{"id":546744,"date":"2026-07-17T22:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/546744\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:15:17","slug":"is-that-scheffler-is-it-dechambeau-no-its-suber-man-the-opens-breakout-star-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/546744\/","title":{"rendered":"Is that Scheffler? Is it DeChambeau? No it\u2019s Suber-man, the Open\u2019s breakout star | The Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you hear the one about the kid from Tampa who won the Open in his very first week playing the links? If you didn\u2019t, it\u2019ll be because neither did he. Right now it\u2019s still a maybe. Jackson Suber, 26, square jaw, slim hips, big swing, and very long odds, was two shots clear of the field at one point on Friday morning, and even after he dropped three shots in as many holes, he managed to reach the clubhouse in second place, on six under par. The general reaction was much the same as it had been the previous evening when he first shot to the top of the leaderboard. Suber who?<\/p>\n

You need to be a pretty close follower of the PGA Tour, or heavily invested in the University of Mississippi golf program to have any real idea. On Thursday evening everyone in the media centre was scurrying around to find out something worth knowing. The first stop is his Open biography, which reveals that he qualified for the championship by finishing in a tie for fourth in the Canadian Open, that this is his third major appearance after he played in the US Open in 2024 (73rd) and 2026 (missed the cut), and that he recently finished fourth in the Byron Nelson. Hmm.<\/p>\n

Next is Suber\u2019s PGA page, which explains that he \u201cenjoys hunting and wakeboarding\u201d and his \u201cfavourite sports team is the Tampa Bay Lightning\u201d. And they say the game just doesn\u2019t have any personalities these days. You have to dig into the clippings to get to the good stuff. He only goes by Jackson because he is a Jack\u2019s son. His full name is actually John Weatherington Suber III, because of course it is, and he majored in finance at the University of Mississippi, because of course he did, and yes, extraordinarily, this is his very first trip to Europe.<\/p>\n

Suber says the highlight so far was his train trip into Liverpool, an experience which he described as \u201cawesome\u201d. He\u2019ll learn. And about links golf, too. Suber had never played it before his Monday practice round at Royal Birkdale. Watching him, it suits him just fine. \u201cWell, the ball\u2019s the same size,\u201d he says. Suber just seemed to be having one of those weeks when everything works for him. Every time the ball fetched up in the rough he arrived to find it was sitting up just waiting to be struck, and each uncertain putt seemed to settle into the right line. Heck, even the trains are running on time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking a wedge, just because of the way it\u2019s sitting,\u201d Suber told his caddie, Grayson Porter, as they stood in the rough after he\u2019d walloped his tee shot over the back of the 5th green. \u201cFollow your instincts here,\u201d Porter told him. Suber nodded, set himself, and flicked the ball 16ft from the pin. \u201cOnly young though, isn\u2019t he?\u201d said the man watching him. \u201cIs he English?\u201d \u201cNo\u201d, said his friend. \u201cWith a name like that? He\u2019s surely a Yank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suber had six hours sleep, and a sight more attention than he was used to. When he got back to the 1st tee in the morning he had an entourage of photographers and journalists with him, as well as a pack of new fans. Not that he seemed to notice. He spent most of the day happily chatting away to his playing partners, he made a point of acknowledging every one of their good shots. It was only when he made it to the 6th and the putts suddenly stopped dropping for him that things finally started to sour.<\/p>\n

He took three putts on the green at the 6th, three more at the 7th, three more at the 8th. All of a sudden he was back to three under, and sinking fast. Well, the man had had his moment and, to be fair, it had lasted 15 hours instead of the usual 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to The Recap<\/p>\n

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jackson Suber\u2019s caddy\u2019s advice was to \u2018follow his instincts\u2019 and it earned him a second-round 69. Photograph: David Davies\/PA<\/p>\n

It was round about this point that Suber stopped and took his first little look at the big yellow leaderboards dotted around the course. \u201cI took a glance and I saw that it\u2019s not like people were tearing it up,\u201d he said. Luckily for him, Lucas Herbert was an hour and a half behind, and only just playing the 3rd. \u201cYou just know that in a major things are going to get challenging at some point, no matter how you play, so you just need to be patient with that and let the good golf come later.\u201d Which is more sense than you\u2019d expect from a guy who\u2019s just dropped three shots to blow a lead in his first Open Championship.<\/p>\n

Suber didn\u2019t have to wait long. He made back-to-back birdies with 20ft putts at the 10th and 11th, and though he dropped another shot at the 13th, he made\u00a0two more on the two par\u00a0fives along the home stretch to finish with a second-round score of 69.\u00a0Suberb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you hear the one about the kid from Tampa who won the Open in his very first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-546744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}