British Open 2024: Longshot Dan Brown could do what he hasn’t been able to do for 20 year.

Troon, Scotland — He’s not the kind of player who should be in this position at this stage of the British Open. That feeling was amplified by the sight of Dan Brown huddled under an umbrella, his back against the rain and relentless wind, desperately trying to light the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

This isn’t common these days. Professional golf is about athleticism and power, but here Brown is ripping out the radiator and taking on them and this course, like the serviceman we imagined him to be not so long ago. “This is a bad habit that I was absorbed in,” Brown later acknowledged. “To be honest, do you know that I’m really doing it only when playing golf? Trying to get away from mom and dad… I know mom and dad but I won’t do it in front of them or I don’t want to do it so I try to hide. That. »

His dart light wasn’t the only thing burning. You know the weather is bad when the animals say “It’s the worst.” The farm on the right of the inner 9 of Kings Troon had no living creatures in its fields. The Open element is often romanticized because it requires creativity and vision rarely seen, but the rain fell so hard, cold and relentless that any romance seemed to have been washed away long ago. The golf on display had nothing to do with skill; it was a test of the head and the heart.

Only the worst man, or in this case the worst Cinderella, survives. For the first time in a long time in golf, there are true underdogs competing for one of the most coveted prizes. British Open 2024: Max Homa’s explanation of why he screamed will only make you love him more
“Yeah, we’re still here,” Brown said after his two-over 73 on Sunday left him tied for second place with 18 holes to play. “It was complicated. “I’m a little disappointed with how the last two holes went because I did so well to get where I got and yeah, it’s a little disappointing to finish like that.”

Brown should be proud of that. He was playing in stormy conditions, with an afternoon swell facing a challenge almost two strokes stronger than the morning swell. There were par fours he missed in both matches and the par 17th, which required plenty of putts with his driver but still fell short.

As he noted, after a frustrating 17 points and a double at the end, Brown, who is ranked in the top 250 in the world, will play in one of the final groups on Sunday afternoon. Now, sports fans love the little guy, but Brown as a person is part of his appeal: a poor player from a small town, a college dropout who was suddenly booted off a mini-tour.

He was so penniless that he applied for a job at a supermarket. Brown eventually quit the game after feeling that his game wasn’t good enough and finding himself in a dark place. He only returned at the start of the pandemic because there was nothing else to do.
Brown has had some stability in his career, earning a DP World Tour card for 2023 and winning the ISPS Handa Invitational in August, but he hasn’t had much success this season, missing six of the past eight events entering the Open. To not support that would mean to have no soul.

But that’s exactly what Brown is about (it’s not), and that’s what makes what he’s trying to do so interesting. At first glance, it has been a long time since an advanced player had a chance to crack one of the Big 4. Only once in the last 50 major championships has a winner finished outside the top 35 in the Official World Golf Rankings… and that was arguably the biggest name in golf since Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, at the 2021 PGA Championship. Many are done in line in professional golf between the doers and the dreamers, but Brooks Koepka called the majors easy to win, believing that only 20 to 30 players had the ability to face the biggest scene when the lights shone the brightest , and time has proven Koepka correctly. Brown can be a very great exception to the rule. “Obviously it’s not a normal week, but I feel like mentally I’m in a position to handle it like a normal week on the DP World Tour,” Brown said. “I didn’t make him feel bigger than he is, and obviously he is a lot bigger.”

But Brown’s return has a deeper, existential meaning. If there’s a common thread in golf’s civil war of the past three years, it’s an increasingly insular view at the top. It’s no secret that the PGA Tour’s signature series of events has received mixed reviews from members, especially the grassroots. Some see these high-profile tournaments not as an opportunity to bring together the best of the game, but as a way for blue bloods to stay in place and earn big pay while limiting opportunities for social mobility.

One of the reasons LIV Golf has been unable to gain ranking points is that there are limited relegations and promotions within the league. The stars on both teams could be accused of caring more about themselves than how their actions might shape the sport as a whole.

Now, professional golf has long been driven by and revolved around a finite number of planets, but that should still leave room for smaller stars to shine. That it doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, where you play or where you come from, everything that’s at stake is ultimately earned, not given. Brown represents the potential of what’s possible in professional golf. It won’t be easy.

Brown trails Billy Horschel, the pilot car for 54 holes, alone in second place with five others, all of whom are within four of Horschel. Brown has never been in this position before, and as you know, big championship is bad for beginners. The padmaker is the worst silhouette of the group, 20 to 1 brown, from the dozen with a shot that can be executed in the clarette.

“I guess a lot of people probably thought I was going to shake this morning and was really nervous, but I was absolutely fine,” Brown said. “Yeah, I didn’t know. I didn’t know last night if I was going to wake up this morning and be all nervous and sweaty, but I feel good and I think I’ll feel good tomorrow.”

Of course, this is much better than the 1,000-to-1 odds he had at the start of the week. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the last time a major winner had such long odds was in 2004, when Todd Hamilton beat the Clarets at 500-to-1 odds. Perhaps not all romance has vanished on that Saturday afternoon in Troon.

Perhaps destiny is to light the lamp and pass on the torch that remains dangling from the mouths of the oppressed. Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major tournament of the golf season is the subject of ongoing discussion.

As former R&A president Ian Pattinson explains in the article, the official name of the event is “The Open.” However, many golf fans in the United States continue to refer to the tournament as “The British Open” and want information about the event accordingly, so Golf Digest continues to use both names in its coverage.