The Open Championship

Two tournaments, one week, one Claret Jug. Stefano Mazzoli lapped the opposite-field Corales Puntacana at -20, but the week belonged to Southport, where Royal Birkdale turned a crowded Sunday leaderboard into a one-shot escape.

Fox lifted the Claret Jug at -10, and he got there the hard way. He opened Saturday near the cut line, then fired a third-round 62 that tied the lowest round in major-championship history. He was still two back of Sam Burns starting Sunday. A closing 68 reeled Burns in, and a birdie on the 72nd hole sealed the first major of Fox's career, at 39.

Contest Winners

Charles S. treated the 13-player Open Championship pool like a practice round, winning by nine at -38. Down in Da Open, Nicolas L. and Eric V. both posted -2 — a dead heat settled on the tiebreak.

The one that got away, twice

Two players had it and let it go. Sam Burns carried a two-shot lead into Sunday and a closing 72 undid it — the latest chapter in a long, complicated history with the front-running lead, and exactly the kind of 54-hole cushion the links can turn cruel. Cameron Young came from the other direction: a Sunday 64, the low round of the day, that pulled him to -9 and left him one shy. It is not the first time Young has finished an Open a single stroke short. Fox needed both of them to blink. On Sunday, both did.

Keep the app fresh

One housekeeping note for the phone crowd. Make sure your Leaderboard Fantasy app is on the latest version. Live scoring, group leaderboards, and push alerts when your team makes a move all keep getting better, and the newest features and fixes only show up once you are on the current build. Auto-updates are easy to leave switched off, so a quick trip to the App Store or Google Play is worth it before next week's tee times.

Coming Up Next

3M Open (Jul 23–26, TPC Twin Cities, Blaine MN) is the summer palate cleanser, a birdie-fest setup with 500 FedExCup points up for grabs.

Rocket Classic (Jul 30–Aug 2, Detroit Golf Club) brings a $10M purse and another 500 points to a rare urban parkland test.

That's the Open in the books. Get your 3M Open rosters in, and update that app while you're at it. See you on the leaderboard.

— Jeremy @ The Leaderboard Fantasy Team