British Open returns to a new Royal Birkdale and an old chase for the claret jug

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British Open returns to a new Royal Birkdale and an old chase for the claret jug

2026-07-16 14:26 Last Updated At：14:30

SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — Matthew Baldwin teed off at Royal Birkdale, just as he has done countless times as a member of the century-old links who grew up a short walk away. What made Thursday different was having a full grandstand surrounding him and a shiny claret jug reminding him what's at stake.

Baldwin hit the opening tee shot at the 154th edition of the British Open, an iron that split the middle of the brown fairway and was approved by a cheering crowd.

James Nicholas was in the first group for the second straight major. The New York native was first off at Shinnecock Hills last month in the U.S. Open, hitting his opening tee shot in fog so thick he couldn't see it land in the fairway. This shot at Birkdale didn't go so well, pulled into the thick grass and leading to an opening bogey.

And with that began the longest day in golf, part of what makes this major stand out from the others — 15 hours of golf along the Irish sea, summer daylight seemingly endless.

Defending champion Scottie Scheffler was among those playing early, along with Jordan Spieth, the last Open champion at Royal Birkdale in 2017.

But it's different now. The course was green and the rough was lush when Spieth won. A heat wave across Europe, and a forecast of sunshine, has left the course brown and baked, conditions that make for the best brand of links golf because the ball rolls and tumbles and bounces.

“The ball is just going to run forever,” Scheffler said.

The course also has an entirely new 15th hole, a par 3 at 241 yards, and four other holes that have gone through significant changes.

Scheffler is coming off a missed cut at the Scottish Open — his first in nearly four years — and will try to become the first repeat winner of the British Open since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08. He also is trying to win for the first time since January.

He will be alongside Bryson DeChambeau, who has missed the cut in every major this year.

Baldwin is among 21 players from England in the field, and hopes have never been higher for an English links to produce an English champion for the first time since Tony Jacklin in 1969.

Tommy Fleetwood, the FedEx Cup champion, grew up in Southport. Justin Rose is still among the top 10 in the world at age 45, having first made his mark at Royal Birkdale when he tied for fourth as a 17-year-old amateur in 1998. Matt Fitzpatrick is No. 3 in the world, and his three victories this year are more than Scheffler and Masters champion Rory McIlroy combined.

McIlroy played in the afternoon, the back-to-back Masters champion who last won the British Open in 2014 down the coast at Royal Liverpool.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

US expands strikes into northern Iran and disables ship trying to run blockade

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship it accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic Republic. Iran retaliated with missile and drone fire targeting Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait before dawn.

Days of back-and-forth strikes by the U.S. and Iran across the Middle East — and renewed threats to the Strait of Hormuz — have shredded the interim deal to end the Iran war and could tip the region back into all-out war. Already, Iranian officials say U.S. strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300 others. Strikes also reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the first time of this latest round of violence.

When the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic, a move that sent the price of oil, fertilizer and many other goods soaring far beyond the region and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations.

An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Akbar Velayati, signaled that its theocracy would continue to fight for the strait, describing Tehran's control of the waterway on Thursday as "a very precious achievement."

Those rising prices pose a particular challenge to U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, which hopes to retain control of Congress in elections in November. But Washington has struggled to successfully reopen the waterway, leading to Trump reimposing the naval blockade Wednesday.

Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said Iran was prepared for a fuller military confrontation if the U.S. does not live up to the terms of the interim deal, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the blockade.

“The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” the Guard said.

Trump again insisted Iran was ready to strike a peace deal, but he did not elaborate.

“They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said Wednesday at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.

Trump separately said on social media that Tehran made a goodwill gesture by releasing an American citizen wrongly detained in Iran since 2024. He didn’t release further details. Human rights lawyer Jared Genser released a statement identifying the detainee as his client Dena Karari, a U.S.-Iranian citizen who runs a nonprofit and was charged with espionage.

Iran did not immediately acknowledge the release and her case was not publicly known, as is sometimes the case with detentions in the Islamic Republic.

The U.S. strikes early Thursday hit around Tehran, state media reported. It also reported that American attacks targeted Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program.

Iranian media also reported strikes Thursday morning around the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan.

On Wednesday, the U.S. resumed striking Iran during daylight, further showing the increasing tempo of the attacks. An attack on Greater Tunb Island, a strategic point in the Strait of Hormuz, targeted Iranian defense and missile sites, Central Command said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said it opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the ship “ignored multiple warnings,” a U.S. aircraft disabled the merchant vessel by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack.

Another American strike Wednesday targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported. The report said Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers. A number of troops were wounded.

Iran retaliated Thursday with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, authorities in those countries home to U.S. forces said. There was no immediate acknowledgment of damage or casualties from the attacks.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi condemned an overnight drone attack on the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. The drone, which authorities said had been intercepted, came during his trip to the U.S. in which he said Iraq would work to disarm non-state armed groups, including those backed by Iran.

The latest round of fighting is focused on the Strait of Hormuz. How to reopen the strait has bedeviled the U.S. since Iran choked it off in the early days of the war.

During the interim deal, some ships began moving through the passage using a route near Oman overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran’s control.

In recent days, Iran attacked ships using that route and back-and-forth attacks ensued. The U.S. has threatened to reopen the strait by force, but experts say that would require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of ground troops. Imposing the blockade is another way to put pressure on Iran.

But in the meantime, oil prices are rising. The price for Brent crude oil, the international standard, traded above $85 a barrel on Thursday, more than 15% higher than the price before the war, but still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the conflict.