One hundred and one days.
That’s the time from the ceremonial opening tee shots at the Masters to the final putt going in at The Open – the entirety of the men’s major championship schedule. In an era when there are truly only four weeks a year when the best in this sport get together, these 101 days seem far too short.
But for now, this week promises the best of professional golf. The design of Royal Portrush emphasizes wind exposure and leaves creative approach options for competitors. This is the third Open held at the venue, the previous instances coming in 1951 and 2019.
Here are the top numbers and notes to know entering the 153rd Open:
1. Let’s start with some Open Championship trends. None of the four men’s majors has favored the experienced player more over the years than the Open. Since 2007, Open champions have had an average age of 33.7 years, the highest of the quartet. The same goes for major starts made at the time of victory, an average of 37.7. Consider this: The Open has had 28 different winners aged 38 or older all-time, the same number as the Masters and U.S. Open combined.
History also says that scrambling percentage is a stronger indicator of winning at the Open than at the other three majors. Of course, scrambling isn’t purely a statistic that reflects on executing shots around the green – missing approach shots in a favorable manner (i.e., course strategy) and making par-saving putts are part of that equation, too. Since 2011, the average scrambling rank for winners at the U.S. Open, PGA and Masters is 13.4. At the Open, it’s a minuscule 3.6, with none of the champions ranking worse than seventh for the week.
Power off the tee is not nearly as weaponized at an Open. Since 2005, Open champions have had an average driving distance rank of about 31. Each of the other three majors has an average ranking well inside 20. Three overarching themes to consider when narrowing – or potentially expanding – the list of possible champions this week at Portrush.
2. Six years ago, Rory McIlroy entered the Open here at Royal Portrush under a crushing combined tonnage of expectation and excitement. The wheels spun off before many fans stateside awoke that Thursday. Rory hit his opening tee shot out of bounds, carding a quadruple bogey on the first hole. A triple at the last wrapped up a round of 79. McIlroy made a more than valiant charge Friday, but a brilliant 65 still left him one shot off the cut line.
After completing the career Grand Slam three months ago, there’s more promise than pressure surrounding McIlroy on his return trip to Portrush. Including a closing 67 at Oakmont to finish the U.S. Open, Rory has a scoring average of 66.9 in his last nine competitive rounds. He’s gaining more than three strokes per round on the field in that span, with more than half of that differential coming on the greens (+1.67 strokes gained putting).
How good has McIlroy’s short game been recently? Last week at the Scottish Open, he nearly won despite finishing outside the top-50 in the field in strokes gained off the tee and outside the top-20 in strokes gained approach. The last player to win the Masters and the Open in the same season was Tiger Woods, 20 years ago.
It’s the Open. Conditions will be a factor. (Henry Nicholls / AFP via Getty Images)
3. Scottie Scheffler is 94 strokes under par at the majors since the beginning of 2020, 38 shots better than any other player in that span (Xander Schauffele, -56). As dominant as Scheffler has been for the better part of this decade, he’s not overly experienced at the Open. This week will be just his fifth career Open start, his best finish coming last summer at Royal Troon (tied for seventh).
So often over the last several years, the fate of major championships has leaned heavily on the success of Scheffler’s putter. Exquisite ball striking is just about certain – he’s the leader in strokes gained approach and strokes gained ball striking at the majors since 2022. The frequency in which Scottie is holing those 10- to 20-foot birdie opportunities will go a long way in determining the number of viable competitors this week. Possible good news for the field, though: Scheffler struggled on the greens at last week’s Scottish Open, ranking 64th of 79 players who made the cut in strokes gained putting.
Last year, Schauffele entered the week at Royal Troon as the only player in the top 40 on the PGA Tour in strokes gained off the tee, approach, around the green and putting. This week, Scheffler is the only man with that statistical distinction. Only one reigning world number one player has won the Open. Tiger Woods did it on three occasions, the last being in 2005 at St. Andrews.
4. Jon Rahm will receive a good portion of pre-championship attention this week, and justifiably so. Rahm is the only player with three top-10 finishes in the last four years at the Open. He leads all players in bogey avoidance and cumulative score to par in that span at this championship. Of all the players with 30 or more career rounds at the Open, all-time, Rahm has the best scoring average among those without a win (70.47).
Rahm is coming off a runner-up finish at LIV Andalucia last week, where he closed with a bogey-free 65. This season, he leads that tour in scoring average, greens in regulation and strokes gained total per round. Seve Ballesteros is the only man from Spain to win the Open, doing so three times.
5. Schauffele arrives at Portrush with far less than the sterling season resume he had at the beginning of last year’s Open at Royal Troon. Schauffele has struggled rebounding from an early-season intercostal muscle injury, dropping from second on the PGA Tour in strokes gained total last year to outside the top 40 in 2025. For the season, the two-time major champ is down more than 100 spots in strokes gained off the tee and strokes gained putting.
Schauffele showed some promising signs, though, last week in Scotland. His T8 finish tied his best result worldwide in 2025. He led the tournament field in strokes gained approach and ranked third in strokes gained tee to green. There are more than 450 players with 20 or more rounds at the Open since World War II ended. The only player in that group with a scoring average under 70 is Xander Schauffele.
6. Perhaps the unpredictable, variable-adding nature of the Open is kryptonite to the data-centric approach of Bryson DeChambeau. In seven career starts, Bryson has more missed cuts (three) than top 10 finishes (one) and a scoring average of 73.6. DeChambeau has averaged just 0.07 strokes gained total per round in his Open career. Across the other three majors, his average is 1.42 per round.
DeChambeau has especially struggled on the greens at the Open in recent years. Since the beginning of 2022, Bryson has averaged about one-third of a stroke gained putting per round in the Masters, PGA and U.S. Open combined. At the Open, he’s lost nearly a full stroke on the greens. That trend will need a steep reversal if DeChambeau hopes to contend this week: the last three Open winners have averaged well over 2 strokes gained putting per round.
7. While Shane Lowry won here six years ago at double-digits under par, Royal Portrush held its own as a championship venue, especially around the greens. For the week, players scrambled at a rate of 50.2 percent and saved par from greenside bunkers just 37 percent of the time, both the second-toughest rates of any course on the PGA Tour in 2019.
Five of the top nine finishers in 2019 ranked in the top five for the championship in green in regulation percentage, hitting 53 or more greens in all. That included Lowry, who led the field in that statistic at 79.2 percent. Only three of the last 20 Open champions hit more greens on their way to victory.
Lowry was the 36-hole leader by two strokes at Royal Troon last year before a Saturday 77 derailed his title chances. He’s underachieved in the majors so far this season, missing the cut at Quail Hollow and Oakmont. Lowry has 11 rounds in the 60s at The Open since the ’19 edition began, most of any player in that span.
Shane Lowry is going for the repeat at Royal Portrush. (Andy Buchanan / AFP via Getty Images)
8. Incredibly, this will be the first Open start for reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun. The American is the first player to make his Open debut after winning a U.S. Open since Andy North did it in 1979 (North won the ’78 U.S. Open, did not play The Open that year, then played the following season). Spaun has made just two starts since winning at Oakmont, a tie for 14th place at the Travelers Championship and a missed cut last week in Scotland. Just three players have won on debut at this championship the last 50 years, the most recent being Collin Morikawa at Royal St Georges in 2021.
Speaking of Morikawa, he, too is coming off a missed cut last week at The Renaissance Club. Morikawa headed into the major season with a full head of steam – entering the Masters, he led the PGA Tour in strokes gained tee to green and ranked fifth in scoring average. But since his stroke average is about a shot higher, his ball-striking figures have deteriorated and he’s losing more than a quarter of a stroke per round on the greens. Since Morikawa won his Open debut with four rounds in the 60s, he’s yet to break 70 in this championship, missing two of three cuts.
9. The last time the Open came to Royal Portrush, Tyrrell Hatton picked up one of his two career top-10 results at this championship. That week, he led the field in total driving and ranked fifth in greens in regulation. The other parts of Hatton’s game – the ones using the shorter clubs – have been especially sharp in recent weeks. Over the last five LIV Golf events, Hatton is the only player to average at least half a stroke gained both around the green and putting.
Is this the week Hatton’s Ryder Cup teammate, Tommy Fleetwood, breaks through with a major victory? Few players have hovered near the top of major leaderboards more without winning in recent years than Tommy. Since the beginning of the 2018 Open, Fleetwood has been in the top 10 following a round at this championship 13 times, three more than any other player in that span. The Englishman has seven top-five finishes in majors now in his career – over the last 50 years, only four players have done that more times without a win.
10. Usually, a player ranked fifth in the OWGR, coming off three consecutive top-10 finishes — including the U.S. Open — would be a pre-championship darling. But Russell Henley enters the week without too much fanfare, despite finishing fifth at Royal Troon last summer. The 36-year-old American is ranked sixth in strokes gained around the green and inside the top 20 in bogey avoidance this season.
The storylines entering this week are impossible to completely cover. Robert MacIntyre, who just finished second at Oakmont, made his Open debut here six years ago and finished tied for sixth. Sepp Straka has been brilliant overall this season but missed the cut in each of the year’s first three majors. If you’re intrigued by a cut line bet, Jordan Spieth is 11-of-11 making the cut in his Open career, the longest active streak of any player in the field.
Each of the last 25 Open champions has been within five shots of the lead after Round 1. The last 15 to win the Claret Jug had a first-round scoring average of 67.1. Padraig Harrington, Nicolai Hojgaard and Tom McKibbin get things started Thursday morning at 6:35 AM local time.
(Top photo of Jon Rahm: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
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