{"id":807845,"date":"2026-07-17T12:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/807845\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T12:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:49:15","slug":"2026-british-open-final-qualifiers-open-championship-ends-early-due-to-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/807845\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 British Open: Final qualifier&#8217;s Open Championship ends early due to injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One player\u2019s Open Championship is already over.<\/p>\n<p>James Nicholas withdrew prior to Friday\u2019s second round at Royal Birkdale due to an unspecified injury.<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas, who joined three other players this year in final-qualifying for both summer Opens (the first time that feat had been accomplished since 2019), said he\u2019d been dealing with the injury all week.<\/p>\n<p>He shot 5-over 75 in Thursday\u2019s first round, failing to card a birdie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPushed through it yesterday, but unfortunately that only made things worse, and I\u2019m unable to tee it up today,\u201d Nicholas said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompeting in an Open Championship has always been a dream of mine, which makes this one especially difficult to accept,\u201d Nicholas added. \u201cI want to thank all of the doctors and medical staff who worked hard to get me in the best shape possible to play this week. This isn\u2019t how I wanted the week to go, but I know I\u2019ll be back. For now, it\u2019s back to the States to focus on recovery and figure out the best path forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas was supposed to tee off at 11:41 a.m. local time alongside Thomas Detry and local Matthew Baldwin. He had made the cut in each of his previous two major starts, at the two most recent U.S. Opens. He\u2019s also currently No. 18 in Korn Ferry Tour points.<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"The 154th Open - Round 2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.golfchannel.com\/watch\/live\/the-154th-open-round-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"Image for The 154th Open - Round 2\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784292555_653_.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>live<\/p>\n<p>The second round of The 154th Open is underway at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One player\u2019s Open Championship is already over. James Nicholas withdrew prior to Friday\u2019s second round at Royal Birkdale&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-807845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}