SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — Jordan Spieth was four days shy of turning 24 when he delivered pure magic in the final hour at Royal Birkdale to win the British Open for the third leg of the Grand Slam. It was among the most astonishing finishes in a major championship.
Perhaps even more astonishing? He has only two PGA Tour victories since. He has played in the final group at a major only once.
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U.S. golfer Rickie Fowler tees off during a practice round at the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
Spectators walk along a path with long grass either side as they watch a practice round for the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Spain's Angel Hidalgo on the 18th green during a practice round at the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
FILE - Jordan Spieth of the United States walks off the 2nd hole during the second round of the British Open Golf Championship, at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Friday July 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - Jordan Spieth of the United States holds the trophy after winning the British Open Golf Championships at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, July 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, File)
What hasn't changed is his optimism that he can get back to his best golf, now matter how far away that looks for a player who is No. 51 in the world, who has not been to the Tour Championship the past two years, who has not been in the conversation at a major in five years.
“If you give up on reaching your ceiling, then I don't see a point in playing anymore,” Spieth said Monday. “So for me it's always about I'll do everything I can to be trying to be at the very best in the world, because I know that I can be. I have been. It's nice to have the blueprint.”
The blueprint was nearly a decade ago — the pursuit of the calendar Grand Slam that ended with a bogey on the 17th hole at St. Andrews in 2015, his British Open title two years later, and playing in the final group at Carnoustie in 2018 as he tried to keep possession of the claret jug.
He feels he is on the right track and keeps getting a bad hand. The analogy he used earlier this year was having a bad shoe at the blackjack table, staying put because as soon as he walks away, fortunes surely will turn.
He's still at the table.
“I'm quite frustrated with the results considering I know where my game is at,” Spieth said. "It’s better than it was four or five years ago when I got back to top 10 in the world. It’s without a doubt better than it was then. It’s just not quite showing up in results.
“At the same time, it’s a stay-the-course mentality,” he said. “Sometimes you get rewarded right away, like I did back then maybe in a bit of a lucky fashion, and I understand that sometimes it’s delayed. And that’s how it feels like it is right now. ... So I'm just waiting for that opportunity.”
The return to Royal Birkdale at least allows him to remember how it felt to walk up to the 18th green with victory secure, sitting on the edge of a pot bunker with the claret jug as dozens of photographers captured the image of a 23-year-old often referred to then as “Golden Child.”
What he can't relive is the finish. He lost the lead on the 13th hole even though his bogey felt like stealing a shot — he took a penalty drop from a dune covered in high grass, hit a blind shot from the driving range and limited the damage with a chip-and-putt for bogey, just like always.
Then came the 6-iron he nearly holed on the par-3 14th and the 50-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th hole — “Go get that,” he famously said to caddie Michael Greller — and two more birdies.
“Maybe the best shot and best putt I've ever hit don't exist anymore,” Spieth said with a smile.
The par-3 14th is gone now. The R&A instead wanted the 15th hole to play as No. 14, and it built a new par-3 15th that measures 241 yards and has yet to get many positive reviews.
“Undecided,” Rory McIlroy said last week.
“As is always the case in par 3s, you have to wait until a tournament plays to see how the par 3 plays,” Tommy Fleetwood said on Monday.
Perhaps the biggest change for Spieth are the conditions. It was wet and green and lush in 2017, the wind coming out of the opposite direction. Now it is mostly yellow, brittle and firm, and much of England is coping with a heat wave.
Players were in shorts for the Monday practice round, which followed a “Last Chance Qualifier” that Joe Dean of England won with a 68 to secure his spot in the field.
“It’s going to play quite different than the last time we were here,” Spieth said. “We’ve had an opposite wind, too, the last couple days. ... Holes that are close to being drivable become mid- to long irons, and just with the wind switch, the difference into and down are so dramatic over here that picking a strategy is going to be key.”
A change of scenery might not be the worse thing for Spieth. He arrived over the weekend and relived some of those shots in the closing stretch, at least on the holes still there. But at this stage in his career, it's more about looking forward.
“I'm always comparing myself a bit to myself at my best, but not to try to be the exact player, just more so that I know that I can do it," Spieth said. “I know my ceiling is where that level was, and so I’m going to strive for it with the type of player that I am now.”
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U.S. golfer Rickie Fowler tees off during a practice round at the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
Spectators walk along a path with long grass either side as they watch a practice round for the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Spain's Angel Hidalgo on the 18th green during a practice round at the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
FILE - Jordan Spieth of the United States walks off the 2nd hole during the second round of the British Open Golf Championship, at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Friday July 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - Jordan Spieth of the United States holds the trophy after winning the British Open Golf Championships at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, July 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, File)
BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — The motorist killed by ICE officers in a Maine shooting Monday was not the target of the warrant the officers were executing, Sen. Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Mullin told him.
It's the second time in a week that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have used deadly force and at least the ninth since President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown.
Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia.
King said Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers who were pursuing him in Biddeford, a coastal city roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland.
“He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponized’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said.
The Maine attorney general’s office, which is investigating along with the FBI and other agencies, said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent. The office had said the man was the target of a deportation operation, and the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Messages seeking comment were left for ICE and the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Daniel Boucher said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a “pop, pop, pop” sound and saw a small car “turned 90 degrees to the curb” with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started moving down the street until the SUV hit it again, Boucher said.
“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said, getting choked up. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop’ — clearly heard him say that.”
Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point, Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.
“I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect," Boucher said. "I don’t remember his exact words.”
Two advocacy groups, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente!, said the man who was killed was authorized to work in the U.S. and had a Social Security number.
After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, but they aren't ready to speak publicly about the shooting, said the group's executive director, Mufalo Chitam.
Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.
“I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it. “I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”
The Colombian Embassy said it is in contact with U.S. authorities and “working to formally confirm the individual’s identity and nationality.”
Cory Poulin, whose family runs a laundromat near the scene, told the AP that security cameras at the business captured footage of the man’s car rolling into the intersection after shots were fired. Other images from the scene showed the car going in circles and bullet holes in its windshield.
He said Maine State Police asked that he not release the footage publicly.
The agents involved in the shooting didn’t have body-worn cameras, King said.
“The question is, what did he do with his vehicle," King said. “Were officers threatened? Were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force?
"That’s what this investigation is all about and I certainly intend to stay after it to do everything I can to be sure the investigation is as transparent and thorough as possible.”
Dozens of demonstrators critical of ICE and President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown gathered in Biddeford within hours of the shooting.
Amy Goodman, who is from nearby Wells, arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.
“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I’m mad about it,” said Goodman, who was wearing a shirt that said “ICE is best when crushed.”
Police blocked access to the shooting scene, which is in a neighborhood of mostly multifamily homes, churches and businesses. Several protesters stood nearby, with some holding signs condemning ICE's presence in the community and state.
“We are grieving, we are furious, and we will not allow his death to be treated as routine or inevitable,” Chitam said. “How much more harm must our communities endure before those with the power to act acknowledge that this has gone too far?”
On July 7, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Salgado Araujo, of Houston, after federal agents driving unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was taking his construction crew to a job site.
The shootings come amid a Trump administration push to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.
The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests are surging. The administration’s enforcement efforts were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.
“More than anything else, I want to know, ‘Why are you in Maine?’" Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said in a video on social media.
ICE had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which prompted several protests.
The Homeland Security Department named the operation “Catch of the Day,” an apparent play on Maine’s seafood industry, like it did for “Metro Surge” in Minnesota and “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.
Immigration officials said in late January that they had ceased “enhanced operations” in Maine after hundreds of arrests.
A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes" including aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.”
Court records show that while some had felony convictions, others had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but never convicted of a crime.
ICE arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of Trump’s second term and March 11, 2026, the most recent data available, according to ICE arrest data provided to the University of California, Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the AP.
About 45% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds. During the equivalent 416-day period before Trump took office, roughly 69% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data show.
This story was updated to correct the spelling of Cory Poulin’s first name.
Willingham reported from Boston and Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York, Aaron Kessler in Washington and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Blood is seen on the pavement near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Frances Mercanti-Anthony, from Bristol, Maine, stands near the scene where blood is seen on the pavement after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Protesters gather at a park near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Eisha Khan speaks at a rally of protesters near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A vehicle with a damaged window is transported away from the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Protesters gather near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A vehicle is transported on a flatbed near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Biddeford City Councilor Abigail Woods hugs an unidentified constituent during an impromptu protest near the scene of a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
An FBI official places an evidence card where a man was reportedly killed in a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)
The scene on Pool Street where a man was reportedly killed in a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)
People stand near the scene as police block a road after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Biddeford, Maine, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)
Police block a road after a shooting in Biddeford, Maine, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)
This image taken from video provided by WMTW shows police on the scene after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (WMTW via AP)
This image taken from video provided by WMTW shows police and FBI agents on the scene after a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in Biddeford, Maine. (WMTW via AP)
FILE - A federal agent wears an Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge in New York, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
