The 146th Open Championship may not be the runaway Sunday we were hyped on Saturday night. When Jordan Spieth poured in a birdie putt at the 18th in the third round, the coronations started flowing. Sunday would be a stroll to his third major championship and nothing was going to stop him.
British Open leaderboard 2017: Jordan Spieth’s lead cut to 1 after ‘crap’ break
We have a new game at The Open, where Matt Kuchar has trimmed a three-shot deficit to just one early in the final round.
But two holes into the final round, Spieth’s three-shot lead was promptly cut down to just one. Matt Kuchar is playing in the final pairing of a Sunday at a major for the first time in his career, which features a boatload of money won and tournaments conquered. But he’s never really been in the hunt late at a major, despite occasional appearances on leaderboards and constant ribbing about the propensity for a “backdoor top 10.”
Kuchar may not be the strongest foil for Spieth’s Sunday stroll, but he’s a veteran playing with less pressure and lower expectations given all the shine on his tee time partner. At the second, he stuffed one on top of the pin for a tap-in birdie to intensify the pressure on Spieth.
Spieth, who hit his own strong approach shot, could not match Kuchar’s birdie, burning the edge to settle for a tap-in par.
That one-shot swing came just moments after Spieth tugged his opening drive a little left at Birkdale’s first hole. That’s one of, if not the toughest hole in The Open rota and Spieth felt he caught a bit of a “crap break” when his ball hung up in some of the thicker hay off the fairway.
The bogey-par start for Spieth, combined with Kuchar’s snipe at No. 2, has made this a new game in the first 15 minutes of their final round. Here’s your leaderboard:
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