Yet another dominant performance from Scottie Scheffler, this time on his way to winning The Open, inevitably stole the headlines, but for the player who finished immediately beneath him on the leaderboard, it was also a potentially career-defining week.
Harris English carded rounds of 67, 70, 68 and 66 to finish on 13 under at the Royal Portrush tournament, four behind Scheffler.
That gave him some incredible perks, including a big world ranking boost courtesy of the 60 points he accumulated at the tournament. That has catapulted him to his highest ever place in the rankings, eighth, after beginning the week in 19th.
Previously, English’s career high had been 10th, which he first reached almost exactly four years ago, on July 18th 2021.
English was still riding high in 12th at the start of 2022, but hip surgery that February saw him miss four months of the season, and despite returning for the Memorial Tournament that June, it took him some time to recover his best form, which led to his ranking dipping to 90th in February 2023.
That meant that he was never seriously in the running for a place in the US Ryder Cup team for the match at Marco Simone in September that year, despite climbing back inside the world’s top 40 by that point.
However, a second Ryder Cup appearance following his debut in 2021 looks far more likely this year. English claimed his fifth PGA Tour win and first since 2021 at the Farmers Insurance Open, before a hugely encouraging PGA Championship, where he again missed out to Scheffler by finishing T2.
He was then tied for fourth at the Travelers Championship, before his latest eye-catching Major performance in Northern Ireland.
As a result, he now holds the sixth and final automatic qualifying place for the Ryder Cup, which takes place at Bethpage Black between September 26th and 28th.
Even though there’s still work to do, the qualifying period ends after the BMW Championship on 17th August, meaning opportunities for those beneath him are running out to catch him.
Even if he did slip out of the automatic qualifying places, he will surely still be in serious contention for a wildcard given how impressive his season has been.
As if to highlight his temperament for the big occasion, he also sits fifth on the men’s combined Major leaderboard for the year at five under overall, with only Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Scheffler ahead of him.
Following his final round at The Open, English admitted a place in the Ryder Cup is in his sights, explaining: “Yeah, losing to Scottie twice in two Majors, the only guy to beat me at the PGA and this week, I'm playing some good golf. Just need to clean it up a little bit. But one of my - my two goals this year were to make it to the Tour Championship and make that Ryder Cup team, and hopefully I've moved myself a little bit closer to that, and hopefully I can get in that top six to lock up a spot.”
With his new career-high world ranking and his impressive season showing no signs of tailing off, that dream may now be less than a month away.
