Lee Westwood walked off the sixth green on at Royal Portrush and gazed around, stunned at how his his third round of the 2025 Open Championship had begun.
After a double-bogey at the par-3 3rd, a bogey and the 4th and another at the 6th, Westwood was four over through six and had plummeted down the leaderboard.
“I was looking around the golf course and I was like, oh, my God, where am I going to make a couple of birdies to get this back to half decent,” Westwood, who is 52, said after his round.
But those thoughts quickly dissipated.
After missing the last two Open Championships after deciding not to attempt to qualify, the Englishman is soaking in every moment of his favorite tournament. Be it birdie or bogey, pured iron or duffed chip, Westwood is determined not to let his play dull the art that is being created by the combination of the Northern Irish scenery, historic crowds and history.
“That’s why I really wasn’t that disappointed when I was four over through 6 because I thought, it’s the Open Championship, how many more am I going to get to play, you might as well enjoy it,” Westwood said. “There’s no point in being four over through six and sulking and being miserable and thinking, ‘There goes my Open Championship chance this year.’ You might as well just enjoy the surroundings, enjoy the feedback from the crowd because they’re great, and just plot along and try and figure out what was going wrong with my swing and why I was four over through six, turn it around.”
The Majesticks’ co-captain did just that.
He made a birdie at the par-5 7th but bogeyed the 8th to go out in 40.
Then, Westwood said his wife Helen, who is his caddie, offered him half a tuna sandwich on the 10th tee. It hit the spot.
Westwood began looking like the Wold No. 1 he once was — peppering pins and pouring in putts to erase his bleak opening stanza.
He birdied 10, 11 and 12. He parred 13 and then stuffed his approach shot to two feet at the 14th. He rolled in a 23-footer for birdie on 15 and drained a 20-footer for birdie on 17. Walking down the 18th fairway, Westwood received an ovation. His blistering back nine had him on the precipice of Open Championship history. He needed a closing birdie at 18 to become the first player in 153 iterations of the Open to shoot 28 on the back nine.
Only Westwood had no idea.
“I just kept writing down a lot of 3’s on my scorecard and I was like, ‘This is going well,” he said with a chuckle after the round. “I didn’t even know what I needed coming down the last.”
Westwood hit his approach to 15 feet, giving himself a good shot at etching his name into golf history. His playing partner, Sam Burns, had a similar putt, and Westwood watched as it went toward the hole and died off to the right and the end.
The Englishman, who has sniffed major championship glory numerous times throughout the years, rolled it pure and thought he hit it dead in the heart. But at the last second, Westwood’s putt drifted left and burned the edge. A tap-in par meant Westwood would join Ryan Fox as the only two players to come home in 29 at the Open, both of which occurred at Royal Portrush.
“It was a good back nine, wasn’t it. The putt at the last, I’m not sure how it’s missed,” Westwood said after shooting 69 to get in the house at five under. “Just started making good swings from 7 in really. Then I was looking at wow, I feel like I could birdie every hole. Just shows you you’ve got to be patient and never give up, right? Stick at it.
“Patience is the key sometimes, and 52 years of age, I’ve got plenty of knowledge of my golf swing, and I figured it out, figured it out quick.”
Westwood said he was unaware of his potential history-making back-nine until he was tallying up his score with Burns after the round and saw the “29” flashed on the board. He didn’t know the magnitude of his burned edge at 18, and, for that matter, he wasn’t miffed that he was denied a spot to stand alone Open history.
“No. I’m not that bothered. I’d have taken 29 on the back nine stood on the 10th tee,” Westwood said with the smile of a man in complete control of his golf ball for the last three hours of Saturday’s round.
“I knew I was playing well. I sort of had it on a string and was hitting it in all the right spots. It’s nice to play golf like that when you’re not thinking.”
Westwood turned a potential trainwreck Saturday into one for the Open record books. That sparkling 29 will have him enter Sunday’s final round one shot back of ninth place and four shots back of fourth. A top-10 finish will guarantee Westwood a trip back to the Open next year at Royal Birkdale, which he counts among his favorite courses in the world. A top-four finish would get him a ticket into all four majors in 2026.
But none of that will be on Westwood’s mind on Sunday along the coast of Northern Ireland.
Westwood isn’t thinking about what’s next — the future hasn’t crossed his mind since he medaled at the Dundonald Links qualifying site to get into Royal Portrush. Westwood is merely basking in the glow of the Open Championship, a warmth that can’t be duplicated and one he hopes to feel again.
Sunday for Westwood will be about living in the moment. He won’t step on the tee envisioning a day where he goes crazy low and steals the title from a stumbling Scottie Scheffler. He won’t fret a poor chip or missed putt that causes him to fall short of 2026 major trips.
“I’ve set no goals for this week at all whatsoever,” Westwood said.
Westwood, one of golf’s aging lions, will take another loop around the Open Championship on Sunday and think not about a potential 91st career major start at Birkdale next year, but about the golf bliss that is delivered only four days a year.
“I was just saying it’s the best walk in golf, the walk to the 18th green at the Open,” Westwood said.
It’s a stroll he’ll get to make at least one more time.
