The Open 2025 live: Latest leaderboard and scores with McIlroy in contention as Scheffler leads Fitzpatrick at Portrush – UK Times

“They’re very different golf courses, but the golf is similar,” said Harman, whose pledge to take a “boring” approach will be familiar with fans who witnessed his performance at Royal Liverpool where his brilliant putting got the job done with very few fireworks elsewhere.

“I’ll approach the weekend the same way. The only thing I’m really worried about is the first tee ball tomorrow and then I’ll try to hit the next one up there close to the flag.

“If not, go to the second hole. It’s a very boring approach that I take.

“I’m not trying to be heroic or do anything crazy. I know that I’ve got the game to do it, and it’s just a matter of executing and staying in my own head.

“I would love to have a similar weekend and just play great the whole way through.”

The Scottish golf course has not hosted the prestigious event for 16 years, with its last iteration back in 2009.

And DeChambeau, who shot a stunning six-under-par round of 65 at Royal Portrush to make the cut and sit +1 for the major overall at the half-way stage, has backed Trump’s course to prove a worthy host once more.

“I look at it as a golf course,” said DeChambeau, whose round of golf with the president has amassed more than 15 million views on YouTube. “It’s one of the best golf courses in the world, and I’d love for it to be a part of the rotation.

(Gbr & Irl unless stated, all times Local):

9:35 Matthias Schmid (Ger), Corey Conners (Can)

9:45 Sepp Straka (Aut), Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn)

9:55 Takumi Kanaya (Jpn), Adrien Saddier (Fra)

10:05 Sebastian Soederberg (Swe), Henrik Stenson (Swe)

10:15 Thomas Detry (Bel), Jacob Skov Olesen (Den)

10:25 Nathan Kimsey, Bryson DeChambeau (USA)

10:35 Maverick McNealy (USA), Thriston Lawrence (Rsa)

10:45 Justin Leonard (USA), John Parry

11:00 Andrew Novak (USA), Sergio Garcia (ESP)

“Yeah, it’s not ideal when you’re playing the final hole. I thought we were going to play it down out of the right and it was going to be like 3-wood, 8-iron, something like that. It ended up being a good 3-wood and a 6-iron and then a really good save for par.

“Links golf is all about adapting and just trying to handle the conditions as best you can really. It was on and off all day. The wind switched. But it’s helping out there, and there’s loads of flags, so it’s easy to see it switch. It’s not like you get caught out, it just changed direction.

“I would say the trickiest thing is going from dry to really wet and dry to really wet, and it changes the speed of the greens dramatically. Our group — I don’t know what anybody else’s group was like, but we’d go from having nice pace to two, three foot short; nice pace, two, three foot short. It was so hard to get used to after a downpour.”

“It’s probably nicer than playing the U.S. Open,” said Fitzpatrick with a smile.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t say I necessarily feel as much pressure. The pressure, he’s going to have the expectation to go out and dominate. He’s an exceptional player. He’s World No. 1, and we’re seeing Tiger-like stuff.

“I think the pressure is for him to win the golf tournament. For me obviously I hope I’m going to have some more home support than him, but it’s an exciting position for me to be in given where I was earlier this year.”

“Ultimately in golf it’s up to the player, and I felt like Shane was put in a pretty tough situation there when they were zooming in on his golf ball. In the rough it’s hard to tell. From what I looked at very briefly on the video, it looked like it was very difficult to see if the ball was moving — sorry. If the ball moved. The camera was kind of zooming in as stuff was happening.

“One of the great things about the game of golf is that you call your penalties on yourself. This situation, I think it was just — it was a very tough spot for Shane to be put in. He handled it really well. It’s obviously very frustrating. It’s frustrating for me as a competitor of his and a player to watch him after kind of deal with that because the last thing you want to be known in the game of golf is somebody who cheats.

“I’m not going to state a strong opinion here in the media on whether or not I thought he deserved the penalty, but all I’m going to say is it was a very tough situation for him to be put in, and I thought he handled it really well.”

The 2025 Open Championship is underway as Rory McIlroy attempts to win his home major at Royal Portrush.

The Open is the oldest golf competition in the world and the winner will collect the famous Claret Jug, first awarded in 1872. They will also receive a healthy winners’ cheque from the R&A worth $3.1m (£2.4m).

The R&A raised the total prize fund to $17m (£13.4m) in 2024, up $500,000 from the previous year but still the lowest of the four major championships.