton Head and Cameron Young (4) at Doral.
It also is not unusual to start a season with three different major champions — that’s been the case each of the past 11 years. But it’s the first time since 2010 that two of the three major champions were not among the top 30 when they won.
Scheffler began his year with a four-shot victory in The American Express. Thirteen tournaments later, he still only has one victory.
He still leads the PGA Tour in overall strokes gained and tee-to-green, though his numbers are down from a year ago. Scheffler has nine finishes in the top 5 in his 14 starts. His playoff loss to Viktor Hovland at The Travelers Championship was his fourth runner-up of the year.
Take only the money from those four runner-up finishes — $8.9 million — and that would rank him at No. 4 on the PGA Tour money list. He hasn’t been as sharp at times. He had a bad habit of giving the field too much of a head start. But he doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. AP
