S enior Open Championship review
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There were household names aplenty in the running at Sunningdale, but none of them could match the unheralded Welshman, Stephen Dodd Words: Andy Farrell
Easy does it: a relaxed Dodd acknowledges the applause
Getty
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t was ever so slightly surreal, but very definitely wonderful. A drizzly old summer’s evening under the big oak tree at Sunningdale, like many before and yet unlike any other. Stephen Dodd faced a 10ft putt at the back of the 18th green of the Old Course to win the Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex. And, without any fuss or fanfare, Dodd rolled it in. He nonchalantly waved his putter aloft, bumped knuckles with his playing partner, Jerry Kelly, briefly hugged his caddie and was then enveloped in an embrace by runner-up Miguel Ángel Jiménez, cigar in hand. Jiménez, the 2018 winner, had just scored a 65 and posted the clubhouse target at 12 under par, having earlier in the week made an albatross. Kelly, Dodd’s nearest challenger after three rounds, was at the time leading the Charles Schwab Cup season standings on the PGA Tour Champions. Darren Clarke, who lifted the Claret Jug in 2011, was hoping to become only the fourth after Gary Player, Bob Charles and Tom Watson to win both The Open and the Senior Open. The Northern Irishman finished two behind, while Bernhard Langer, the defending champion looking for a fifth win, was fourth and Paul Broadhurst, the 2016 champion, fifth. Ernie Els and the newly crowned US Senior Open champion, Jim Furyk, both on their debut, were also in contention, as was Alex Cejka, winner of two of the Champions Tour’s Majors in 2021. The Senior Open had to be cancelled in 2020, but was rescheduled at Sunningdale for 12 months later and the field was as strong as it could be. Everyone was here and Dodd beat the lot. Which was remarkable not least because the 55-year-old Welshman had barely been playing. While the Champions Tour in America had restarted after the pandemic in the summer of 2020, and been going strongly ever since, the Legends Tour 158
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