Old guys rule! The Open offers best chance for golden year glory

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PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — It’s part of the poetry of the Open Championship that these ancient golf courses pair so nicely with ancient golfers.

As spellbinding as it is to watch great athletes at the peak of their powers, or to witness the shock of a Cinderella story, nothing raises the hair on the back of your neck — or perhaps your ears, depending on your vintage — like an aging athlete chasing one last gasp of glory.

There was a brief moment early Thursday morning at Royal Portrush when the co-leaders at the final major championship of 2025 were 55-year-old Phil Mickelson and 52-year-old Lee Westwood.

“Links golf, more than any golf, gives you a chance when you’re our age,” Westwood said.

The Englishman briefly reached four-under before settling for a two-under 69 on Thursday, good for a share of 10th after the opening day. Westwood is unique among the older competitors at Portrush this week because the LIV golfer battled his way through Open qualifying to earn his spot into the field.

Mickelson finished tied for 20th at one-under 70, a score later matched by 53-year-old Justin Leonard.

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“I love the Open Championship and I love Portrush,” Westwood said. “I’ve been coming here a long time. It’s one of the golf courses where, if it wasn’t the Open and somebody said ‘do you want to play Portrush this weekend?’ I’d probably go. There’s not many golf courses like that.”

In many ways, links golf is the perfect foil for a sports world that increasingly wants to solve every mystery with analytics, technology and protein shakes.

“There’s a bit more run on the ball,” Westwood said of how the fiery Portrush turf evens the playing field when it comes to distance. “It’s not a golf course where there’s a massive advantage to carrying a trap at, say, 310 yards, which I don’t have anymore.

“You’ve got to use the conditions and hold the ball up well in the sidewinds and crosswinds, and be able to bring your ball flight down when you’re going into the wind.”

Golfers coming from North America who lean too heavily on a stock shot-shape or a high trajectory, might as well head over to the famous Harbour Bar and enjoy their week there because there won’t be a Claret Jug in their future. In these parts, you have to play golf rather than golf swing.

“Winning the Open in 2013 was the greatest accomplishment in my career because I had to learn a style of golf that I didn’t grow up playing,” Mickelson said after carding an opening one-under-par 70. “It’s the greatest source of pride for me as a player to overcome those obstacles. Now I’ve come to really love it, enjoy it.”

Links golf is about standing on a blind tee shot with no target in sight and somehow trusting your line. Around the greens, links golf is about painting a picture in your mind of how and where to get the ball rolling so it will stop somewhere in the vicinity of the hole.

It’s about trusting your expertise completely, but being comfortable knowing that once the ball leaves your club it’s in the hands of the golf gods.

It’s about perfectionists being at peace with imperfection.

“When you get conditions like this, you start to fall back on realizing that 60, 80 feet in the proper spot is a good spot and you start to realize that you can make 20- or 30-foot putts out here,” Mickelson said. “You don’t have to hit it to six feet to make birdie. You can hit it 20, 30 feet because the greens don’t break a lot, you can hit them aggressively.”

“You find that going back on past experience,” he added. “You don’t have to press it. You don’t have to force it.”

Portrush might not be St. Andrews, but there is a similar feeling that this entire seaside town is alive with the excitement of this tournament making just its second visit to Northern Ireland since 1953.

Local legend and 2011 Open Championship winner Darren Clarke shot a four-over 75 and offered the following advice.

“Prepare yourself. You’re going to get bumps and bounces. It’s going to go sideways a few times,” the 56-year-old said. “I’ve been down here practicing a lot, hitting putts, doing everything. Coming in here shooting 4-over, maybe I should have spent more time in the Harbour Bar than out here.”

A few members of the nearly 50 crowd also fared well on Thursday with 45-year-old Justin Rose tying Westwood with a 69. The 49-year-old Zach Johnson and 44-year-old former teen sensation Sergio Garcia shot 70.

But it was a rejuvenated Westwood who captured our imagination after Day 1, as he looks to be the unlikely first Englishman in 33 years to win golf’s oldest championship.

“Can’t beat seeing your name up there on a Thursday,” he said. “We’ll talk again if it’s up there on Sunday.”