Wesley Bryan’s bid to advance to the Open Championship came down to his final hole.
Unfortunately for Brian, the former PGA Tour player has become a YouTube sensation. He missed a 7-foot par putt on the par-4 18th at West Lancashire Golf Club to end up within touching distance of a playoff for the final spot in Blundellsands, England, one of four final qualifying spots on Tuesday.
After shooting a 2-under 70 in the first round, Brian birdied numbers 16 and 17 in the afternoon to move to 8 under. But his closing bogey knocked him down from T-6 at 7 under.
Although Brian, along with his brother George Brian (2 years younger), will not be taking part in the July 16-19 match at Royal Birkdale, another professional with a large online following, James Nicholas, will be there.
Nicholas, 29, medaled at Burnham and Berrow Golf Club in Somerset, England, and was one of four players to qualify for both Summer Opens this year; the other three were LIV pair Caleb Surratt, who was second at Burnham and Burrow, and Peter Wihlein, out of Royal Cinque Ports in Deal, England, where he was fourth; and Matthew Jordan, who went three to one in the play-offs with the West Lancs.
Jordan, who was T-10 in back-to-back Opens (2023 and 2024), qualified for the U.S. Open earlier this month at Shinnecock Hills. On Tuesday, Jordan overcame what he thought was food poisoning, birdieing two of his final three holes and then beating compatriots Sam Easterbrook and Joe Dean with a birdie on the second playoff hole.
“Last night I woke up feeling terrible… so I was tired of coming here, and as soon as I got through 18 holes, I felt my body give up,” Jordan said. “Luckily, seeing all these people, different people that I know from golf and other things, it gave me a little bit of adrenaline to get started, and that stayed with me.”
The last time at least one player made both final qualifiers in the same year was Brandon Wu in 2019. That summer, Wu, then a Stanford graduate, became the first amateur to qualify for both finals since Joe Carr in 1967.
Like Wu, Nicholas is a native of Scarsdale, New York. He has had success at each of the last two US Opens and is currently ranked 16th in Korn Ferry Tour points. He birdied five of his first 13 holes before surviving the last few holes in difficult conditions.
“Today was a battle,” Nicholas said. “It started off very, very good and then it was kind of like, wait a minute, the downside. But I love golf… I said this week it’s almost like a religious experience.”
Also at West Lens, LIV’s Josel Ballester played his final three holes at 3 under to finish T-2 at 9 under. Ballester bogeyed the par-5 16th hole before nearly pulling his tee shot out of bounds on No. 18. Ballester was unaware of the inside OB on the closing hole, but he was fortunate to have his ball bounce right off the stakes to set up a closing birdie.
Here’s a look at the entire course for those eligible to compete at Royal Birkdale Golf Club.
“It’s funny how this game works,” said Ballester, who came off a second straight miss on the DP World Tour to finish 55th in his last LIV start in his native Spain, where he beat just one player. “The last month and a half hasn’t been very good and I’ve been complaining too much about the breaks in general and I think there’s always a balance and this (rebound) was probably for all the losers I had last month.”
Perhaps the coolest backstory to Tuesday’s 20 qualifying matches comes from American Marcus Plunkett, who shot 3 under to take the lead at Dundonald Links in Troon, Scotland. Plunkett graduated from West Point, where he played college golf, in 2016. He then served in the Army for five years as a transportation officer, spending his first year in South Korea before transferring to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. He also spent a six-month deployment in Afghanistan.
Toward the end of his military service, Plunkett began playing golf again, breaking the record at the Cheyenne Shadows course at Fort Carson. When he was discharged in May 2021, Plunkett decided to take up professional golf. He won the Dakotas Tour money list in 2024 and later that year earned KFT status through Q-School. However, he made just 8 of 20 cuts and finished 134th in points. All seven of his world ranking starts this year have come in Asia, where he has two T6s on the Asian Tour.
However, Plunkett will now play his first career major championship.
Celebrities who missed out on Tuesday included Sergio Garcia, Marc Leishman, Ollie Schniederjans, Anirban Lahiri, Triston Lawrence, Robert Rock and Tom Lewis, as well as amateurs Luke Poulter, Connor Graham, Niall Sheils Donegan, Daniel Bennett, Richard Teder and Arnie Sveinsson.
Here’s a look at the qualifications from each of the four sites:
Burnham & Berrow Golf Club (Somerset, England)
- 1. James Nicholas, 65-67 – under 10
- 2. Caleb Surratt, 67-66 – under 9
- 3. Austin Truslow, 66–68 – under 8
- 3. Tom Sloman, 69-65 – 8 under
- 3. Alejandro de Castro Piera, 65-69 – under 8
Dundonald Links (Tron, Scotland)
- 1. Jack MacDonald, 70–69 – under 5
- 2. Matthew Baldwin, 69-71 – 4 under
- 2. a-David Howard, 69-71 – 4 less
- 4. Marcus Plunkett, 69-72 – 3 less
- 4. a-Neville Ruiter, 71-70 – less by 3
Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club (Deal, England)
- 1. Baard Skogen, 68-64 – under 12 years old
- 1. MJ Duffew, 67-65 – under 12 years old
- 3. Matthew Southgate, 68-66 – under 10
- 4. Peter Uichlein, 66-69 – under 9
- 5. Antoine Rosner, 69-67 – under 8
West Lancashire Golf Club (Blundellsands, England)
- 1. Sam Bairstow 66-68 – under 10
- 2. Kazuma Kobori, 70–65 – under 9
- 2. Tiger Christensen, 65-70 – under 9
- 2. Josele Ballester, 70-65 – less than 9 years old.
- 3. Matthew Jordan, 69–67 – up to 8*
*defeated Sam Easterbrook and Joe Dean in the playoffs 3 to 1
McIlroy, just days away from finishing T-32 at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, was at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England, on Thursday ahead of the Open Championship, which runs July 16-19.