PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland (AP) — It only took two holes for Jon Rahm to hit into his first bunker in the British Open. And that's how long it took caddie Adam Hayes to realize the R&A had decided to end a tradition unlike any other at the major championships.
Hayes was going to have to rake the sand himself.
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Jon Rahm of Spain plays out of a bunker on the 7th green during a practice round for the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his second shot on12th hole from a bunker during the first round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Jason Reynolds caddie for Dean Burmester of South Africa rakes a bunker on the 1st after Burmester played a shot from it during the third round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Jason Reynolds caddie for Dean Burmester of South Africa rakes a bunker on the 1st after Burmester played a shot from it during the third round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Bryson DeChambeau of the United States plays out of a bunker on the 9th hole during a practice round for the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Jon Rahm of Spain plays out of a bunker on the 7th green during a practice round for the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his second shot on12th hole from a bunker during the first round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
This is nothing that merits hazardous pay. Hayes has been caddying for more than 20 years and it's part of the job.
But at the British Open, it was always different. Dating to 1984 at St. Andrews, what now is the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) has sent a crew to the Open where one person walked with each group and raked the bunkers in a trained, uniform fashion.
Not at Royal Portrush.
“I looked around and was like, ‘Uh, I’ve got to rake this,'” Hayes said. “I do think it's one of the cool things about the The Open, a tradition that for whatever reason they cut out. And I think they should bring it back.
“I don't know why they did it,” he said. “But I don't know a lot of things.”
That reason? Good question.
“It's a change for us, but we think a good one,” said Mark Darbon, the new CEO of the R&A. When asked why it was good, he only said, “A number of factors. We just think it's a good model for us here at Portrush.”
What next? Mr. Whippy ice cream without the chocolate flake?
According to Jim Croxton, the CEO of BIGGA, the R&A informed the group after last year's British Open their services would no longer be needed.
”With the growth of on-site greenkeeping teams, as well as the R&A providing top class agronomy support, the requirement for the additional Support Team has lessened; in recent years this team was only responsible for match raking,” Croxton said in an email to Golf.com.
News travels slowly. In fact, it seems even the R&A overlooked the decision because on the entry way to portable restrooms for players, a sign reads, “For use by Rules Officials, Players, Caddies, Walking Scorers, Scoreboard Carriers & Bunker Rakers.”
All it took was one round for potential problems, both involving Tommy Fleetwood. His caddie, Ian Finnis, spent an extraordinary amount of time raking a bunker from which Fleetwood had a plugged lie near the lip.
Then on the next hole, they discovered the bunker they were in apparently had not been raked, or at least not raked properly. The best he could do was advance it a few yards into the rough, leading to a bogey on Thursday.
“It wasn't a great rake job,” Fleetwood said. “First thing is I was not very happy to be in there. That was the first thing, so that’s my fault. ... It was in somebody’s hitting mark that hadn’t really been raked great. I probably could have managed it better.”
Fleetwood also was perplexed why BIGGA was not brought back.
“They’ve always had bunker rakers until this week? I thought so. I thought that was odd,” he said. "I mean, still, you just rake the bunkers, right? It's part of the game. I’m not going to hold it against anyone too much. You don’t know what was going on, you don’t know what was happening in that moment. I’m not going to get angry about anyone where you don’t know what’s happening, but it wasn’t great.
“Yeah, bunker rakers would have been nice.”
Among the reasons cited by Croxton and an R&A spokesman was the desire to eliminate the amount of people — besides players and caddies — inside the ropes. How one person performing a service causes the fairways to look like the M25 loop in London is hard to fathom, especially with so many broadcast partners.
Mike Kerr, who first caddied at the Open in 2002, was another who didn’t realize there had been a change. He works for Carlos Ortiz and noticed the caddie for Chris Kirk running the plastic rake through the sand on Thursday and looked around for the BIGGA crew.
Kerr said it wasn’t just a huge perk for caddies for a skilled crew to rake the bunkers. He felt it helped speed play — and keep from being rushed.
“It’s so hard when you’re trying to figure out the wind and the lie and you’ve got to the rake the bunker and hurry up to get back to your player,” he said.
Brian Harman's caddie, Scott Tway, also was surprised when he saw the caddie for Joaquin Niemann raking a bunker early in the second round. His first thought: “Where are the rakers?”
“It was nice. It was awesome. I don't know what happened,” Tway said. “For caddies, that was one of the nicest things about this tournament was not having to rake bunkers.”
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Jon Rahm of Spain plays out of a bunker on the 7th green during a practice round for the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his second shot on12th hole from a bunker during the first round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Jason Reynolds caddie for Dean Burmester of South Africa rakes a bunker on the 1st after Burmester played a shot from it during the third round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Jason Reynolds caddie for Dean Burmester of South Africa rakes a bunker on the 1st after Burmester played a shot from it during the third round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Bryson DeChambeau of the United States plays out of a bunker on the 9th hole during a practice round for the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Jon Rahm of Spain plays out of a bunker on the 7th green during a practice round for the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his second shot on12th hole from a bunker during the first round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.
Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.
“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”
Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.
The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.
Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”
"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.
“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”
The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.
On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.
City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.
The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.
Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.
The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.
The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.
Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.
In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.
But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”
Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.
The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.
The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.
Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.
Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.
Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.
Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters' shadows are cast on the street near law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
An American flag burns outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Two protesters are lit by a police light as they walk outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Protesters are arrested by federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters sit on a barrier that is being assembled outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building as protesters gather in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters stand off against law enforcement outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Protesters chant and march during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer the day before, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, after she was fatally shot by an ICE officer the day before. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters confront federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino arrives as protesters gather outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
A protester pours water in their eye after confronting law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
