{"id":695743,"date":"2026-07-17T00:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695743\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T00:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:18:15","slug":"changing-conditions-the-154th-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695743\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing conditions | The 154th Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scottie Scheffler hit a very creditable 13 of 14 fairways but finished one shot behind playing partner DeChambeau, who hit four of 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I continue to do what I did today with the ball-striking, I’ll be in a good spot as the week goes on,\u201d Scheffler said.<\/p>\n

You bet he will.<\/p>\n

In conditions such as these, experience is often key but Jackson Suber<\/a> played his first round of links golf on Monday and holds the overnight lead, doing away with the notion that know-how counts most.<\/p>\n

Stewart Cink, who made his Open debut at Royal Birkdale in 1998, said: \u201cThis is my fourth time playing at Birkdale, and the first three times it was very similar each time. It was kind of lush and green and extremely windy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the Royal Birkdale I’ve ever seen before. Lush would be the opposite of the way to describe this place right now, and obviously very calm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wind was not there and then when it picked up it shifted about 90 degrees or more today. It’s a different Royal Birkdale. It’s way different.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that’s kind of what you expect over here. The golf courses, they go how the weather goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re either fast and firm and dry and fiery and dusty. They’re never really soft, but they can be lush and green and a little slower, and this week we’ve got it very dry, and it’s a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The morning starters appeared to have the better of it, with overnight dew making the fairways and greens more receptive.<\/p>\n

But it was still far from easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think links golf is the ultimate test of golf,\u201d said Robert MacIntyre<\/a> after a highly-encouraging 67 that leaves him tied fourth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler hit a very creditable 13 of 14 fairways but finished one shot behind playing partner DeChambeau,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}