Branden Grace shoots lowest-ever men’s major round of 62 at the Open
Ignorance is clearly golfing bliss. As Branden Grace tapped in for par at Royal Birkdale’s 18th hole at 3.16pm on Saturday, the most striking aspect was how underwhelmed the South African appeared by what he had accomplished. Even the appearance of vast banks of media representatives was not sufficient for the penny to drop.
Grace had become a history maker as the first man to post 62 in a major championship. Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods may be greats of this sport but they never reached that magic figure. Grace has etched his name where legends could not.
The reason for Grace’s low-key celebration was soon clear. He had no awareness whatsoever of what his Open third round represented in wider context.
“Let’s get this out of the way: I didn’t know what was going on on 18. I promise you,” said Grace as his opening gambit. “I honestly didn’t. I was just so in the zone of playing, hole after hole. I knew I was obviously playing really well, and making the turn in five under was pretty special. I thought if I could make a couple more on the back nine, then it was going to be a great score. I had no idea that 62 was the lowest ever.
“Obviously, now it makes it even more special than what it was. My whole thing on the 18th was trying just not to make a bogey. I knocked in the two-footer or three-footer. And Zack [Rasego, Grace’s caddie] came up and said: ‘You’re in the history books.’ And I was like: ‘What are you talking about?’”
This scenario undoubtedly helped Grace. Had the 29-year-old, who has never won a major, been aware of the magnitude of what he was about to achieve it would inevitably have affected his mindset. So many players have fallen short because of that weight of history. Grace was completely unburdened.
“It’s always nice shooting a low number, whether it’s any day of the week, whether it’s in a tournament or with friends,” Grace added. “And then finishing the round and then finding out what you’ve done makes it even better, it really does. To do it at the Open Championship is pretty special.”
Sometimes the good guys do win. Earlier this year, Grace donated a significant sum to help victims of devastating forest fires in Knysna, the South African area where he first played golf. “It is really tragic what happened back there,” he said. “But knowing that I was in the position to help, that’s the right thing to do. So you don’t even think twice about it. Hopefully a lot of lives can be changed and can be kind of restored, if I can put it that way. If it puts a smile on those people’s faces, maybe there’s a light tomorrow for them.”
The footnotes were not long in arriving. Birkdale’s par of 70, against a more common, but not exclusive, major standard of 72 has been used to downplay Grace’s showing. Perfect scoring conditions were also highlighted by some commentators as cause to place an asterisk against what the man from Pretoria had done. Both points are spurious: par is essentially just a tool to help keep score – the lowest always wins – and majors over decades have occasionally witnessed ideal weather.
“Talking about this can go on forever,” said Grace. “I’m just happy with shooting a good round at a special tournament. And on a great day. But, you know, whether you shoot 63, 62 or 60, you have to do something right and things have to go your way to be able to do that. I’m not going to take anything away from a guy shooting 63 on a par 72.”
Henrik Stenson was another to relish a favourable links, the defending Open champion firing himself into contention with a 65. He is now three under for the tournament and apparently unaffected by Thursday’s incident when the Swede’s rental home was burgled and possessions stolen.
“It was all the mess getting everything organised, getting my clothes fixed and back ready to play golf,” Stenson said. “Instead of relaxing, watching a movie and chilling out, we had to do other things. It wasn’t great but I’m glad to inform you I haven’t lost anything in the last two days, so things are pretty good at the moment.”
The world No1, Dustin Johnson, is a stroke better off than Stenson following his Saturday 64. Johnson has suffered a curiously poor run after slipping on stairs and missing the Masters. During the early part of 2017, he appeared regularly unbeatable.
“I’ve struggled the last little bit,” Johnson said. “I’ve watched a lot of video of my play in LA and Mexico and the matchplay at the start of the year just to see if I can notice anything that I’m doing then with my swing compared to now. I think I figured it out today.”