Open Championship analysis: 10 things to know about Xander Schauffele's win

A windy Sunday morning at Royal Troon saw 24 players enter the final round within six shots of the lead.

Instead of chaos, the most consistent player in the game rose above the fray.

Xander Schauffele is the 2024 Champion Golfer of the Year. Here are the top numbers and notes to know from the final round of the 152nd Open Championship.

1. For the second time this season, Schauffele shot a final round 65 to win a major. Before Schauffele, the only player to do that twice in their entire career was Jack Nicklaus, who closed with 65s at both the 1967 U.S. Open and 1986 Masters. Schauffele is the first player in men’s golf history to do it two times in the same year.

Schauffele is the first player to win the PGA and Open in the same season since Rory McIlroy did it 10 years ago. He is just the third American to win both in the same year, joining Walter Hagen in 1924 and Tiger Woods, who did it in 2000 and 2006.

With the 2024 major schedule completed, this is the first time that American players have swept a major season (in a year where all four were contested) since 1982. That year, Tom Watson won The Open at Troon. Following Brian Harman’s victory at Royal Liverpool, this marks the first time Americans have won consecutive Opens since Woods went back-to-back in 2005 and ’06.

2. Schauffele entered this week as the only player on the PGA Tour ranked in the top 40 this season in each of the specific strokes gained denominations: off the tee, approach, around the green and putting. His performance at Troon reflected that balanced excellence: 20th or better in all four of those stats this week, punctuated by a pickup of more than 10 strokes with his approach play.

He ranked second in the field in greens in regulation and didn’t have a three-putt all week. After going nearly 20 years without having a champion go bogey-free in the final round, it’s now happened on four of the last six Open Sundays.

3. Entering 2023, Schauffele had spent years forging a brilliant resume: seven PGA Tour wins including a Tour Championship, multiple U.S. national team appearances and an Olympic gold medal, to name a few of the line items. He was a consistent factor in the majors with 11 top-10 results and runner-up finishes at both The Open and the Masters.

With that success comes a hard-earned-yet-unfortunate label, “best player without a major,” a title Schauffele jostled for with other stars entering the year. Multiple-win seasons in the majors are rare, but even more so is to get close so often before breaking through with a season like this. Schauffele is the first player to have double-digit top-10 finishes in majors, then win two majors in a season, since Craig Wood in 1941.

4. Leading entering the final round of a major for the first time, Billy Horschel acquitted himself very well for most of Sunday. Three consecutive birdies to finish gave him a score of 68 and a tie for second place, his best-ever result in a major. Bogeys at eight and 10 derailed his best chance at winning the Claret Jug.

Horschel ranked 120th on the PGA Tour this season in strokes gained approach entering the week, a stark difference from what he did this week at Royal Troon (+7.45, fourth in the field). Had Horschel won, he would have been the oldest first-time major winner in the men’s game since Henrik Stenson’s victory at Troon in 2016.

5. Justin Rose shot a closing 67 to finish tied with Horschel in second place, his best career result in 21 career Open Championship starts. Rose dropped just a single shot in the final round, a bogey at the 12th, the toughest hole on the course Sunday.

Rose, who turns 44 later this month, has struggled for most of the season. He headed to Troon ranked 150th on the PGA Tour this season in scoring average and losing strokes both off the tee and with his approach play. South Ayrshire made him a new man this week, as he picked up double-digit strokes on the competition with his ball striking.

Rose won the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion. Had he won, the 4,053 days since would have been the longest gap between sequential victories in men’s major championship history. His 14 top-10 finishes since the beginning of 2014 are the most of any player without a victory in that span.

6. South African Thriston Lawrence, 27, provided another surprise performance this week at Troon, finishing alone in fourth. Lawrence pounded driver all week, gaining well over six strokes on the field from the tee, best of anybody in the field. Before today, Lawrence hadn’t finished higher than tied for 42nd in five previous major starts.

Englishman Dan Brown started the week by shooting the first bogey-free 65 by anyone in men’s golf history playing his debut major round. He finished with a tie for 10th place, strong enough to earn an exemption into the 2025 Open at Royal Portrush. Brown is projected to jump nearly 100 spots in the Official World Golf Ranking, an important metric when it comes to filling out his schedule ahead.

7. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler closed with 72, finishing in a tie for seventh. When Scottie made an eight-foot birdie putt at the eighth hole – his longest in two days – he looked poised to make a back nine sprint to the Claret Jug. On the next hole, he three-putted from inside seven feet for double bogey, extinguishing that potential fire.

The putter, Scheffler’s usual culprit when he hasn’t succeeded in recent years, was his foil again this week. Scheffler ranked a dismal 136th among all players in strokes gained putting and missed 10 tries inside 10 feet.

Justin Thomas’ triple bogey on No. 1 ended his chances of winning the Open. (Glyn Kirk / AFP via Getty Images)

8. Justin Thomas’ hopes of a Sunday charge ended on the first hole, when an errant drive and a sideways out of a bunker led to a triple bogey. Thomas shot 77, concluding one of the most unique rollercoaster weeks in modern major championship history.

JT’s scores for the week went 68-78-67-77 – a variance of at least 10 shots from one day to the next. It’s the only time that has happened in the last three decades of major championship golf. Incredibly, you don’t have to go back far to find an example of it on the PGA Tour – at the 2022 Houston Open, Matthew NeSmith recorded a line of 74-64-78-68.

9. The brutal 11th played as the most difficult hole for the week, averaging 0.42 strokes over par. That’s a touch less bullying than it was eight years ago, when it averaged more than half a stroke over par. Schauffele’s winning score of 9-under marked the first time an Open as Troon was won at single-digits under par since Tom Watson won at 4-under 42 years ago.

For the week, Royal Troon doled out 298 double bogeys or worse, far and away the most of any course on the PGA Tour in 2024. There were 255 at last month’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.

10. Only 12 players made the cut in all four majors this season. Of that group, just five finished with a cumulative score under par: Schauffele (-32), Scheffler, (-17), Collin Morikawa (-15), Russell Henley (-9) and Shane Lowry (-6). Of the last six players to win multiple majors in the same season, four won another major within the next two years. That includes the last two to do it — Jordan Speith in 2015 (2017 Open) and Brooks Koepka in 2018 (2019 PGA).

The 2025 Masters Tournament begins in 260 days.

(Top photo: Andy Buchanan / AFP via Getty Images)