{"id":768556,"date":"2026-07-17T16:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768556\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T16:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:14:10","slug":"2026-british-open-eric-cole-hit-a-drive-25-yards-at-the-open-a-day-later-he-improved-by-12-shots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768556\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 British Open: Eric Cole hit a drive 25 yards at The Open; a day later, he improved by 12 shots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Cole was already looking at flights home.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old Cole, competing in just his second Open Championship, didn\u2019t necessarily play poorly on Thursday afternoon at Royal Birkdale, but a comedy of errors led to a 6-over 76 that placed Cole ahead of just nine of the 156 players in the field.<\/p>\n

He mis-clubbed off the eighth tee, burying his ball in the lip of a fairway bunker and eventually carding his first of three double bogeys on the day.<\/p>\n

The next came three holes later, when Cole\u2019s drive barely made it off the 11th tee box, his foot slipping and his ball traveling only about 25 yards into the gunch. Unable to find the ball, Cole had to re-tee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t fall down, but I was about to fall down,\u201d Cole said. \u201cI went like this, like an ugly version of Scottie Scheffler\u2019s [swing].\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole also doubled the par-5 17th, where the fescue shut his clubface, causing Cole to shank his second shot into the trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that\u2019s weird to say, but I really did feel like I was hitting the ball where I was aiming and stuff and the swing felt good,\u201d Cole said. \u201cI\u2019m just chalking it up to random outlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole\u2019s only goal for Friday\u2019s second round, where he\u2019d go off in the first group at 6:35 a.m. local, was to forget about Thursday\u2019s misfortune.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nobody in front of us. The weather\u2019s great. I was just trying to kind of have a good day and relax and enjoy the Open Championship,\u201d Cole said. \u201cThen started playing good and tried to keep it going pretty much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole improved by a dozen shots, firing 6-under 64 to not only get back to level par but also ensure his place on the weekend for the second time in as many Open starts. Cole, who was T-31 in his Open debut in 2024, won\u2019t need that Saturday morning direct from Manchester to Orlando, Florida, after all.<\/p>\n

He was 6 under through 13 holes, too, before closing with five straight pars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two par-5s, and I was like, you know, if I could just get those two, then all of a sudden I could go really low,\u201d Cole said, \u201cbut that didn\u2019t work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, as Cole knows from Thursday, things could go a lot worse.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

live<\/p>\n

The second round of The 154th Open is underway at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Cole was already looking at flights home. The 38-year-old Cole, competing in just his second Open Championship,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-768556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}