England’s Justin Rose qualified Tuesday for this month’s British Open at Troon as former Ryder Cup team-mate Sergio Garcia again failed to book a place in golf’s oldest major championship for the second-straight year.
The 43-year-old Rose, the 2013 US Open champion, took one of the four places on offer in final qualifying at Burnham Burrow in Somerset.
Rose has missed the cut at four of his last five majors, but he still believes he has it in him to win the British Open, a tournament where he made his name by finishing fourth as a 17-year-old amateur at Birkdale in 1998 and later tied for second place at Carnoustie in 2018.
“Right now, I feel a little bit of buzz,” 2016 Olympic champion Rose told Sky Sports. “I guess I came in with a good attitude… I still feel like I can win the Open. To win it, you’ve got to be in it.”
But over at the West Lancashire course, there was disappointment for another former major champion as Garcia fell short in his bid to qualify for the British Open by finishing two strokes adrift of the top four, just as he had done 12 months ago.
The Spaniard’s low world ranking after joining LIV Golf means the only major he currently qualifies for on merit is the US Masters as a former champion.
Garcia, however, remains a popular figures as was clear from the hundreds of spectators who followed him on Tuesday, although that created problems as there were lengthy delays on each hole because of the large crowd.
That resulted in his playing group being given a warning for slow play, which Garcia said was unfair and had contributed to a couple of dropped shots that proved decisive.
“The marshalls were doing as good a job as they could do but we had to stop pretty much on every tee for two or three minutes because people were walking on the fairways,” said Garcia.
“I don’t think they took that into account and that was unfortunate as it made us rush and on a day like today, where the conditions are so tricky, you might need a little bit of extra time and because of that I made a couple of bogeys which might have cost me getting to Troon.”
The 152nd Open at Troon, on the southwest coast of Scotland, runs from July 18-21, with Brian Harman of the United States set to defend the title he won last year at Hoylake.
