Henley's game comes together for strong finish at the 154th Open Championship
By Michael A. Lough
Central Georgia Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Russell Henley turned a trip to Northwest England into something of a Six Flags ride.
On the first day, there was a little tentativeness and queasiness, maybe wondering when it would become fun. The second day was not much fun at all.
The third day was a “OK, this is pretty cool after all” followed by “Let’s ride this again.”
The Stratford graduate went from barely missing the cut to barely missing a run for the Claret Jug down the stretch with a sizzling Sunday en route to a tie for ninth at the 154th British Open.
“Today, I felt like I played really well,” he said. “I had one bad hole, and other than that, I played really solid. I was just kind of just hoping that eventually my game would show up and that I would get the scores that I knew I could shoot.”
In two days, Henley improved his paycheck by tenfold, ending up with a $336,380, as did Adam Scott, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, and Ryan Gerard. It pushed him over $6 million for the year and to $52.8 million for his career.
Had Henley been able to simply make par on No. 16 and 18, it would’ve been worth $100, or so. The three players tied for sixth earned $550,883.
Nevertheless, Henley returned home after his second-best majors finish of the year, after tying for third in the Masters. It’s his seventh top-10 finish in 46 majors in his career, and third straight in The Open.
The PGA Championship remains an issue, having missed three of the last four cuts.
Unofficially, the Rocket Classic in Toledo in two weeks is up next for Henley, 14th in the FedEx Cup rankings and fifth in the Official World Golf Ranking.
The playoffs start Aug. 13-16 with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, followed by the BMW Championship in St. Louis and Tour Championship in East Lake in Atlanta.
Henley seems mostly back in form with a strong finish in which he was almost suddenly in contention.
“I didn't really think I was in it, but just because there's so many guys right around the top,” he said. “It felt good to play well. Any time you can get a good round going over here, you're doing a lot of things right. You're managing your game well. You're managing the wind well. You're managing the spin well.
“Everything is clicking when you can get it in the hole here. So that felt really good.”
It wasn’t that Henley played poorly the first two rounds.
“I didn't feel like I was way off with my game the first two days,” he told reporters. “I just kind of felt like maybe I wasn't attacking the course, not enough drivers or whatever. Was just enough off to where I wasn't giving myself birdie looks close enough.”
Still, he hovered around the cut line on Friday.
“I just felt like everything was there, but this course is tricky,” he said. “I just felt like I was just enough off to not make a bunch of birdies.”
He had six birdies before those two bogeys at the end, and more-than-usual frustrating bogeys they were.
On the par-4 No. 16, he missed a putt of less than five feet for par. On the par-4 No. 18, the second-hardest hole of the day, he got out of a fairway bunker nicely, but couldn’t convert on a 12-footer for par.
He finished the tournament 11th on par 5s and 12th on par 4s, struggling on the par 3s. Henley struggled in shots gained off the tee and on approach, and had a below-average weekend in driving accuracy, about eight percentage points below his PGA-leading 72.8 percent.
But he boosted that up to normal on Sunday, a clear difference. Henley was a little more aggressive.
“I realized watching it on TV guys are just hitting it everywhere and getting away with it,” he said. “I just started hitting some more drivers.
“I mean, some of the lines I saw off the tee this week with driver on TV and stuff, and then guys would still make par or birdie. I just realized I've got to be a little more aggressive and not go back to playing back so far.”