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GOLF’s Dylan Dethier and Sean Zak head to the UK for an epic adventure: playing the next three Open Championship courses in three days. Their final stop is Royal Troon Golf Club, where they tee it up and explore the surrounding area.

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For the second time in the history of the sport, a golfer ranked outside of the top 300 in the world has claimed one of golf’s major championships.

Sophia Popov, a journeywoman who primarily plays on the LPGA’s developmental tour, claimed her first professional victory at the Women’s Open Sunday with a final score of seven under. Popov (-7) was one of only four golfers to finish under-par for the week at Royal Troon, which proved a proper test for many of the game’s best in its first-ever Women’s Open.

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The 27-year-old Popov capped off a cinderella week at the Open with a final round 68, beating out Jasmine Suwannapura by two strokes to claim the title.

Popov, who hails from Germany, was just the 304th ranked golfer in the world heading into the week. She joins 2003 Open Champion Ben Curtis as the only golfers ever to win a major championship while ranked outside of the top 300.

Prior to this week, Popov’s best finish at the Women’s Open was 67th in 2011, and her best finish in a major was T57 in the 2018 Women’s PGA Championship. With the win, Popov claims the Women’s Open’s $675,000 first-prize and her first major championship.

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Ed. note: Relax, it’s Bamberger Briefly, FedEx-style. This is the third of nine installments that will be express-delivered to this site during FedEx1 (Boston), FedEx2 (Chicago) and FedEx3 (Atlanta.) Previously: a new playoff system and Jim Herman.

With all due respect to the lodge brothers at TPC Boston, where the top-three players were 41 under par collectively through two rounds — the best golf event this week is the Women’s British Open at Royal Troon, on the rugged west coast of Scotland. The Wales Open is also being settled this weekend, named for a country loaded with great seaside golf. But the tournament is played at a soft inland resort course, Celtic Manor, where the Europeans beat the Americans at the 2010 Ryder Cup, by a point. All of us have our own thing that draws us in and for me the starting point is venue. That is, the course. Royal Troon. I’d love to be there now, ski cap and extra sweater in my backpack.

But it’s been fun, this week, waking up, getting the papers off the walkway, starting the coffee and watching the golf. Hearing Lydia Ko refer to her second-round score, 71, as “level.” Under is under and over is over and even is level. You and the course duked it out to a draw.

Except level-par 71 there was like Kevin Kisner shooting 65 at TPC Boston, at the Northern Trust. Go Kis. Ko’s playing partner, Lindsey Weaver of the United States, in Game 35, was pushing her own trolley. Our push cart is their trolley. (A buggy is motorized and there aren’t many over there.) In deference to the pandemic, the women can play without a caddie. There are no spectators. The wind comes and goes. Mostly, it comes. It’s Troon. The first tee is practically in town. Most of the course is hard by the Firth of Clyde and the wind blows off it. Their firth is our estuary, says Merriam-Webster. I don’t get that — it always looks like open sea to me, gray and nasty. Golf in Scotland.

The last men’s Open at Troon was in 2016, when Henrik Stenson clubbed it to death. He played some brick-house golf then. Pick it up, boom! Pick it up, boom! Unusually still days, for the most part, and four days of incredible golf: 68, 65, 68, 63. But links golf isn’t really so much about the boom. It’s about hitting it on the face. When slice spin rises to greet a sea breeze, the breeze wins every time. On-the-face is the best defense. There was no men’s Open this year. The great championship was supposed to be at Royal St. George’s, in Sandwich, England. It’ll be there next year instead.

My first Open was in 1985, at RSG, when Sandy Lyle won. I rented an attic bedroom for the week and caddied for an American player on his honeymoon, Jamie Howell. He was the medalist in the 36-hole qualifier at the course next door, Royal Cinque Ports. In the championship, the wind was so strong at one point we could almost not walk through it. The golf bag on my back was like a sail. At the house where I was staying, old, creaky and comfortable, with a view of the sea, tea was served with breakfast and the golf was on the telly. The BBC used to have the golf on from morning to night, Peter Alliss calling the shots. Alliss changed my life, by pointing me to a Scottish golf teacher named John Stark. Stark stirred his tea with a letter-opener. Scottish golfers are not fussy, at least not in my experience.

In 2009, when the Open was at Turnberry, I stayed up the coast at the Marine Hotel in Troon. My friend Neil Oxman stayed there, too. I was covering the tournament. Neil was caddying for Tom Watson, who was 59. Watson had the three-round lead, by a shot. He hits it on the face. If he could win on Sunday, he’d be the oldest winner of a major — by 11 years, and he’d have six Open wins, tying him with Harry Vardon. Neil and I had dinner at the hotel on Saturday night. We sat there for at least three hours. The phrase claret jug was not mentioned. Neither was the phrase champion golfer of the year.

On Sunday, Dustin Johnson will be trying to win FedEx1, the Northern Trust. Good luck, dude. Edoardo Molinari, Franceso’s brother and chasing, will be trying to win the Wales Open. (The brothers were both on the 2010 European Ryder Cup team at Celtic Manor.) Buona fortuna, signore. Sophia Popov, a German golfer who played college golf at USC, is trying to make the Women’s Open her first professional win. If she wins, she’ll be the champion golfer of the year. Yes, it’s an odd year, but the winner at Troon gets the sash.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael_Bamberger@Golf.com.

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There won’t be an Open Championship in 2020, but there will be a British Open.

The R&A announced Tuesday that it has received the go-ahead to conduct the AIG Women’s British Open as planned in mid-August at Royal Troon. The decision came as the governing body adjusts to a season light on events after canceling the Open Championship due to the spread of Covid-19.

The tournament will be played without fans, with safety protocols in place for players, caddies and tournament officials.

“We believe that playing the AIG Women’s British Open is a significant step for players whose playing opportunities have been severely impacted this year,” R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers said in a release. “As they compete to be the 2020 champion in historic circumstances, these athletes will continue to inspire golfers and sports fans around the world, who will be closely following events from Royal Troon on TV and social media.” 

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The event will run Aug. 20-23, three weeks after the LPGA Tour restarts in central Ohio with the Drive On Championship at the site of next year’s Solheim Cup, the Inverness Club. The Women’s British will be women’s golf’s first major championship of 2020.

“It’s fantastic news that the AIG Women’s British Open will be going ahead this summer and broadcast to millions of fans around the world,” said Nigel Huddleston, the United Kingdom’s sports minister. “Getting elite women’s sports back safely remains a top priority – we’re working hard to ensure we don’t lose any of the great momentum that has built up in recent years.”

According to reports from Golf Channel and the Scotsman, it is believed that the United Kingdom will waive its current mandatory 14-day quarantine in order to allow golfers to travel from the United States to participate in the event.

This year marks the first time the Women’s British Open will be played at Royal Troon, a course that ended its male-only membership requirement in 2016. Royal Troon has been in the men’s Open Championship rota for nearly a century, first hosting golf’s second major in 1923.

The 149th Open was originally scheduled for next week at Royal St. George’s, but instead will be held at the Scottish venue in 2021. This year marks the first since World War II, and only the fourth in the event’s 150-year history, that the men’s Open will not be played.

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LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England (AP) — Royal Troon will stage the Women’s British Open for the first time in 2020, four years after the Scottish club voted to admit female members.

The announcement was made on Friday.

Troon was an all-male club until 2016 when it voted overwhelmingly to admit women as members for the first time in its 138-year history.

Club captain Alasdair Cameron said the Women’s British Open “is the event that we have had our eye on for some time and we are very much looking forward to hosting the best women golfers and seeing how these fantastic players handle the challenges of our course.”

Troon is the latest course to be added to the Women’s British Open rotation this decade, after Carnoustie in 2011 and Royal Liverpool in 2012.

It was also announced that Woburn will host the tournament in 2019, three years after it was last held there.

The 2018 Women’s British Open is at Royal Lytham this week.

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The post British Open’s Best Seat in the House: Inside ‘Blackrock House’ at Royal Troon appeared first on Golf.

TROON, Scotland – The flat linksland at Royal Troon has many outstanding spots for spectating. The tall bleachers behind the tee at the 8th hole Postage Stamp are terrific. The quiet corner behind the 11th green is serene, when the trains aren’t running. And the 18th hole grandstands, under the iconic yellow scoreboards, are filled with energy and anticipation of a championship moment to come.

But the best seat in the house? That’s easy. It’s Paul Gregory’s living room.

Gregory is the owner of what’s come to be known as Blackrock House, the famed private residence that sits squarely inside Troon’s gates, between the 2nd and 16th greens. The official address is 16 Crosbie Road, and it’s hard to imagine a private home on any major venue that serves up better views of the action.

I strolled by the house Saturday morning and, noticing that the gate was open, decided to ring the bell and see if anyone was home. Gregory greeted me warmly and invited me in for a coffee and a quick tour, proving once again that nothing tops Scottish hospitality.

The home was built in the 1920s and after several upgrades over the decades, it feels vintage, yet modern. Gregory and his wife, Catherine, live about 60 miles away in Edinburgh. They purchased the four-bedroom, four-bathroom abode about seven years ago as a summer escape.

“You can’t beat this can you?” Gregory said as we stood on a patio outside his living room, watching golfers stroll up to the 2nd green. Just beyond the links, waves crest along Firth of Clyde. On a clear day, like the one we had here on Thursday, you can see all the way to Isle of Arran.

Gregory is a member at Royal Troon — “You have to be, if you’re going to look at this every day” — and says that in the years he’s owned his home, the club has not approached him about purchasing it. (A quick web search reveals that it would easily fetch more than £1 million. Not that he’s selling.)

The building is split in half, and Gregory says his family gets along well with the neighbors, who occupy their side of the dwelling full time. His family has been anticipating this Open week for years, and, as you might expect, they have a full house this week.

“We’ve been very popular,” he says. “We have nine staying here. One is sleeping on a camping bed.”

Out back is the original old stone wall, maybe three feet high, that rings a small lawn. Gregory recently added a flat ledge along the top, almost like a countertop, an ideal spot to rest a drink. You can stand on top of the wall and peer over fans along the ropes for an unobstructed view of the 16th green. I asked Gregory if he did the renovation with the thought of standing on that wall this very weekend.

“Actually, I was thinking about it looking good for TV,” he said with a laugh. “I even had the roof power-washed a couple weeks ago.”

NBC has already paid a visit this week, and Paul is feeling good about his investment. Tour complete, I finished my coffee, snapped a family photo and returned to the bleachers.

The view didn’t seem quite the same.

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