Wesley Bryan’s bid to qualify for the British Open came down to the final hole.
Unfortunately for YouTube sensation and former PGA Tour player Brian, he missed a 7-foot par putt on the par-4 18th at West Lancashire Golf Club, leaving him one shot short of a playoff for the final spot at England’s Blundellsands, one of the four final qualifying venues on Tuesday.
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Brian shot a 2-under 70 in the first round and birdied the 16th and 17th holes in the afternoon to move up to 8 under. However, a bogey at the end dropped him to 6th place at 7 under.
Bryan will not be teeing it up at Royal Birkdale from July 16 to 19 with his brother George Bryan (2 under), but James Nicholas, another pro with a large online following, will be in attendance.
Nicholas, 29, was one of four players to qualify for both of this year’s Summer Opens after winning a medal at Burnham and Bellow Golf Club in Somerset, England. The remaining three: LIV pair Caleb Surratt, who was second in Burnham and Bellow, and Peter Uihlein, who advanced from Royal Cinque Ports in Deal, England, and placed fourth. and Matthew Jordan, who won a 3-1 playoff at West Ranks.
Jordan has T-10 finishes in consecutive Opens (2023 and 2024) and qualified for the U.S. Open at Sinek Hills earlier this month. On Tuesday, Jordan overcame what appeared to be food poisoning to birdie two of his final three holes and beat fellow Brits Sam Easterbrook and Joe Dean with a birdie on the second hole of the playoff.
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“I woke up last night feeling terrible…so I was tired coming here, and after 18 holes I felt my body giving up,” Jordan said. “Thankfully, meeting all the different people I know from golf and other fields gave me an initial adrenaline rush that stayed with me.”
The last time a player made it to both finals in the same year was Brandon Wu in 2019. That summer, Wu, then a recent graduate of Stanford University, became the first amateur to qualify for both Opens since Joe Carr in 1967.
Like Wu, Nicholas is originally from Scarsdale, New York. He has played in each of the past two U.S. Opens and currently ranks 16th in Korn Ferry Tour points. He birdied five of the first 13 holes and survived the final few holes in difficult conditions.
“Today was a battle,” Nicholas said. “I got off to a really, really good start, and then on the other side of it I was like, wait a minute. But I love links golf…I’ve been saying this all week, it’s almost like a religious experience.”
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Also at West Ranks, LIV’s Josele Ballester played his final three holes at 3 under and finished T-2 at 9 under. Ballester made an eagle on the par-5 16th hole, then nearly hit his tee shot wide on the 18th. Ballester didn’t notice the inside OB on the final hole, but luckily the ball kicked out just to the right of the pile for the final birdie.
“The mechanics of this game are interesting,” Ballester said. He failed to qualify for the DP World Tour for the second year in a row, and in his most recent LIV start, he finished 55th in his home country of Spain, where he was unable to beat just one player. “The last month and a half hasn’t been great. I complained a little too much about the breaks in general, but there’s always balance. That (recovery) is probably due to some bad luck that happened last month.”
Perhaps the coolest backstory of Tuesday’s 20 qualifying matches was that of American Marcus Plunkett, who shot 3 under and moved up the standings at Dundonald Links in Troon, Scotland. Plunkett graduated from West Point University in 2016, where he played golf in college. He then served five years as a transportation officer in the Army, spending his first year in Korea before being transferred to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. He was also deployed to Afghanistan for six months.
Towards the end of his military service, Plunkett took up golf again and broke the record at Cheyenne Shadows, a course at Fort Carson. When Plunkett was released from the hospital in May 2021, he decided to pursue professional golf. He earned the Dakotas Tour money list in 2024 and earned KFT status through Q School later that year. However, he only made 8 out of 20 successful cuts and finished 134th in points. All of his seven starts in the world rankings this year have been in Asia, with two T-6s on the Asian Tour.
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But this time, Plunkett will be playing in the first major championship of his career.
The qualifying results for each of the four sites are as follows:
Burnham & Bellow Golf Club (Somerset, UK)
1. James Nicholas, 65-67 – 10 under
2. Caleb Surratt, 67-66 – 9 under
3. Austin Truslow, 66-68 – 8 under
3. Tom Sloman, 69-65 – 8 under
3. a-Alejandro de Castro Piera, 65-69 – 8 under
Dundonald Links (Tron, Scotland)
1. Jack McDonald, 70-69 – 5 under
2. Matthew Baldwin, 69-71 – 4 under
2. a-David Howard, 69-71 – 4 under
4. Marcus Plunkett, 69-72 – 3 under
4. a-Neville Ruiter, 71-70 – 3 under
Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club (Deal, England)
1. Bird Skogen, 68-64 – 12 under
1. MJ Duffew, 67-65 – 12 under
3. Matthew Southgate, 68-66 – 10 under
4. Peter Uihlein, 66-69 – 9 under
5. Antoine Rosner, 69-67 – 8 under
West Lancashire Golf Club (Blundellsands, England)
1. Sam Bairstow, 66-68 – 10 under
2. Kazuma Kobori, 70-65 – 9 under
2. Tiger Christensen, 65-70 – 9 under
2. Josele Ballester, 70-65 – 9 under.
3. Matthew Jordan, 69-67 – 8 under*
*Defeated Sam Easterbrook and Joe Dean in a 3-1 playoff
2026 US Open – Round 2
Rory McIlroy runs into Nick Faldo during Birkdale scouting trip
McIlroy, days removed from a T-32 finish at the US Open at Sinek Hills, was at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England, on Thursday ahead of the July 16-19 British Open Championship.
