PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The final major championship of the year has arrived, and if the 2019 Open Championship is any indication, Royal Portrush is once again set to provide the perfect canvas for an epic four rounds of golf to determine the champion golfer of the year.
This year’s majors have already given us compelling results as world No. 2 Rory McIlroy completed the career grand slam at the Masters, and the top player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, added to his major total by winning the PGA Championship. Then, journeyman J.J. Spaun shocked the golf world last month when he outlasted every player in the field and conquered Oakmont for his major victory in the U.S Open.
All three are in the Open this week as well as the rest of the top players in the world who will look to play their way into the story of this major season.
Here’s a look at the 25 players most likely to be raising the Claret Jug come Sunday.
1. Scottie Scheffler
There is never much to say about Scheffler before any of these majors any more than just to always frame any prediction with the caveat that he might simply overpower the rest of the field in a way only he can. But what’s more intriguing is seeing the three-time major champion make his way overseas and try to translate what makes him excel stateside to a vastly different style of golf.
At the Scottish Open this week, Scheffler finished tied for eighth and his record at Open Championships so far has been, relatively speaking, the most mixed of any of the other majors. In four starts, Scheffler’s best finish is a tie for seventh at last year’s Open (he finished tied for eighth in his Open debut in 2021) and he has two finishes just outside the top 20 in between. If you needed a reminder of how good he is, since 2021 (the first year he played all four majors) this is the only major in which Scheffler has more than one finish outside of the top 20 in 19 starts.
So, yes — spoiler alert — it’s safe to say the best player in the world is probably going to contend this week.
2. Jon Rahm
Perhaps no one has been slowly but surely trending in the right direction over the course of this year more than Rahm. Sure, there are the sheer number of top-10 LIV finishes he has accrued, but more notably is the way he has performed at the year’s biggest events. Since last year’s Open Championship at Royal Troon where he quietly finished in a tie for seventh, Rahm has found his game.
At the Masters, he finished 14th and followed up that performance with heading into the back nine at Quail Hollow with a real chance to win the PGA Championship. The Spaniard couldn’t catch Scheffler, but the way he battled there and at Oakmont to finish tied for seventh felt quintessential Rahm. Nobody gets the competitive juices flowing more than him, and given the place he already occupies in European golf history, it feels as if he should have a Claret Jug on his résumé. The way Rahm has been playing recently, Portrush should set up well to give him a chance to do just that.
3. Rory McIlroy
Well, here we are again. The Open has returned to McIlroy’s home country and he should — emphasis on should — be in the mix to win his sixth major championship. In 2019, that was also the sense and McIlroy proceeded to hit his first tee shot of the tournament out of bounds and missed the cut. It was an anticlimactic conclusion to a highly anticipated week.
A lot has changed since — McIlroy has won a green jacket and is now a career grand slam winner. He has also underperformed since that historic win in April. Moreover, he has spoken at length about struggling to find motivation while also acknowledging that there is something about this specific tournament being in Northern Ireland that should spark something in him. Perhaps that spark came a week early, too. At the Scottish Open this past week, McIlroy played some of his best golf since the Masters, posting rounds of 68-65-66-68 to finish tied for second.
In the same way that there has been a fascination with how DeChambeau strategizes and attacks Augusta National on a year-to-year basis, I’m always fascinated by how his game translates — or doesn’t — to links golf. In seven appearances, DeChambeau has only one top-10 finish (Royal Liverpool in 2022) and has missed the cut three times, including last year at Royal Troon.
Anything is on the table this week for the two-time U.S. Open winner. You could tell me DeChambeau will somehow find his approach game and ride his short game to a commanding win at Portrush and I’d believe it. You could also tell me he struggles to keep it in the fairway under tough conditions and misses the cut. This style of game doesn’t exactly fit DeChambeau, but watching him try to crack the code is worth the price of admission.
The defending champion is only here, at No. 5, because he has had a relatively quiet year since winning two majors last year. After dealing with a rib injury at the beginning of the year, Schauffele took some time off and then took time to get back into form. He has only one top-10 finish this season and his approach game (top 10 in strokes gained on tour) has buoyed what has been an uncharacteristically bad year for his driver, short game and putting.
One of Schauffele’s best qualities, his overall steadiness, is what allowed him to come from behind last year at Troon. This week probably will require plenty of that again at Portrush.
6. Shane Lowry
Perhaps this is too high for Lowry, but in 2019, he rode the emotional wave of playing in a region he knows all too well to a commanding six-shot victory. The energy that Lowry will carry with him as fans cheer him on at a place where he has already won should be worth some kind of value to his chances this week.
Like McIlroy, he’ll be one of the emotional favorites and though his game hasn’t exactly been in great shape at the majors this year (two missed cuts and a tied for 42nd at the Masters) he does have four top-10 finishes on Tour and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he again played well at Portrush.
Having a real sense for just exactly how Hovland will play at a major championship these days is a complete guessing game. Though he might be waxing in the news conference about how bad his swing feels and how he’s chasing the perfect feel, he might end up contending the way he did at Oakmont last month where he finished third and had a real shot to win it on the back nine.
Earlier this year, Hovland missed three straight cuts. Shortly after, he won the Valspar Championship. Last year, Hovland finished third at the PGA Championship and also missed the cut at the three other majors, including the Open. Like DeChambeau, Hovland has the game to win this week, but the space between his ceiling and his floor is as wide as anyone near the top of this list.
There aren’t too many people in the world who are hitting the ball as well as Morikawa has this season. His ballstriking is as elite as ever and yet, despite having four top-10s this season, he can’t seem to get over the line and win his first tournament since the 2023 Zozo Championship.
Morikawa knows how to win this tournament — he did it in 2021 at Royal St. George’s — and though his game has objectively improved since then, there seems to be something missing in his ability to put four quality rounds together at the sport’s top tournaments. This year, he finished 14th at the Masters but has gone backward, finishing tied for 50th at the PGA Championship and tied for 23rd at the U.S. Open. Theoretically, at a course like Portrush, Morikawa’s iron play and accuracy off the tee should put him in contention. How his putting fares (currently 99th on tour this season) will determine how far up the leaderboard he can go.
9. Ludvig Åberg
There was a point, right after Aberg’s win at this year’s Genesis Invitational, that it felt as if he was the talk of the sport. Since then, Aberg has fallen into a bit of a rut, missing four cuts (including at both the PGA and the U.S. Open) and only notched one top-10 finish (seventh place at the Masters). But Aberg is quietly lurking. At the Scottish last week, he seemed to find some form and finished tied for eighth and it would not be a shock if he entered the conversation at Portrush this week and hung around until Sunday.
10. Tommy Fleetwood
Could this finally be the week? Fleetwood has come agonizingly close to not only a major win in recent years but really, grabbing any win that isn’t on the DP World Tour. Fleetwood’s game, with its elite ballstriking, feels primed for an Open Championship and this one, in particular, should suit his game. Though he missed the cut at Troon last year, in his two previous appearances at the Open, Fleetwood finished inside the top 10.
11. Tyrrell Hatton
Perhaps Hatton should be a bit higher here. His performance at Oakmont was thoroughly impressive — a tie for fourth was his best finish ever at a major and it feels as if he has been slowly trending toward being more of a factor on the weekend of major championships (he has two top-15 finishes in the past two years at Augusta).
Still, it’s hard to shake the fact that Hatton’s attitude, the way he responds to bad shots or bad breaks will be tested this week at a links setup like Portrush. Either way, it’ll be fun to watch him try this week.
12. Robert MacIntyre
MacIntyre was thoroughly impressive at Oakmont, battling the conditions and delay on Sunday and still carding a round of 2 under to hold the clubhouse lead and nearly get into a playoff with Spaun. MacIntyre is comfortable, to say the least, in this part of the world and on links courses. Though he missed the cut at the Scottish this past week, he has the game to contend at Portrush this week.
13. Russell Henley
Any time ballstriking and accuracy — and not driving distance — are prioritized in a particular venue, Henley seems to rise to the top and with good reason. He is a top-10 player in strokes gained and has eight top-10s and one win this season. On the major front, Henley has struggled, missing the cut at the Masters and the PGA. At Oakmont, a top-10 finish felt more apt, and now he’ll arrive at Portrush coming off a fifth-place finish at Troon last year.
14. Brooks Koepka
It’s hard to gauge where exactly Koepka’s game is at the moment. Though he showed flashes of his old self Oakmont and talked at length about how lost his swing had been for a while, he withdrew from the following LIV event and finished tied for 32nd in its most recent tournament. If conditions at Portrush get gnarly this week, I could see Koepka rising, but it might also be that his game is simply not quite sharp enough right now to truly contend.
15. Joaquín Niemann
Here’s the thing: Niemann should be higher than 15th on this list, but the reality is that, though he continues to excel on LIV (four wins this season), his performances at the sport’s biggest events continue to underwhelm. Even this year, after finally recording his first top-10 finish at a major during the PGA, Niemann followed it up with a missed cut at Oakmont.
16. Justin Thomas
Thomas and the Open Championship don’t seem to get along very well. In eight appearances at this event, Thomas has missed three cuts and never finished inside the top 10. But if you’re looking for optimism, Thomas’ best finish at an Open came at Portrush in 2019. That week, Thomas played four rounds of even-par golf or better. He’ll be hoping to bring that same kind of display to the Dunluce course this week.
17. Matt Fitzpatrick
I really don’t know what to make of Fitzpatrick, who hasn’t had a win on tour since 2023 and hasn’t really contended at a major since his 2022 U.S. Open win, but he has shown some form going into this week with an eighth-place finish at the Rocket Classsic and a fourth-place finish this past week at the Scottish Open.
18. Jordan Spieth
Speaking of players who you never know what you’re going to get, here’s Spieth. I have a hard time believing he actually has a chance to win this week, but even as erratic as he can be, Spieth has four top-10 finishes this season and has missed only two cuts. Last year, those two numbers were three and seven, respectively.
19. Justin Rose
Let it not be forgotten that Rose had a real shot to win this tournament last year at Troon and finished in a tie for second. Rose has had a roller-coaster year so far, taking McIlroy to a playoff at Augusta but missing three of his past four cuts, including at the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. Still, at 44, he has proved he can still contend and an Open might be his best shot at getting a second major.
20. Corey Conners
Much like Henley, Conners’ superpower is his elite ballstriking, which should translate well to a links course such as Portrush. It’s never quite felt as if Conners has ever raised his game enough to truly compete at a major championship (his best finish is a sixth-place finish at the 2022 Masters), but as it did in 2022 with Brian Harman, the Open often has a tendency for giving us unexpected winners who simply keep the ball in front of them all week. Conners could certainly be that.
21. J.J. Spaun
Much like Wyndham Clark after the 2023 U.S. Open win, Spaun’s career now takes on a different tone. Whether he is able to follow up his win at Oakmont with another competitive start at a major championship might be a tough ask, especially given this is Spaun’s first time competing in an Open.
22. Ben Griffin
How do you not include Griffin? The 29-year-old has been one of the best players on tour this season, winning twice and racking up eight top-10 finishes. Griffin hasn’t had much luck with the Open — he has missed the cut in two appearances — but he’s playing at a whole different level this year.
23. Keegan Bradley
Five top-10 finishes, a top-10 at a major and a PGA Tour victory — that’s what Bradley’s season looks like so far and the conversation about him being a playing captain at the Ryder Cup is already at a fever pitch. He might not need it, but a great finish at Portrush, or even an improbable win, would seal it.
24. Sepp Straka
In a move that can only be described as the opposite of Koepka, Straka has made a living off excelling at PGA Tour events but continues to struggle on the sport’s biggest stages. Like Griffin, he also has two wins this season while adding five top-10s, but he has missed the cut at the Masters, the PGA and the U.S. Open.
25. Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama’s best finish at an Open Championship came in his Open debut in 2013 when he finished tied for sixth at Muirfield. Can Matsuyama win? Of course. But it would take a lot for a player who hasn’t had a top-10 finish this year outside of his win at the Sentry.
First four out: Cameron Smith, Patrick Reed, Adam Scott, Sam Burns
