ITALIAN MAKES HISTORY AT BRITISH OPEN
With bogey-free weekend, Molinari has the Italian recipe for victory
CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Francesco Molinari was the “other” guy, a check-your-program placeholder, somebody to watch Sunday when the wall-towall spectators blocked a clear vantage of the superstar in his pairing, Tiger Woods.
Not many people imagined it would be the unassuming Molinari who would quietly assemble another brilliant round — no bogeys all weekend — to claim the British Open for his own.
Molinari shot a 2-under-par 69 to finish at 8-under 276 for the tournament, becoming the first Italian to win a major championship.
The sun was shining all day, but Molinari unquestionably was playing in a long shadow cast by a 14-time major winner making an unlikely return to relevance. The fans were so fixated on Woods they shouted his name even when Molinari was standing over his ball, ready to make a swing.
“Clearly, in my group, the attention wasn’t really on me — let’s put it that way,” said Molinari, 35, sitting in the media interview room with the glistening
claret jug at his side. “If someone was expecting a charge, probably they weren’t expecting it from me.”
In the end, the most compelling drama came not from the leading men but the co-stars. It came down to Molinari and San Diego’s Xander Schauffele, playing two groups behind him with defending champion Jordan Spieth.
Heading to the final hole, Molinari was two strokes ahead of Woods at 7 under and tied for the lead with Schauffele, who was about to tee off at No. 17. It was shaping up as a possible playoff between two lesser-known golfers.
But Molinari birdied No. 18, and Schauffele bogeyed No. 17, creating a scoreboard gap that never would close.
You could hear reality sinking in that Molinari could actually win. Late in the round, those rapid-fire camera clicks from photographers inside the ropes weren’t focused entirely on Woods. They were split, with a flurry of clicks on both players.
Immediately after his round, with TV cameras trained on him, Molinari sat in a room below the grandstands at No. 18 and buried his face in his hands, trying not to look at the remaining action on the monitors.
“I couldn’t watch Xander play the last two holes, to be honest,” he said. “That’s why I went to the putting green; I probably would have felt sick watching on TV. So big credit to my wife that watches me all the time. I don’t know how she does it. I couldn’t do it.”
Schauffele, 24, who attended San Diego State and is in his second year on the PGA Tour, wound up in a tie for second with Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy and Kevin Kisner.
Molinari played his final 37 holes without a bogey or worse. According to ESPN, he is the first major champion since Steve Elkington at the 1995 PGA Championship to play the final two rounds without a hole over par.
“He chipped it beautifully,” Woods said of Molinari. “I know he made a couple of putts here and there for par, but to get it to where it was basically a kick-in from some of the spots he put himself in, that was impressive.”
No extrication was more impressive than that of Woods, whose life had fallen apart on and off the course. Until this tournament, he hadn’t played four rounds of a major in par or better since the 2010 Masters. He briefly held the lead Sunday before dropping back with a double bogey and then a bogey. He shot an even-par 71 — his third such round of the championship — and finished tied for sixth at 5 under.
Although he said he was “a little ticked off” at himself for missed opportunities Sunday, Woods loved being back in the mix when it counted.
“Oh, it was a blast,” Woods said. “I was saying earlier that I need to try to keep it in perspective because, the beginning of the year, if they’d have said, ‘You’re playing the Open championship,’ I would have said I’d be very lucky to do that.”
The perspective of other top competitors has changed as well now that Woods is in the picture.
Asked if he has a feeling some of the younger players are going to be dealing with Woods for a few years to come, McIlroy said: “I mean, not Tiger that, you know, Phil (Mickelson) and Ernie (Els) and those guys had to deal with. It’s a different version. But he’s right there.”
Molinari’s first taste of major championship golf was caddying at the 2006 Masters for his older brother, Eduardo, who was once viewed as the family’s best putter. But Francesco has altered his putting technique, activating more of his upper body while also attempting to upgrade his mental game. He had nary a three-putt Sunday.
“It’s been a long journey, and now, obviously, you see the end result,” said Molinari, who won the BMW Championship on the European Tour in May and won his first PGA Tour event at this month’s Quicken Loans National in Potomac, Md. “And when you are holding this (the claret jug), it changes a few things.”