The 36-year-old Georgian waggler maintained his grasp on the 151st Open Championship with a steady 69 on Day 3. It was a superb reply to Jon Rahm’s morning 63, which piled on the pressure and made it clear the current Masters champion is not done yet. Asked about his response to Rahm’s statement of intent after a shaky start, Harman said: "Yeah, I mean, it would have been really easy to let the wheels start spinning and really kind of let it get out of control, but I just kind of doubled down on my routine and knew I was [...]

The course on Day 1 made a statement to the players that they best keep their ball out of the bunkers. After plenty of build-up about the greenkeeper’s use of the hay rake, which with wider teeth can cause the ball to nestle a little further down in the sand, the players found the sand traps to be penal hazards indeed. Perhaps more noticeably challenging on Day 1, was the way in which the bunkers have been dug flat, with balls getting trapped in the corners and up against the faces. With 81 traps in total on the links, we [...]

So much has been said about the new 17th hole here at Hoylake and the unique challenge it will pose the players this week. As Cookie Jar’s roving reporter for the day, I headed over there to see how the first 30 players took on the challenge and how they fared. After seeing Michael Kim’s tweet late last night with the Round 1 Pin Sheet attached, before I had even arrived at Little Eye, I knew that the pin was going to be tucked front right. Just as I arrived at the greenside stand, the greenkeepers were finishing cutting it [...]