‘I’m brutal on myself’: Open contestant reflects on surviving in professional golf

This wasn’t Marcus Armitage’s first Open Championship, but it was his first uninjured Open Championship. Three years ago, the Englishman made his Open debut at Carnoustie with a dislocated left shoulder, the result of an indoor-skydiving accident.

Armitage’s doctors had told him to give the Open a pass, but damned if Armitage was going to take that advice. He’d been dreaming of an Open start for more than two decades. With one arm essentially incapacitated, Armitage bunted his way around Carnoustie to an opening-round 80. The next day, he managed 11 strokes better, care of a putter that wouldn’t miss. “Like Jordan Spieth in his heyday,” Armitage said.

News

This week? More progress still. Armitage opened 69-72 to advance to his first Open weekend. A pair of even-par 70s on Saturday and Sunday kept him at one over for the championship, well back of the leaders but with an experience — including both up and downs — he won’t soon forget.

The ups: “It’s magic,” he said. “Major golf at the weekend, everything that you’d expect. I’ll trade you that first major weekend that I’ve had this week and I’ll take it on to future tournaments.”

The downs: “I’m brutal on myself. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, but I think that’s what drives me and keeps me working. I will learn a lot of lessons from this when I sit down next week and think of what I can do better. It will just instill a little bit more belief in me.

“I’m a fast learner, but it takes me time to get into a comfortable position in these bigger events and bigger tournaments in the world. Some people take to it straightaway, like your Rorys and the big boys, but it’s taken me a bit longer. I’m slowly getting the gist of it, and hopefully I can break through next year with something bigger.”

Armitage isn’t a household name, but he has become a bit of cult hero in professional golf not only for his refreshing candor (see above) but also for his irrepressible zeal for the game. Perhaps you saw the video of him last month overcome with emotion after winning for the first time on the European Tour. Or maybe you know him as the guy who worked on his putting stroke buck naked. Or as the player who, during his rookie season on the Euro Tour, asked Tiger Woods for an autograph and Sergio Garcia for a selfie. Or as the guy who helped set the Guinness World Record for farthest golf shot caught in a moving car.

“We’re entertainers at the end of the day,” Armitage said earlier this week. “We do this for crowds. We don’t do it for money, as much as the money is good and gives us luxurious things. We do it for entertainment, crowd, and just the enjoyment of the game and growing the game.” Armitage makes the suffocatingly high-pressure world of professional look like a bit of fun, which is remarkable when you consider how he arrived here.

When Marcus was 13, he lost his mother, Jean, to cancer. He dropped out of school because, he has said, all he could think about was his mother’s death; the practice tee became his sanctuary. He battled drug addiction and, in 2013, had a DUI. He fell into debt. He slept in a tent with his father at the PGA EuroPro Tour’s qualifying school. He pushed through all of it and this week…

…made the cut at an Open.

“Everything you imagined,” he said Sunday afternoon. “As a kid growing up, it’s everything you dream of.”

Next up for Armitage: a couple of Euro Tour events, first in Northern Ireland and then in St. Andrews, but first, a much-needed week off.

“I’m charging my phone tonight,” he said before departing Sandwich. “When it runs out of batteries tomorrow, I ain’t charging it for another week. So I’m totally going into no media, no phone calls, no text messages. It’s just going to be me and my dogs and Lucy back at home relaxing and just doing what we want to do.”

Amen.