What is the Open?
The Open Championship is the oldest golf tournament in the world, first was played in 1860 in Prestwick, Scotland. Since then, there have been 150 editions of The Open played with this year’s being the 151st. The Open is always played on a links course across the UK with this year’s tournament taking place at Royal Liverpool. (Link to – What is a links course). The 151st edition will begin on Thursday 20 July and end on Sunday 23 July.
When The Open first began it was held at the same location year on year, however in 1872 it was decided to introduce course rotation to The Open and include two other links courses. Today The Open is played across a large range of courses year on year, with one of the only consistencies being that The Old Course in St Andrews is on rotation every five years.
The 150th Open
Last year, for the 150th edition, The Open was held at The Home of Golf, The Old Course at St Andrews. It was a fierce competition and ultimately came down to just one stroke, struck by Australian golfer Cameron Smith. He finished on 20 under par, just beating Cameron Young on -19 and Rory McIlroy on -18. This close competition is particularly impressive when you consider that the record at the open is 20 under par - a feet only achieved by Cameron Smith in 2022 and by Henrik Stenson in 2016.
The Open has always been a very closely fought competition, year on year the margin between winners and runners up has remained very slim. In fact, out of the 150 editions of The Open Championship, the winning margin has been 2 strokes or less 91 times!
How does it work?
156 players will compete at Royal Liverpool for The Open Championship, the competition consist of 72 holes across three days. After the first 36 holes are complete, there is a cut, where only the top 70 players go on to compete in the 36 remaining holes.
The final round of qualification for The Open has come to a close, with the Scottish Open ending on Saturday 16 July. We now have a fully confirmed list of who is playing at The Open this year.
So, let’s take a look at who the favourites are for Royal Liverpool and where they currently rank in the world:
Scottie Scheffler
World Ranking: 1 British Open starts: 2 Best finish: T-8, 2021
Rory McIlroy
World Ranking: 2 British Open starts: 13 Best finish: Win, 2014
Jon Rahm
World Ranking: 3 British Open starts: 6 Best finish: T-3, 2021
Viktor Hovland
World Ranking: 5 British Open starts: 2 Best finish: T-4, 2022
Xander Schauffele
World Ranking: 6 British Open starts: 5 Best finish: T-2, 2018
Cameron Smith
World Ranking: 7 British Open starts: 5 Best finish: Win, 2022
Jordan Spieth
World Ranking: 11 British Open starts: 9 Best finish: Win, 2017
Brooks Koepka
World Ranking: 12 British Open starts: 8 Best finish: T-4, 2019
Collin Morikawa
World Ranking: 19 British Open starts: 2 Best finish: Win, 2021
Shane Lowry
World Ranking: 29 British Open starts: 10 Best finish: Win, 2019
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