British Open 2024: Dan Brown, the longest of longshots, could do something that hasn't been done in 20 years

TROON, Scotland — He’s not the type of player that’s supposed to be in a position like this at this point of a British Open, a sentiment amplified by the sight of Dan Brown huddled under an umbrella, his back to the relentless rain and wind, in a desperate attempt to light the cigarette dangling from his mouth. That’s not a common sight nowadays; professional golf is dominated by athleticism and power, and here was Brown, taking on them and this course by ripping heaters like the service worker he contemplated becoming not long ago.

“That's just a bit of a bad habit that I've got into,” Brown admitted afterwards. “Do you know what, I only really do it when I'm golfing, to be honest, so I suppose it could be a coping mechanism. I was trying to sneak from my mom and dad … They do know, but I don't do it in front of them, or I don't want to do it in front of them, so I try and hide it.”

That light on his dart was not the only fire that burned. You know the weather’s bad when the animals say, “The hell with this”; the farm to the right of Royal Troon’s inward nine was devoid of any creatures in its field. The Open’s elements are often romanticized, for they call on a creativity and vision rarely seen, but the rain was so hard and cold and consistent that romanticism felt washed away long ago. The golf on display had little to do with skill; it was a test of the mind and heart. Only the baddest of men—in this case, the baddest of Cinderellas—were left standing. For the first time in a long time, golf has a true underdog in contention for one of its most coveted prizes.

“Yeah, we're still there,” Brown said after his two-over 73 on Sunday left him in a tie for second with 18 holes to go. “It was difficult. I'm a little bit disappointed with how the last two holes went because I did so well to get to where I got to, and yeah, it's a bit nasty to finish like that.”

Brown should be proud. He played in the teeth of a storm, the afternoon wave facing a challenge nearly two shots harder than those that went off in the morning. There were par 4s that couldn’t be reached in two, with the par-3 17th requiring many to hit drivers that still came up short. As he alluded to, it wasn’t a pretty finish, a bogey on 17 followed by a double at the last, yet Brown—ranked outside the top 250 in the world—will be playing in one of the final groups Sunday afternoon.

Now, sports fans love the little guy, and who Brown is is part of the charm. A player from a small town and humble means, someone who dropped out of college and was ejected hard from the mini-tours. He was so broke he applied for job openings at a supermarket. Brown eventually gave up the game because he didn’t think his good was good enough and fell into a dark place. He returned only at the onset of the pandemic since there was nothing else to do.

Brown has some career stability, getting his DP World Tour card for 2023 and winning the ISPS Handa Invitational that August, but he hasn’t done much this season and entered the Open missing six of his last eight cuts. To not root for him is to not have a soul.

However, it’s what Brown represents—and what he doesn’t—that makes what he’s trying to do so intriguing.

On a surface level, it’s been some time since a longshot had a chance at one of the big four. Just once over the last 50 major championships has the winner been ranked outside the Official World Golf Ranking’s top 35 … and that was Phil Mickelson, arguably the biggest name in golf outside of Tiger Woods, at the 2021 PGA Championship. Much is made of the fine lines in professional golf between the doers and dreamers, yet Brooks Koepka once called the majors easy to win, believing only 20 to 30 players had the capability to contend on the biggest stage when the lights shined brightest, and time has proven Koepka right. Brown can be a very large exception to the rule.

“Obviously it's not a normal week, but I feel like mentally I've been in a place where I've treated it like a normal week on the DP World Tour,” Brown said. “I've not made it feel any bigger than what it is, and it is a lot bigger, obviously.”

Yet there’s a deeper, existential importance to Brown’s Sunday. If there’s a throughline from the last three summers of golf’s civil war, it’s that the top ranks have become increasingly closed off. It’s no secret that the PGA Tour’s signature events series has received mixed reviews from its own membership, specifically those in the rank-and-file. Some don’t see these elevated tournaments as a chance to gather the game’s best, instead viewing them as a way for the blue bloods to stay where they’re at—and get paid handsomely in the process—while curbing avenues for social mobility. One of the reasons LIV Golf was denied ranking points was limited relegation and promotion into the league. Stars on both sides can be accused of caring more about themselves rather than where their actions are taking golf as a whole.

Now, professional golf has long been powered by and revolved around a finite number of planets, yet there still should be room for the little stars to shine bright. That it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, where you play or where you're from, that everything on the line is ultimately not given but earned. Brown is the avatar for the promise of what professional golf could be.

It won’t be easy. Brown’s one behind 54-hole pace car Billy Horschel, tied with five others for second and another five within four of Horschel’s lead. Brown has never been in this position before, and major championships are notoriously unkind to novices. Out of the dozen with a viable shot at the claret jug, oddsmakers have Brown at 20-to-1, the worst figure of the bunch.

“I suppose a lot of people probably thought I was going to be shaking this morning and really nervous, but I've been absolutely fine,” Brown said. “Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know last night if I was going to wake up this morning, be nervous, sweaty, whatever it might be, but I think I felt all right, and I think I'll feel all right tomorrow.”

Of course, that’s miles better than the 1,000-to-1 odds he had at the start of the week. Perhaps it’s serendipity that the last time a major winner had such low odds was here in 2004, when Todd Hamilton took home the claret jug at 500-to-1. Maybe all the romanticism wasn’t washed away Saturday afternoon at Troon. Fate may be passing a torch, one that remains lit and dangling from the underdog’s mouth.

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Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.

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