The Open 2026: day three golf updates from Royal Birkdale – live
Key events
Ryan Fox sends his drive at 18 into the second fairway bunker down the right. He’s not right up against the lip, but the face is a factor. However, when you’re hot, you’re hot, and he opts to go for it, whipping a short iron onto the front-right portion of the green! That was a gutsy move … and a slightly fortunate one, because slow-mo replays show his ball grazing the very top of the lip of the trap. A couple of dimples lower, and that was staying in. In fact, that’s an outrageous stroke of luck, because looking again, the very top layer of the revetted bunker had a small nick taken out of it … and that’s the portion he clipped! So a little bit to either side, and the ball was back at his feet too. He’ll have a putt for a record-breaking 61, albeit from long distance!
A dispatch from the Guardian’s golf correspondent Ewan Murray, straight from Royal Birkdale …
Bryson DeChambeau has arrived at Royal Birkdale, shortly after 2pm and less than 90 minutes before his tee off time. This will mean a short range session for the Open’s man of the moment. Then again, he was whacking balls out there in darkness last night so maybe he feels further practise is needless.
Mark Dardon, the chief executive of the R&A, has just appeared on Sky to assert DeChambeau’s penalty of yesterday evening was “clear cut.” Which leaves us all to ponder why neither Darbon nor any of his officials would field questions on the incident immediately after it happened.
Ryan Fox keeps on keepin’ on! He kind of zig-zags his way down the par-five 17th, driving into the fescue on the left, sending his second into the rough on the right. But he chips close with his third, and tidies up for his ninth birdie of the day! He’s now eight under for his round, and the same score for the tournament overall. A par up the last, and he’ll be equalling the men’s major low round of 62, which Lucas Herbert and Sam Burns shot yesterday. Either way, what a performance, and one he could sell for cash money to the late starters … especially as the wind is expected to rise a little, as per the pattern on Thursday and Friday.
-8: Fox (17), Herbert
-6: Suber, C Young, Gerard
-5: Smith (7), Neergaard-Petersen (5), Burns, DeChambeau, Kim
Rory McIlroy meanwhile didn’t get the fast start he was talking about in his post-round interviews last night. Bogeys at 3 and 4, and the Masters champion looked a busted flush for this championship. But he’s responded in spectacular fashion: birdie at 5, then a chip-in from the side of 9 for eagle! He drove that green on the gettable par-four on both of his first two rounds, but it’s only when he missed it that he’s hit paydirt. That’s golf for you! He’s suddenly -2 and not out of this by any means. Not with the conditions as they are.
As for the actual golf, the big news this morning is the performance of Ryan Fox. The temperature has dropped a little – down to around the 20C mark and lower during the night – so there’s a bit more moisture in the air. That’s not made a jot of difference to the fairways, but it has made the greens a tad more receptive. So there’s every chance of some very low scoring today, as yesterday. And the 39-year-old Kiwi, whose best finish at the Open was a tie for 16th in 2019, is on a burner. Birdies at 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8 sent him out in 29 strokes – one off the championship record (28) set by Denis Durnian here in 1983 – and he’s since added more birdies at 10, 14 and 16. Just the one bogey at 13, so with two holes to play, he’s on for a 63 if he pars home. Fox, incidentally, is a past master at going on a tear-up at the Open: he’s already joint holder of the record for lowest back nine, 29 at Portrush in 2019, a score subsequently matched by Lee Westwood last year.
Good afternoon, patrons, and with perfect timing, here comes Mark Darbon, the chief executive of the R&A, to have a word with Sky Sports on that rules infraction. “We have a clear process … an unfortunate set of circumstances … from a rules perspective this was really clear cut … we communicated it to Bryson … we understand there’s some emotion around that … we can all empathise with it … but from a rules perspective this played out as we would hope it would.”
As for the man himself, DeChambeau is on the property, so if there was any residual concern of his not teeing it up, that can be put to bed. So we can all move on. That’ll never be mentioned again, then. Eh?
Preamble
Welcome to Moving Day at the 154th Open Championship! After 36 holes, the top of the leaderboard looked like this …
-8: Lucas Herbert-7: Bryson DeChambeau
-6: Cameron Young, Ryan Gerard
-5: Sam Burns, Bryson DeChambeau, Kim Si-woo
-4: Matt Wallace, Bud Cauley, Thomas Detry, Robert MacIntyre, Alex Fitzpatrick, Francesco Molinari, Scittie Scheffler, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm
… while these (selected) big names missed the cut …
Cameron Smith, Aaron Rai, Henrik Stenson, Harris English, Tom Kim, Justin Rose, Maverick McNealy, Joaquin Niemann, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, Jason Day, Li Haotong, Darren Clarke, Stewart Cink, Padraig Harrington, Gary Woodland, Brian Harman, David Duval and the 2017 champion Jordan Spieth
… and that left us with a tee sheet that looked like this (all times BST, GB&I unless stated). It’s on!
9.10 am: J McDonald, R Henley
9.20 am: Min Woo Lee, R Hisatsune
9.30 am: JL Ballester Barrio, K Higa
9.40 am: M Plunkett, N Kataoka
9.50 am: P Uihlein, B Koepka
10 am: A Potgeiter, K Bradley
10.10 am: A Noren, A Smalley
10.20 am: R Fowler, M Homa
10.30 am: R Fox, X Schauffele
10.45 am: K Reitan, M Penge
10.55 am: C Jarvis, K Kitayama
11.05 am: L Canter, S Theegala
11.15 am: M Brennan, E Chacarra
11.25 am: E Cole, MJ Daffue
11.35 am: K Kobori, N Taylor
11.45 am: J Thomas, J Matsuyama
11.55 am: B Griffin, H Du Plessis
12.10 pm: A Sullivan, P Cantlay
12.20 pm: J Bridgeman, R McIlroy
12.30 pm: J Svensson, S Norris
12.40 pm: J Parry, M Thorbjornsen
12.50 pm: J Smith, Im Sung-jae
1 pm: M Southgate, N Echavarria
1.10 pm: R Neergaard-Petersen, C Morikawa
1.20 pm: A Scott, C Gotterup
1.35 pm: P Reed, J Keefer
1.45 pm: C Conners, S Straka
1.55 pm: T Hatton, V Perez
2.05 pm: D Brown, C John
2.15 pm: L Aberg, S Lowry
2.25 pm: JJ Spaun, P Coody
2.35 pm: J Rahm, T Fleetwood
2.45 pm: S Scheffler, F Molinari
3 pm: A Fitzpatrick, R MacIntyre
3.10 pm: T Detry, B Cauley
3.20 pm: M Wallace, Si Woo Kim
3.30 pm: B DeChambeau, S Burns
3.40 pm: R Gerard, C Young
3.50 pm: J Suber, L Herbert
