TROON, Scotland — Xander Schauffele won the British Open on Sunday for his second major of the year, delivering a masterpiece at Royal Troon with a 6-under 65 to overcome a two-shot deficit and give the Americans a sweep of the four majors for the first time since 1982.

Schauffele, who is from San Diego and attended Scripps Ranch High School and San Diego State, faced questions at the start of the season whether he could win a major. Now he has two of them with the brand of golf that hasn’t been seen in 90 years of the four majors.

He won the PGA Championship at Valhalla by making a 6-foot birdie putt on the final hole for a 65. In a final round at Royal Troon set up for big drama — six players one shot behind, nine players separated by three shots — Schauffele made a tense Sunday look like a nice walk along the Irish Sea.

“I think winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine. I had some feeling of calmness come through. It was very helpful on what has been one of the hardest back nines I’ve ever played in a tournament,” Schauffele said.

“It’s a dream come true to win two majors in one year. It took me forever just to win one, and to have two now is something else.”

He is the first player to win two majors with closing rounds of 65 in the same year. Jack Nicklaus is the only other player to do it in his career.

And he never looked more calm, oozing that cool California vibe even as the wind presented so much trouble at Royal Troon. Schauffele said he told caddie and longtime friend Austin Kaiser on the 18th tee that he felt calm.

“He said he was about to puke on the 18th tee,” Schauffele said.

There was no need to panic, even when it took Schauffele six holes to make a birdie when everyone around him started strong. He played bogey-free in a chilly wind and pulled away with three birdies in a four-hole stretch early on the back nine to go from two shots behind to leading by as many as three.

He won by two shots over American Billy Horschel and Justin Rose, the 43-year-old from England who had to go through 36-hole qualifying just to get into the field. They were among four players who had at least a share of the lead at one point Sunday.

They just couldn’t keep up with Schauffele. No one could.

Even with so many players in contention early, the engraver was able to get to work early on those 16 letters across the base of the silver claret jug.

Given the wind, heavy air off the Firth of Clyde and punishing nature of the Ayrshire links, Schauffele’s 65 ranks among the great closing rounds in British Open history. He left no doubt where it stood in his own career.

“At the very tip-top,” Schauffele said. “Best round I’ve played.”

Playing in the third-to-last group, he matched the round of the championship with a score that was just over eight shots better than the field average.

The 30-year-old became the first player since Jordan Spieth in 2015 to win his first two majors in the same season. And he extended American dominance on this Scottish links as the seventh Open champion in the last eight visits to Royal Troon.

Rose closed with a 67 and it was only good for second place. He had a chance to set a record by going the longest time between majors after his 2013 U.S. Open win.

“Gutted when I walked off the course and it hit me hard because I was so strong out there today,” Rose said. “Xander got it going. I hit a couple of really good putts that didn’t fall, and then suddenly that lead stretched. I left it all out there. I’m super proud of how I competed.”

Horschel, who started the final round with a one-shot lead in his bid to win his first major, dropped back around the turn and birdied his last three holes for a 68.

The player Schauffele had to track down was Thriston Lawrence of South Africa, who birdied three of four holes to end the front nine with a 32.

Schauffele was two shots behind when it all changed so suddenly. Schauffele hit a wedge out of the left rough on the difficult 11th and judged it perfectly to 3 feet for birdie. He hit another wedge to 15 feet for birdie on the 13th, and capped his pivotal run with a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 14th.

Lawrence finally dropped a shot on the 12th and didn’t pick up any shots the rest of the day. He closed with a 68 and earned a small consolation — a trip to the Masters next April, his first time to Augusta National.

Scottie Scheffler, who got within one shot of the lead briefly on the front nine, lost his way with a three-putt from 6 feet for a double bogey on the ninth hole. Scheffler finished his round by topping a tee shot on the 18th and making another double bogey. The world’s No. 1 player closed with a 72 and tied for seventh.

He stuck around to share a hug with Schauffele, the two top players in golf. Schauffele was the only player this year to finish in the top 10 in all four majors.

Schauffele went from the heaviest major trophy at the PGA Championship to the smallest and oldest, the famed claret jug that he will keep for a year. The only question left was the first drink to be poured from the jug.

Schauffele said he would leave that to his father, Stefan, who missed the PGA Championship but was at Royal Troon along with the whole family.

He finished at 9-under 275 and earned $3.1 million, pushing him over $15 million for the season. The last player to win two majors in a year was Brooks Koepka in 2018.

“He has a lot of horsepower,” Rose said of Schauffele. “He’s good with a wedge, he’s great with a putter, he hits the ball a long way, obviously his iron play is strong. So he’s got a lot of weapons out there. I think probably one of his most unappreciated ones is his mentality. He’s such a calm guy out there.

“I don’t know what he’s feeling, but he certainly makes it look very easy.”

Originally Published: July 21, 2024 at 9:35 p.m.

To many observers it was a question not of whether but of when President Joseph Biden would bow out of the presidential race.

He did so Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, days after announcing he was ill with COVID-19 and three weeks after a debate performance so troubling it led to immediate calls for him to step aside.

Even with his endorsement of Harris, Biden’s departure leaves a gaping gap at the top of the Democratic ticket four months before the election.

It might also be the Democratic Party’s only chance at winning, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego.

“This is not what anyone in the Democratic party planned or wanted three, six or 12 months ago,” Kousser said.

The crux was last month’s presidential debate, where Biden at times struggled to speak in a coherent manner. “After that time, I think Democrats collectively decided that their only chance to move forward was with another candidate. This is not plan A or plan B,” he said. “But it gives Democrats hope of winning what they see as a historically crucial election.”

It also puts Democrats in a potentially precarious spot, said Carl Luna, a professor emeritus of political science at San Diego Mesa College.

“Now the ball is firmly in the Democrats’ court. What do they do with this moment? It’s an opportunity to rejuvenate the campaign and rally behind a standard-bearer who can take on Donald Trump in the fall. Or it could become a divisive event — which makes it that much easier for Donald Trump to win,” he said.

“Kamala Harris was in San Diego in 2016. debating opponents as she ran for U.S. Senate. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)Along with Harris, there is a broad field of other potential contenders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

Tom Shepard, a longtime San Diego political consultant who has worked for candidates in both parties, called Sunday’s announcement “an honorable decision by Biden and a necessary one for the Democratic Party to be competitive in November.” But to stay competitive, he said, the Democrats will have to iron out what he called “fundamental problems” with Harris’s candidacy.

“The Democratic Party, for all of its strengths, has over the last several decades kind of developed a perspective that is based on identity politics, and the reason that Kamala Harris was on the Democratic ticket as vice president is, at least in part, a symptom of that approach,” Shepard said.

In San Diego County, where 60 percent of voters chose Biden in 2020 and 37 percent voted for Trump, and throughout California, where the president won 63 percent of the vote, a number of local and state elected officials praised his decision.

“Joe Biden has always put the country first and he did so again today, after more than 50 years of tremendous service,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the party’s nominee for Senate, wrote. He added: “The stakes are high, and we must focus all our energy on electing Kamala Harris and defeating Donald Trump.

In a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria called Biden “a leader, patriot and true public servant who has always put the good of our country first” and said he agreed with the president’s decision to endorse Harris.

“She is ready to lead our country as our next President,” he wrote. “I supported her during her first Presidential campaign, and I am 1000% backing her during this one.”

County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Republican representing parts of North County, also took to X with a much different viewpoint. He contends Biden is “unable to fulfill his duties.”

In another post, he added, “The reality is, if Biden were up in the polls he would remain in the race. This isn’t about Biden’s cognitive decline which we’ve known for years. It’s about lagging poll numbers.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Bonsall, criticized Harris’s leadership, alongside Biden.

“We’ve had 4 years of Democratic chaos — at the border, in business, overseas, in our schools and on our streets. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris led all of it,” he wrote on X.

Among analysts, Biden’s departure is a political Rorschach test, with Democrats seeing it as the perfect opening to reinvigorate their party and align behind a younger candidate and Republicans seeing this as yet another step toward Trump’s inevitable victory.

Dan Rottenstreich, a prominent San Diego Democratic political consultant, said Biden’s withdrawal would ripple down the ballot in November and presented Democrats a perfect opportunity to refocus their energies.

“It’s a ten-pound weight off the shoulders of every Democrat running in a swing seat in California,” he said. “Joe Biden is easily the most effective Democratic President of our lifetimes, but the political debate was no longer where it needed to be — on the disaster and danger Donald Trump is for America.”

Having a woman at the top of the presidential ticket could, he said, “elevate abortion rights even further, which in almost all of pro-choice California would be welcome news.”

With Biden out, every prediction about the presidential race until now is also out the window, he said.

“It’s a brand new race now,” Rottenstreich said. “Democrats have a huge opportunity to reenergize the base, drive up Democratic turnout and unite the electorate against Donald Trump’s far-right agenda.”

Kousser, the UCSD professor, said the shake-up could pose a challenge for Trump, depending on whether the Democrats unite around a nominee.

“Donald Trump felt very comfortable running against Joe Biden,” he said. “I think the Republican Party clearly likes that matchup better than any other matchup. And this throws things wide open. I think if one candidate can generate momentum and keep it, I think the Democrats have a better chance at … threatening Donald Trump’s path to victory than they had just a few hours ago.”

Linda Lopez-Alvarez, the chair of the Escondido Republican Women headquarters, said she expected Biden’s departure, as did others at last week’s Republican National Convention, which she attended. Another sentiment she shared was gratitude — for Trump’s survival after a July 13 assassination attempt.

“I think everybody has the same consensus. We’re grateful that Donald Trump survived that attempt. I mean, that was by the grace of God,” she said.

Lopez-Alvarez said she expects Democrats will nominate Harris. “They’re in a pickle right now. Because we’re so close to the election. So that’s what they’re going to rally around,” she said. “I do believe Trump will win by a landslide.”

In the next four weeks, before the Democratic National Convention in August, Biden’s party will have to decide if it will coalesce around Harris or pick another star.

Luna said Biden’s departure, just after the Republican convention, “will focus things until mid-August on Democrats and take a lot of the oxygen out of the Trump campaign, because they’re not sure exactly who to run against.”

Kousser said that while a rapid whittling down of the candidate pool will be unusual, compared to the much longer runways of other elections, it’s not a first.

“While this will be absolutely a compressed process compared to everything we’ve seen in the modern era, this is not unprecedented. This is a return to the way that presidential candidates were determined for a century in American politics,” Kousser said.

Staff writers Gary Robbins, Emily Alvarenga and Michael Smolens contributed to this report.

Originally Published: July 21, 2024 at 5:54 p.m.

As part of a broader mission to keep The Village clean, the board of Enhance La Jolla is calling on local businesses to pay more attention to the conditions of their storefronts.

Enhance La Jolla President Ed Witt expressed frustration during the board’s July 18 meeting with the ongoing presence of litter in the area.

The nonprofit manages the Maintenance Assessment District in The Village with authority to enhance services provided by the city of San Diego, including landscape maintenance, street and sidewalk cleaning, litter and graffiti abatement and additional trash collection. It also can privately fund and complete projects in public spaces, such as park and trash can upgrades, bench installation, sign augmentation, public art and tree canopies on main thoroughfares.

“Walking through the district, I sometimes get so frustrated because we work seven days a week and it’s not enough,” Witt said. “It’s so hard to keep up with trash and sidewalks and the way people treat public property. … [But] I think we have made a huge difference.”

Board member Andy Nelson said that when he and others walk the streets, “we are prepared to go into the merchants and ask them to make sure they keep the front of their retail spaces as clean as possible, and that [tends to] help a lot.”

He directed this message to merchants: “If you see some trash in front of your store, pick it up.”

Some board members acknowledged that not all businesses will comply.

“We talk to the merchants on a regular basis,” Witt said. “It’s interesting to see what they do or don’t do. Every day is an adventure.”

Two members of the La Jolla Village Merchants Association — board President Japhet Perez and treasurer Bill Podway — attended the Enhance La Jolla meeting and thanked the board for alerting them to the issue.

MAD Manager Brian Earley said he wants public trash cans to be emptied more often. Some cans, he said, have sensors that indicate how full they are, and they often are emptied when they are 80 percent full.

“We’re finding that 80 percent is a full trash can,” Earley said. He requested that the city empty cans when they are 60 percent full. He said he hadn’t received a response yet.

Witt said he also has been in contact with city representatives about street sweeping.

“I feel strongly that our streets are not being swept … like the city says they are,” Witt said, citing his own observations of sweeping trucks not doing a thorough job.

He said those who power-wash the streets for Enhance La Jolla are going to “start documenting when and where the street sweepers [work]. … Because we want our streets cleaned.”

Witt said unswept streets can be reported by emailing manager@enhancelajolla.org.

Other Enhance La Jolla news

Term limits: Given Enhance La Jolla’s involvement in long-term projects — such as the upcoming Village streetscape project with the La Jolla Community Foundation — the board voted to change its bylaws to allow members to serve up to three three-year terms instead of the current two three-year terms.

“In six years, you are just kind of getting your stride,” said board member Ann Dynes. “In this case, given the expertise of the people that formed this organization … there are people whose role is sufficiently integral to the mission, and this seems like a better way to proceed.”

Any board member who wants a third term would still need to run for reelection.

Phase 1 of the streetscape project is planned to include the addition of stormwater drainage channels, sidewalk and crosswalk paving, landscaping, improved lighting and expanded pedestrian spaces on Girard Avenue between Prospect and Silverado streets.

Donations are still being accepted, and construction on Girard between Prospect and Wall streets is set to begin in January and conclude in May.

Enhance La Jolla Day: The board presents an annual Enhance La Jolla Day in the spring to provide chances for the community to learn about the group’s efforts, engage in community service projects and more. But this year, the board is considering something new.

Enhance La Jolla member Barbara Bry said she is considering a La Jolla trivia contest in mid-October for the next Enhance La Jolla Day.

“We would invite anyone in the community to come and be randomly assigned to a team when they get there,” said Bry, a former San Diego City Council member who lives in La Jolla. “Part of the trivia could be questions about what different organizations do or the history of La Jolla. I want to make it fun for people.”

A committee is to be formed within 30 days to write questions and design the format of the event. Volunteers for the committee do not need to be on the Enhance La Jolla board.

Next meeting: Enhance La Jolla meets quarterly or as needed. The next scheduled meeting is at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Learn more at enhancelajolla.org. ♦

Originally Published: July 21, 2024 at 11:00 a.m.