The Open returned to Royal St George’s. The Sandwich links in Kent was the venue for this year. Collin Morikawa produced a magnificent performance over the four days seeing off the competition, ultimately winning by two shots. With a total of 265 strokes over the four days, he set the record for the lowest score ever to be posted at Royal St George’s.

He was pushed until the very end from the likes of Louis Oosthuizen, John Rahm and Jordan Spieth. All of which had the opportunity to apply pressure with a good back nine on Sunday. As the pressure mounted Morikawa didn’t faulter and his sublime demonstration of iron ball striking was incredible to watch.

On his debut in The Open, it is even more of a remarkable achievement. Collin had never played at a links golf course prior to playing the Scottish Open the week before The Open. He had taken valuable lessons from the change in conditions with tight lies and pot bunkers to contend with.

The weather was stunning over the four days meaning this was favourable on the competition. Often links courses such as Royal St Georges are protected by the coastal nature of high winds and ever changing wind directions. However, in the latest heat wave we are experiencing the weather would be more a likened to what the American Tour players are used to with warm temperatures and low wind speeds, making the four days very enjoyable for players and indeed spectators.

With returning crowds it was great to see the fairways lined with spectators, and although there were still measures in place to prevent the risk of covid spreading it was fantastic to hear the roar of the crowds once again.

Our British golfers again didn’t do so well this time out. There were high hopes for a strong showing from the likes of Westwood, Casey, McIlroy, Fleetwood and Fitzpatrick. But it wasn’t to be their year with none of the British golfers making it into the top 15.  Scotland’s Macintyre finished at -7 for the championship but that was well behind the -15 posted by Morikawa. They will have to wait until next year to have another go at winning one of the four majors and all eyes will be on the Fedex Cup title as the top golfers in the rankings will compete for an eyewatering first prize of $15,000,000!