SCOTLAND's Daniel Brown lost his achievements and greatly reduced his prize money when he missed the target hole of The Open 2024, but it brought great benefits to former world number one Adam Scott and his colleague Matthew Jordan.
On July 21, Brown was at a score of -1 when entering the green of hole 18 in the final round of The Open 2024 on the Royal Troon par71 course. At that time, he was only five meters away from the target. If he puts in the hole, he scores par and finishes -1.
However, Brown missed the shot with the ball stopping just a hand's breadth outside the target. From there, he scored bogey on the target hole, finishing the tournament with an even par score. At this time, he was standing across from Scott and Jordan, both of whom had finished their round, but all three were unclear about their final position because there were still three groups on the field.
Brown greeted the audience after completing hole 18 of the last round of The Open 2024 on Royal Troon par 71 course on July 21. Photo: AP
Brown greeted the audience after completing hole 18 of the last round of The Open 2024 on Royal Troon par 71 course on July 21.
When the last group with Billy Horschel finished -7, Xander Schauffele's score of -9 became the championship mark for The Open 2024. Immediately the final leaderboard recorded Brown, Scott, and Jordan ranked T10 (even par). This position ensures direct entry to the main event in the 2025 tournament. But it also contains regret for Brown and joy for Scott and Jordan.
If he keeps par instead of bogeying the final hole of the tournament, Brown will move to T7 with a score of -1 and receive approximately 451,900 USD, equal to world number one Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, and Im Sung-jae. And in that situation, because Brown is the 10th place in the top 7, Scott and Jordan will rank T11 with an expected bonus of less than 300,000 USD and no direct entry to The Open 2025. But in reality, Brown, Scott and Jordan both received more than 317,534 USD in prizes, in addition to qualifying for next year's tournament.
Before that, Brown was a big surprise when he attended The Open 2024 at rank 272 in the world and ranked in the top 2 throughout the first three rounds. At the finish line, Brown started with a T2 position and a tournament score of -3 and unfortunately ended up in T10 after three birdies and six bogeys - five in the first nine holes and once on the finish hole.
Brown is 29 years old and has been playing golf professionally since 2017, even though three years ago he planned to stop playing this sport. It took him five years of diligently competing in tournaments to reach the top European DP World Tour, starting in the 2023 season. After eight months there, Brown won the first cup of his career and also the only championship to date. today, at the ISPS Handa World Invitational.
