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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Author
TROON, Scotland — The Open Championship, the ultimate main championship of the season, begins Thursday at Royal Troon Golf Course on Scotland’s west coast.
The Open is often essentially the most wide-open of the 4 majors, which is the way it produced earlier champions like Todd Hamilton, Ben Curtis, Paul Lawrie and others. The agency fairways and gradual greens of hyperlinks golf assist make it anybody’s event to win.
“I can simply see how any individual who’s both a bit older or perhaps not as gifted as a few of us out right here, such as you take a ten handicap that solely carries it 200 yards, they will run it up and have enjoyable and never lose many balls,” world No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler mentioned. “However a golf course out right here continues to be going to problem gamers like myself.”
In fact, Scheffler continues to be the person to beat, in line with oddsmakers. How he continues to regulate to hyperlinks golf might be one of many high storylines at Royal Troon.
Will Scheffler maintain profitable?
Scheffler is available in pink sizzling, having received six occasions in his previous 10 begins on tour. His sixth win got here in a playoff victory over Tom Kim on the Vacationers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, on June 23.
Tiger Woods was the final golfer to win seven occasions in a season on tour, most not too long ago in 2007.
Nearly as good as Scheffler has been the previous 4 seasons, The Open has been his greatest problem within the majors. His finest end was a tie for eighth at Royal St. George’s in Sandwich, England, in 2021.
“So far as the educational curve goes, I simply really feel like it’s important to be extra artistic right here,” Scheffler mentioned. “I really like that a part of it. I really feel like, after I do come over right here, that is actually how golf was meant to be performed. I really feel like there’s much more alternative for shotmaking and being artistic across the greens.”
After tying for twenty first within the one hundred and fiftieth Open at St. Andrews in Scotland in 2022 and for twenty third at Royal Liverpool in England final yr, Scheffler altered his preparations this yr. As an alternative of taking part in within the Scottish Open the week earlier than, he arrived at Royal Troon early.
“So far as getting used to this place, the hyperlinks golf is clearly completely different than what we play at residence, so getting used to the firmness of the fairways, getting used to the bunkering and the velocity of the greens is clearly completely different as properly,” Scheffler mentioned.
Will McIlroy finish his drought?
All eyes might be on McIlroy, who will as soon as once more attempt to finish a virtually 10-year drought with no main championship victory. He final received one of many massive 4 when he captured a second PGA Championship in August 2014.
McIlroy is attempting to bounce again from heartache within the remaining three holes of final month’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 when he missed two brief putts and misplaced to Bryson DeChambeau by one shot.
McIlroy will play the primary two rounds with Max Homa and Tyrrell Hatton. They’re going to tee off at 5:09 a.m. ET on Thursday and 10:10 a.m. ET on Friday.
McIlroy tied for fourth in final week’s Scottish Open at 14 beneath.
“Sport’s in actually good condition,” McIlroy mentioned. “Had a pleasant reset after Pinehurst that was wanted and felt like I shook off somewhat little bit of the rust final week and performed OK. Felt like I in all probability may have given myself extra of an opportunity to win the event. I believed it was a strong week. Once more, it is like one eye on making ready for this week, however one other eye on attempting to get into rivalry as properly.”
McIlroy tied for fifth at 4 beneath within the 2016 Open Championship, 16 pictures behind winner Henrik Stenson of Sweden.
The four-time main champion says he is near profitable one other one after so many close to misses.
“I do know that I am in a great spot,” McIlroy mentioned. “If I take into consideration 2015 via 2020, that five-year stretch, I seldom had a sensible probability to win a significant championship in that five-year interval. So I would a lot quite have these shut calls. It implies that I am getting nearer.
“However yeah, completely, I would love to have the ability to play the golf and get one over the road, however as quickly as I try this, persons are going to say, ‘Nicely, when are you going to win your sixth?’ So it is unending.”
What to know in regards to the course
Royal Troon Golf Membership, established in 1878, is internet hosting The Open for the tenth time and the primary since Henrik Stenson received the Claret Jug in 2016 with a 72-hole complete of 20-under 264, then a scoring file for all 4 majors.
The par-71 course has been lengthened from 7,190 yards — its distance eight years in the past — to 7,385 yards. Every of the three par-5s is longer. The par-5 sixth is now 623 yards, making it the longest gap in Open historical past, in line with The R&A.
Robust winds off the Firth of Clyde, particularly on the again 9, could make the course play even longer. Sometimes, golfers can have the wind at their backs going out, then they will play into the wind coming again. In fact, wind path is determined by Mom Nature, and it could be the other way in the course of the first couple of rounds this week.
Scotland’s climate could be unpredictable, however the forecast requires temperatures from the mid-60s to excessive 60s and an opportunity of rain showers. A delicate to reasonable breeze is predicted all through the weekend.
“It is mainly a story of two nines on this course,” McIlroy mentioned. “You’re feeling like it’s important to make your rating on the way in which out after which type of hold on coming in.”
Royal Troon’s most well-known gap is the par-3 eighth, which is named “Postage Stamp.” It is solely 123 yards lengthy, however its small inexperienced of about 2,500 sq. ft makes for a not-so-easy goal and is protected by 5 bunkers.
“It is a quite simple gap — simply hit the ball on the inexperienced,” Woods mentioned. “That is it. Inexperienced good, miss inexperienced dangerous. It would not get any extra easy than that. You do not want a 240-yard par-3 for it to be exhausting.”
Scheffler mentioned he likes brief par-3s, like No. 12 at Augusta Nationwide and No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass, as a result of they require a golfer to manage his ball.
“I feel nice little brief holes like which might be enjoyable,” Scheffler mentioned. “I feel it is an underrated talent for guys these days to have the ability to management your ball, and I feel it is one thing we have to encourage in our recreation, not simply constructing golf programs longer and longer. You can also make a brief gap with a small inexperienced, and it is fairly dang powerful.”
The par-4 eleventh gap is taken into account one of the crucial troublesome at any course that hosts The Open. Generally known as “Railway,” the 498-yard gap has out of bounds alongside the rail line on the correct and thick gorse on the left.
Can Rahm bounce again?
After profitable a inexperienced jacket within the Masters and tying for second in The Open final yr, it has been a forgettable season for LIV Golf star Jon Rahm within the majors to date.
Rahm, who jumped to LIV Golf in December, tied for forty fifth on the Masters at 9 over, 20 strokes behind Scheffler. He missed the reduce on the PGA Championship and was pressured to withdraw from the U.S. Open due to an an infection between toes on his left foot.
Rahm, 29, mentioned he was going to attempt to give it a go within the U.S. Open however modified his thoughts after visiting a podiatrist in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
“[The podiatrist] informed me I in all probability should not play,” Rahm mentioned. “It was exhausting to decide then as a result of he had numbed my foot so I could not actually really feel something. However based mostly on the development, he mentioned, ‘Yeah, you in all probability should not play.’
“That is once we made the choice. Had it made it worse, had the an infection unfold any extra, it may have began going up my leg and created an even bigger challenge. We determined to take the week off, as exhausting because it might need been.”
After lacking the reduce on the PGA Championship, Rahm modified the shaft on his driver as a result of he “had too many ideas” on his swing.
“I wasn’t simply letting it go and having move on the golf course the way in which I’d have preferred to move and doubtless why I did not carry out the way in which I’d have preferred to carry out,” Rahm mentioned. “I feel that was a giant change, proper? Having the ability to swing on the driver extra freely and with out having to consider method a lot I feel has been fairly good.”
Harman’s protection
Brian Harman was an unlikely Open Championship winner when he ran away with a 6-stroke victory over Rahm and three others at Royal Liverpool Golf Membership final yr.
There hasn’t been a back-to-back Open Championship winner since Padraig Harrington captured the Claret Jug at Carnoustie Golf Hyperlinks in Scotland in 2007 and Royal Birkdale in England in 2008.
Harman is just the third left-handed participant to win The Open, becoming a member of Bob Charles (1963) and Phil Mickelson (2013). His 6-stroke margin of victory matched the second largest in Open historical past by golfers representing the USA; Woods received the Claret Jug with an 8-stroke margin at St. Andrews in Scotland in 2000.
“I feel it might in all probability add somewhat little bit of strain, however I do not suppose you ever actually know what you are able to till one thing like that occurs,” Harman mentioned. “A minimum of now I do know that if issues go my manner, I am properly ready. I am a tricky man to beat, and if I simply put together the correct manner, then deal with what I can do, then I am going to give myself one of the best alternative to have one other probability.”
Harman hasn’t received once more since his runaway victory at The Open. He has three top-10s and 10 top-25s in 18 begins this season, together with a tie for second on the Gamers Championship and for ninth on the Vacationers Championship.
“My stats this yr have been actually good,” Harman mentioned. “My ballstriking has been pretty much as good because it’s ever been. The one factor I have not completed properly this yr is I have not putted particularly properly. So I am simply sort of ready for all of it to line up appropriately.”