Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson have teed off on the final day of the Open at Royal Troon with the duo battling at the top of the leaderboard.
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Henrik Stenson is closing in on his first major title.
Henrik Stenson captured his first major championship with a win at Royal Troon in the 2016 British Open. Meanwhile, five-time major victor Mickelson birdied the first to reclaim the overall lead.
Stenson rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt at the par-3 14th hole on Sunday to push his score to 17 under for the tournament.
Mickelson had been left cursing the “golfing gods” after his birdie putt to shoot the first 62 in major history lipped out on Thursday, but received a massive stroke of luck on the 12th.
But the fun-loving new world No.5, who watched the film Bridesmaids on Saturday night, joked: “Given that I failed my driver’s test probably as many times I was second or third at Major championships, that one has to be higher than this, of course”.
For Mickelson, it seems like no player has endured as much major heartbreak as Lefty. I had to aim fractionally more right of the hole than I wanted to and opened the face to offset that.
The battle between Stenson and Mickelson dominated the final day and provided echoes of the legendary “Duel in the Sun”, which saw Tom Watson edge out Jack Nicklaus at Turnberry in 1977 with no other player remotely close. He can’t look back at a mistake because he really didn’t make any. On Sunday, J.B. Holmes finished third, 11 shots behind the runner-up. “Three out of four rounds I played pretty stress-free golf, hit a lot of good shots”.
“I played what I feel was well enough to win this championship by a number of strokes and yet I got beat by three strokes”.
The American left-hander shot a final-round 65 without a single bogey to finish on 17-under for the week, but still ended up losing by three shots to an inspired Stenson.
The last birdie was for the record book.
Stenson also broke Tiger Woods’ record (-19 in 2000 at St. Andrews) for lowest winning total in relation to par in the Open.
No one older than 48 has ever captured a major.
However, history, and Mickelson’s favoured “Golf Gods”, are on the side of the 46-year-old left-hander, and perhaps Haas too.
In this Facebook post on Stenson’s page, he goes in some detail about Gerbich, 74, who Stenson knew through golf in Dubai, and lived in Scottsdale before passing away on Wednesday.
“One of the things that I’ve really worked on over the years is getting a ball onto the ground off the tee quickly, so the ground is affecting it more so than the air”. “I just had to stay focused on the moment, and I did not waver doing that”.
Stenson shot an 8-under 63 on Sunday to finish the tournament at 20-under and claim his first major championship.
The record-breaking Iceman never froze on the biggest stage of them all with a 50ft putt for birdie on 15 proving the knockout punch to the American’s challenge.
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The final round was a two-horse race between Mickelson and Stenson from the beginning, but the two leaders put even more distance between themselves and the rest of the pack quickly.
