Open Championship Storyline: Scotty and Rory, British Champion and Sleeper

SOUTHPORT, England — The ultimate main championship of the season, and golfers’ final probability for glory, arrives Thursday on the 154th British Open Championship at Royal Birkdale Golf Membership.

Royal Birkdale is sometimes called the “fairest” check of open rota. It stays to be seen whether or not that can occur once more this week, as Merseyside’s shoreline has been buffeted by heat temperatures and dry climate.

“It is an excellent observe,” mentioned Jordan Spieth, who gained the Claret Jug on the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. “(It is) most likely essentially the most troublesome Open venue, essentially the most troublesome Open venue. Clearly it will depend on the climate. That is actually proven within the scoring in previous Opens.”

Present British Open champion Scottie Scheffler and two-time defending Masters champion Rory McIlroy are the betting favorites, however there are a number of golfers who may very well be candidates to raise the Claret Jug on Sunday.

Will Scheffler be capable of get better from his first missed minimize in almost 4 years? Will McIlroy win his first Claret Jug since 2014? Can Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose or one other British golfer finish the nation’s lengthy drought on the British Open?

Listed below are the highest tales of the week.

Scheffler vs. McIlroy — Who do you suppose is the favourite to win this week?

Mark Schlabach: This week, for the primary time shortly, I believed I might rank somebody apart from Lowry or Scotty on the prime of my pre-major rankings. Scheffler was sidelined for the primary time in 78 begins, whereas McIlroy has performed in simply 10 video games on tour this season.

McIlroy might be feeling higher — he tied for seventh eventually week’s Scottish Open and shot a 6-under 64 on Sunday. He appears to have found out the driving points that plagued him earlier within the season. Final week, he hit 61.5 % of fairways and ranked first in strokes gained off the tee (5.981). This can be a good signal as a result of you possibly can’t miss a fairway at Royal Birkdale.

I will repeat what I have been saying all season. It is not that Scheffler is enjoying poorly, he simply hasn’t produced the outcomes we have seen the previous few seasons. He has began the final 14 video games with out a win, one of many longest stretches of his profession. Nonetheless, he had 4 runner-up finishes and completed within the prime 25 in all however one begin.

There have been some indicators of bother in Scotland final week. Scheffler hit simply 11 of 24 fairways and 23 of 36 greens. Within the second spherical, he wanted 1.8 putts per gap.

Paul Ughetti: How about each? It is true that McIlroy has been in significantly better current type than Scheffler (who missed the minimize) eventually week’s Scottish Championships (T-7), however I do not suppose both of them are enjoying their greatest golf heading into Birkdale.

“Oh my god, I’m so dangerous at golf!”

– 6-time main champion Rory McIlroy pic.twitter.com/moVtvHeiMR

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) July 12, 2026

After all, each are nonetheless prime two gamers on the earth and will hit their stride rapidly, so I would not be shocked if both of them hoists the Claret Jug on Sunday, however I feel there are different names close to the highest of the chances board that deserve extra consideration heading into the week.

That being mentioned, it isn’t that tough to argue between Scheffler and McIlroy. I feel I am leaning a bit on Scheffler not solely because the defending champion, but additionally that his starvation for victory (he hasn’t gained because the first PGA Tour occasion of the 12 months again in January) have to be at an all-time excessive and that is his final probability of the season so as to add a significant to his file.

If not Rory or Scotty, which golfer is probably to hoist the Claret Jug on Sunday?

Schlabach: No British rider has gained the Claret Jug since Nick Faldo gained his third in 1992. He’s the primary British golfer to win on British soil since Tony Jacklin at Royal Lytham & St Anne’s in 1969.

I feel there are a couple of British golfers who can obtain that this week. Matt Fitzpatrick has three wins this season and tied for third final week. He leads the tour in strokes gained on approaches (.846) and across the greens (.533).

Tommy Fleetwood, who grew up in Southport, will probably be a gallery favourite as he hunts for his first main win. The reigning FedEx Cup champion is but to win this season, however he appears to be on fireplace. This will probably be his forty fifth begin within the majors, so he could not wait to get a win.

Then there may be Justin Rose (45 years outdated), who continues to draw consideration within the majors. He made his open debut at Royal Birkdale as a 17-year-old beginner and tied for fourth. He’s nonetheless searching for his first Claret Jug and was concerned in every of the final two.

LIV Golf League star Tyrrell Hatton and PGA Championship winner Aaron Rye, who hits the ball straighter than anybody else, may also be candidates. It would not be stunning to see Matt’s youthful brother Alex Fitzpatrick on the leaderboard this weekend.

Object: This week, we’re specializing in three gamers aiming to win their first main championship. The primary is Chris Gotterup, who has been on a rampage on the PGA Tour this season and presently has three wins on the 12 months. Gottarup has already gained on this aspect of the world (final 12 months’s Scottish Open) and has proven a substantial degree of consolation with hyperlinks golf thus far in his profession. If Birkdale performs as stable and quick as he seems to be, Gotterup may very well be able to develop and construct on an already nice season.

One other participant who appears like he might have already gained large in his profession is Viktor Hovland. Regardless of an inconsistent 12 months on the majors in 2026 (he completed within the prime 20 on the Masters after which missed two appearances), Hovland did sufficient to make you consider he had the sport to win in one among his 4 matches. Since lacking the minimize on the U.S. Open, Hovland was seen staring down Scottie Scheffler on the Vacationers and even beating him in a playoff. A top-15 end eventually week’s Scottish Open reveals he continues to maneuver in the precise path. Perhaps this week will probably be his week.

Lastly, the third individual is Ludwig Oberg. We’re not but on the level the place we’re nervous that Aberg will not be capable of totally overcome this problem, however regardless of his first rate leads to each main this 12 months (T-4 on the PGA being the highest), expectations stay excessive, and rightly so. This 12 months’s collapse at The Gamers does not assist both. Aberg clearly has the sport and instruments to be among the best gamers on the earth, and if he can discover his groove throughout every week the place gamers are anticipated to be exact, he ought to match into the correct mix.

Who’re the sleepers in competition this week?

Schlabach: Tom Kim burst onto the PGA Tour scene in 2022 by successful each the Wyndham Championship and the Shriners Youngsters’s Open, incomes him a particular short-term membership. He gained the latter the next 12 months as effectively.

However Kim hit all-time low in golf for many of the previous two seasons, struggling along with his placing and confidence. He as soon as ranked as excessive as No. 11 within the Official World Golf Rankings, however he plummeted to No. 152 earlier this 12 months and was unable to play in many of the tour’s marquee occasions.

The Korean golfer has lastly regained his type in current weeks. A tie for sixth on the ONEflight Myrtle Seaside Traditional, an opposite-field occasion, appeared to offer him confidence. He tied for fifteenth on the RBC Canadian Open after which made an unimaginable breakthrough to take third place on the U.S. Open.

All of it got here collectively final week when Kim gained the Scottish Open by two strokes over Lee Min-woo, Robert McIntyre and Matt Fitzpatrick.

Kim has a wonderful observe file on the British Open, ending tied for second on the Royal Liverpool Golf Membership in 2023, and in addition enjoys hyperlinks golf. He is among the best iron gamers on tour, rating twenty ninth in drive accuracy (63.8%) and first in scrambling (66.7%), all of which ought to come in useful this week.

Object: I want to go additional down and level out that Joaquin Niemann can also be to not be missed. Regardless of the uncertainty surrounding the LIV, Niemann performed very effectively at Sinekook and would have been in competition for the championship had he not been given an 11 (9 factors plus a two-stroke penalty) for throwing a membership on the sixth gap of the primary spherical.

Niemann performed the subsequent 54 holes at 7 underneath par and completed in a tremendous tie for seventh place. If Birkdale’s check this week seems to be about ball-striking and strategy play, Niemann has a successful recreation to transcend simply hanging round. For that purpose, DataGolf ranked him one of many prime 5 gamers in strategy play this season.

What do that you must find out about Royal Birkdale and the way do you are expecting this week’s recreation will go?

Schlabach: Royal Birkdale, which first hosted the Open Championship in 1954, has been thought-about a shotmaker’s course due to its towering dunes, heavy tough, and small greens averaging about 5,000 sq. toes.

Discovering fairways and greens will probably be paramount once more this week, and the winners will want a superb quick recreation to beat the extreme drop-off of the greens, lots of which have been elevated within the final renovation.

Nonetheless, it has been unusually heat within the UK in current weeks and the observe is already dry and turning brown early.

Rose, who tied for fourth as an beginner on the 1998 British Open, urged Tuesday that because the tough is drying out, golfers could possibly hit a extra aggressive line off the tee.

“Bunkering is a really slender golf course from the tee,” Rose mentioned. “I feel the tough is burning out, so if gamers wish to really feel like they will hit over the nook and probably run by and settle for 60 to 80 yards out of the tough, the chance is there. That play is there.”

“In the end, I feel it is a basic links-like play the place you play mid-iron to short-iron to the inexperienced, as near the pot bunker as potential. Clearly, it is simply counting on good strategic golf and making putts into the corners, ideally a couple of putts.”

Wind path will be the greatest issue. The course is alongside the northwest coast of England on the Irish Sea, and winds may be gusty and alter regularly.

Jon Rahm identified Tuesday that golfers in the day prior to this’s follow group hit a 5 or 6 iron off the tee on the 434-yard eleventh gap, nearly hitting a fairway bunker on the left. On the 393-yard sixteenth gap, some golfers hit the tee shot with a center iron to achieve the left bunker.

The 502-yard thirteenth gap and the 508-yard 18th gap performed straight into the wind.

“This time, with these greens being a lot smaller and even tougher than the greens at St. Andrews, distance management will probably be key,” Rahm mentioned. “Figuring out how the ball reacts and the place you want it to land to make the putt goes to be essential.

“This golf course is already recognized for not being the simplest course. Often the climate circumstances are very harsh and windy. It is all the time windy, proper? So many of those holes will probably be a really robust problem.”

It is vitally totally different from the course the place the 2017 British Open Championship was held. The par-3 4th has been prolonged by 20 yards to 219 yards. The par-3 fifth was shortened by 25 yards, making it a driveable par-4. The outdated par-3 14th gap is now a 602-yard par-5, and the outdated par-5 fifteenth gap is now a demanding 241-yard par-3.

“I feel the fifteenth could be an excellent gap in the event you had the precise tee field and pin with the precise wind path,” Spieth mentioned. “I believed the outdated 14th was an excellent par 3. I feel this course has one of the best par 3 you may play on the Open Championship.”

“I do not suppose it makes a lot sense to hit the again tee with a 3-wood on this easterly wind contemplating the situation of the inexperienced, however the wind should not be blowing that approach both.”