British Open 2015: Leaderboard, live coverage, results and more from Monday’s final round

Jordan Spieth came up just shy of joining Ben Hogan in the record books as one of only two golfers to win the first three major championships in the same year. Finishing one shot out of a three-way playoff for the Claret Jug Monday at St. Andrews, however, did little to tarnish the luster of the 21-year-old who’s on the brink of a superstar career the likes of which some in golf circles are comparing to the game’s best.

Watching for the sport’s next “It” guy is hardly an unusual pursuit since the last player golf nation turned its lonely eyes to was Rory McIlroy. Still the world No. 1, despite missing the Old Course festivities to nurse a blown ankle, McIlroy was touted as the “next Tiger Woods” after he clobbered Congressional on his way to an eight-shot laugher at the 2011 U.S. Open.

The 2015 Open Championship needed five days and 76 holes but it got a world-class winner in Zach Johnson, who now has a Claret Jug to go with a green jacket. The Open also provided several important revelations about the golf industry itself, the professional game and its biggest past and present stars. Here are five.

1. Jordan Spieth is young and probably has more majors ahead of him, but this could be the best summer and stretch of play in his career. We don’t know, and after the round, even the 21-year-old told ESPN it was hard coming so close because “how many chances do you get?”

Jordan Spieth won the first two majors of the year and missed going to a playoff in the third by inches. A win would have put him in the company of Ben Hogan, the last golfer to win these first three legs of a Grand Slam in a single season in 1953.

You might think Spieth would be furious, incredulous, depressed and not sit around the extra hour or so and wait for the three-man four-hole playoff to finish. But he, and his caddie Michael Greller, were among the first people not in the actual playoff on the 18th green to greet winner Zach Johnson.

Each major championship has its argument for why it could be the best in golf, but there’s really no debate about who has the best trophy. The Claret Jug is the oldest and most coveted piece of hardware in golf and now Zach Johnson has his hands and name on it.

We’ll see if he indulges and uses it tonight to celebrate, but he did say it would replace his kids’ sippy cups back home in the States.

Tom Rinaldi’s been doing his damn best to try to get every player he interviews to cry during a week of clubhouse chats at The Open.

He did not have to do much to get the 2015 Champion Golfer of the Year, Zach Johnson, to break down on the 18th green after his second career major championship. Johnson started the interview with his voice broken and unable to speak into the mic, and ended it in much the same way after reflecting on what he’s accomplished in the game.

Congrats, Zach! You did it! Put it here, big guy! Put it ... Zach. Zach?

Okay I’ll just be a statue now. That’s fine. I’ll just live here with my hand raised like an idiot forever.

Zach Johnson was the last man standing Monday after a three-way playoff ended a wild and whacky few hours at St. Andrews, where the final-round lead changed hands so many times that heads were spinning inside ESPN’s rotating broadcast booth.

“I’m confused. There’s a lot going on out there,” ESPN analyst Curtis Strange said during Monday’s final round as Johnson held a one-shot lead at 15-under over a stacked leaderboard that showed Adam Scott a shot behind and Jordan Spieth, Louis Oosthuizen, Sergio Garcia, Jason Day and Marc Leishman crawling up Scott’s back.

It was the longest British Open ever but after five days and a four-hole playoff, Zach Johnson is your winner of the 144th Open Championship at St. Andrews. Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman needed the aggregate playoff to decide it, and the ball-striking ace from Iowa emerged with his second major championship.

Johnson won the 2007 Masters but still remains one of the more under-appreciated PGA Tour players despite his consistent success over the years. He doesn’t hit it very far and isn’t as appealing to promote, but he entered the tournament with 27 professional wins, 11 PGA Tour titles and that green jacket. Now he’s got a Claret Jug and a potential spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

It was an exciting final round at the 2015 British Open on Monday with a host of players making runs at the top of the leaderboard. Several led throughout the day and for nearly all of the round, multiple players were within a stroke of the lead. In the end Zach Johnson prevailed at St. Andrews to win the Claret Jug and $1.8 million in first-place prize money from one of the most lucrative purses in golf.

Marc Leishman, Louis Oosthuizen and Johnson battled for the title in a three-man playoff. Johnson ultimately prevailed to hoist the Claret Jug. The victory is the most lucrative in his career. Losing in a playoff is a brutal reminder of how close you came to winning a major championship, but the runners up will walk away with nice consolation prizes. Each player will receive more than $835,000. The win gives Johnson more than $37 million in career winnings.

The Old Course Hotel that Phil Mickelson hit a shot into before? That’s a real hotel, with real people staying in it, and sometimes those people just wanna put on their robes and sip some bubbly on the balcony:

This is easily the chillest way to watch sports.

The 18th at St. Andrews is a prime birdie opportunity and Louis Oosthuizen was able to capitalize where Jordan Spieth could not. The defending Open champ at St. Andrews hit a steady drive, stuck a wedge close and rolled in a knee-knocking putt to get to 15-under for the Championship.

He now goes to a four-hole aggregate playoff with Marc Leishman and Zach Johnson.

Jordan Spieth played his way into contention on the final round of the 2015 British Open, but came up at least a stroke shy of winning and will not complete the career grand slam. Spieth was tied for the lead heading into No. 17, but missed a par putt to drop to 14-under.

That left him needing a birdie on the 72nd hole in order to tie Zach Johnson and Marc Leishman and join a potential playoff. Spieth hit a solid tee shot, setting up a wedge into the green. His approach had too much spin, however, and rolled back into the “Valley of Sin” off the front of the green.. That left a nearly impossible birdie putt from off the front. He made a tremendous run at it, but it didn’t drop.

Jordan Spieth’s Open Championship hopes seemed over after the 8th hole, which he double-bogeyed with some of his worst putting of the week.

Since then, however, he’s gone on an incredible run to get back to the lead. At the 16th hole, Spieth pulled even at 15-under with a bomb of a putt. He’s now tied with Zach Johnson, who is already safely in the clubhouse, and Marc Leishman, who is on the 18th hole.

Zach Johnson, playing well ahead of the final group on Monday at the British Open, is the clubhouse leader thanks to this bomb of a putt at the 18th green. It was one final birdie, on a birdie hole, that he needed before finishing. He got it to drop and his caddie Damon Green, went to his patented dance to celebrate.

He’s done it at The Masters:

Jordan Spieth is running out of holes to keep his Grand Slam hopes alive. After an awful double bogey at the eighth, Spieth got both strokes right back with two straight birdies. He’s still two shots back of Marc Leishman and has just five more holes to play. So this little chip shot going in would have been a huge help.

The top of the British Open leaderboard is tight with multiple players making runs and any little mistake can be the difference from contending, and not. Adam Scott may have seen his chances to win disappear when he missed a short tap in putt.

That made back-to-back bogeys for Scott, who dropped from the lead to three back in a matter of a few minutes.

Monday at The Open has been a manic round of birdies and constant leaderboard shuffling, but the primary story has been how Jordan Spieth’s bid to take the first three legs of the Grand Slam remained in tact. Spieth joined the lead just one hole into his round and spent most of the front nine hovering right around the top of the board either on the lead or a shot off the pace.

But with a clustered group and birdies dropping everywhere, a bogey would be extra costly. Spieth did worse, making a double bogey on the par-3 eighth hole. He hit a bad tee shot, which he joked was so far away that it was at the wrong pin on one of these shared greens at the Old Course.

This group, which included media members, players and caddies, appeared to total around 50 members as they hunted through the St. Andrews rough to find an awful Padraig Harrington drive.

Standing just a shot off the lead on the sixth tee, Paddy completely blocked one out to the right and into the junk. There’s not much rough or trouble off the tee at St. Andrews aside from those gorse bushes, but once the ball goes in there. you’re hopeless. If you find it, you have to take an unplayable lie in the prickly stuff. If you don’t -- and Harrington’s group did not after the maximum allowable five-minute search -- then you have to hit a provisional.

Paul Dunne’s shot at history slowed to a crawl on the first hole of the final round of the Open Championship, but his fairy tale story nearly came to a crashing halt when his drive on No. 2 went wide right and required him to hit a provisional off the tee.

The 22-year-old amateur who captured the imagination of the golf world and entered Monday’s finale with a share of the 54-hole lead was a portrait of composure during and after Sunday’s third round. Monday, understandably, not so much, as he tried to relax before taking the tee as the final competitor to go off in the final round.

The British Open is the oldest major championship in golf and it is now on its third version of playoff rules in the modern era. If players were tied after 72 holes, the playoff used to be a 36-hole slog. That format was last put in play in 1963 and after that, the playoff was reduced to just 18 holes. We’re already finishing this 2015 edition of The Open a day late, so fortunately, that 18-hole playoff went out of use in 1986. Only the U.S. Open uses a full 18-hole playoff now.

For the past 30 years, the R&A has used an aggregate playoff format. If two or more players are tied after the 72nd hole on Monday afternoon, they will play four more holes at St. Andrews and the final tally from that extra game will decide the winner. The holes will be the 1st, 2nd, 17th, and the 18th. If two or more are still tied after those four holes, it becomes a sudden death playoff from there on out.

It took all of one hole for Jordan Spieth to get back on the lead at the Open Championship. St. Andrews is playing on the easier side again on Monday, so there will birdie chances at almost every hole, especially on the front nine. ESPN’s Andy North said every hole on the front nine could be a wedge, and Spieth stuck one close, challenging the burn that runs right in front of the first green. He poured in the putt to get to 12-under and we’re off and running toward the first three legs of the Grand Slam.

While Spieth made birdie on the first, so did many of the other leaders around him. He was tied with four others at 12-under as he went to the 2nd tee.

Phil Mickelson made a run to the top of the leaderboard Monday morning, but any delusional hopes of a shot at the British Open title were lost on the 17th “Road Hole.” That’s where Phil piped one right out of bounds and onto a room’s balcony at the Old Course Hotel. He re-teed and will try to save a double bogey.

The run to actually winning was never happening. It was foolish to get your hopes up or even entertain the possibility.

★★★

In 2014, the PGA Championship (in conjunction with The Players Championship) increased its purse to $10 million, making it the most lucrative major championship and setting off an arms race of sorts. The Masters followed suit this year, matching the $10 million purse with $1.8 million going to the winner. The 2015 U.S. Open then joined the party as did the British Open, which will award $1.8 million to whoever claims the Claret Jug on Monday at St. Andrews.

Much the overnight publicity, and rightly so, focused on amateur Paul Dunne’s run to the top of the British Open leaderboard. But by the end of Monday, he may not be the low amateur on the leaderboard and win that silver medal.

That’s because Ollie Schniederjans, the big-hitting 22 year old from Georgia Tech, has caught fire at St. Andrews and may have a shot at a new major championship scoring record on his inward nine. Schniederjans went out in 31 with a bogey on the card -- an indication that St. Andrews is gettable again for the second straight day. With the wind relatively calm and the course so soft from all the rain, these big hitters are stuffing wedges close to almost every hole. ESPN’s Andy North said that literally every hole on the front nine is a wedge hole and Schniederjans hits it off the tee just about as far as anyone in the field.

The Open Championship is the oldest major in golf and this year it returns to its most renowned venue, the Old Course at St. Andrews. World No. 1 Rory McIlroy is the first defending champion not to play The Open since Ben Hogan in 1954. McIlroy was the favorite before he ripped up his ankle and his loss is significant, but the headliner is still here.

Jordan Spieth is the first player since Tiger Woods in 2002 to show up at the British Open holding the first two majors of the season. He’s the best player in the world and the favorite to win. Between the Spieth Slam, Tiger’s return to a place where he’s won twice, and the venue, this should be an amazing Open. Some background notes on the 144th edition as well as updated results and highlights as the week progresses.