Royal Birkdale has played host to some of the most titanic tussles in Open Championship history, but who will come out on top at the famous Southport links in 2026? Nick Bayly previews the season’s final major, which gets under way on July 16, highlighting the key challenges of the course and assessing the chances of the current generation of pretenders to the crown of ‘Champion Golfer of the Year’.
Since 1860, The Open Championship has been played over some of the world’s most cherished links courses and has produced some remarkable champions. From the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland to Royal St George’s in deepest Kent, golf’s oldest major creates champions whose names will be forever remembered.
This year sees the championship return to Royal Birkdale, with the famous Lancashire links hosting The Open for the tenth time in its storied history. The most recent was in 2017 when Jordan Spieth came out on top following a final round duel with Matt Kuchar. The American joined a celebrated roll of Champion Golfers at Birkdale, including Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Ian Baker-Finch, Mark O’Meara and Padraig Harrington.
However, while Birkdale’s iconic Art Deco clubhouse and the famously flat fairways remain familiar sights, the course itself has recently undergone its most significant facelift in decades to ensure that it remains a test for the modern golfer and enhancing the spectator experience.
The enhancements have been made to a cluster of holes, including 5, 7, 14, 15 and 18, which have served to not only alter the rhythm of the course, but also to introduce several new risk-reward elements that has been lost over the years due to the ever-lengthening drives of the modern tour professional.
TAKING ON THE FIFTH
The first major change comes at the 5th, a completely new hole – with a new tee, fairway and green position – that poses a classic risk-reward challenge. Players can now see the green directly from the tee on this 321-yard par-4, a visual change that will tempt the big hitters to reach for their driver. However, with steep run-offs and severe bunkering guarding the putting surface, a missed green will lead to a testing up and down. If the wind is against, many players will knock a long iron to safety before attacking the pin with a wedge, while when the tees are forward and there is a helping wind, some will be tempted to go for glory with the big dog.
Another key change comes at the par-3 7th, a hole famous for its ‘donut bunker’. While still the shortest hole on the card at 151 yards, the margin for error is also now much smaller. A new, raised green is surrounded by some of the deepest bunkers on the course, placing a bigger emphasis on accurate distance control.
An imposing tee shot lies in wait at the new par-3 15th. The narrow entrance to the green on this 241-yard hole will make the putting surface look very small from the tee, especially with a long iron or hybrid in hand. The hole, which is found on the location of the old 14th, typically plays downwind, and with the green running from front to back that is a lot of factors to consider when hitting approach shots.
And last, but not least, the 18th has also been altered with a new tee position changing the shape of this 508-yard, par-4 to be much straighter challenge off the tee.
“There’s a lot more than can go wrong on 18 than there was previously,” said Royal Birkdale Head Professional Gregg Pettersen, speaking to TheOpen.com. “The old 18th tee was to the right, so the hole was playing more as a dogleg from left to right. We have moved the tee a long way left, so it is a straight hole looking up to the clubhouse. It is now just lined with bunkers everywhere.
“For anyone taking a driver, it is easy to fall into one of the traps. I would expect a lot of players to be shorter off the tee and then leave themselves a longer shot into the green just to take out the risk of going into the fairway bunkers. It looks a very narrow, very intimidating tee shot now with all the bunkers.”
CLARET JUG CONTENDERS
With the course changes heavily favouring precise ball-strikers and strategic thinkers over the ‘bomb ‘n’ gouge’ brigade, the landscape when looking for likely looking winners feels incredibly intriguing, although it will be no surprise that the familiar favourites are lurking high up the betting lists, as the world’s top players are just that much better than most at dealing with the vagaries of different playing conditions in the global era of golf than they once were.
Scottie Scheffler, the bookmakers’ favourite in almost every major since he went on his tear in 2022, arrives on the Flyde coast as the defending champion following his victory at Portrush last year. The world no.1 has come down with a bout of seconditis this year, having finished runner-up no fewer than four times this season, and with sole ‘W’ coming at The American Express all the way back in January.
While his consistency is staggering – he’s finished no worse than 25th in any event since August 2024 – his ability to find one player too good of late will surely rankle with a man who has won 22 times around the world since December 2023. Blessed with fairway-finding tee shots, laser-like iron play, and a stunning wedge game, Scottie only needs to find a few more percentage points with his putter to be a factor around Birkdale, although his lack of course knowledge must go down in the negative column.
Trailing by a distance behind Scheffler in ranking points, but charting at no.2 in the world, Rory McIlroy (7-1) seems to be purely targeting the majors at this point in his career, and the 37-year-old from Holywood was spotted dialing in his yardages at Birkdale shortly after his disappointing performance in last month’s US Open.
He also made a trip to St Enodoc in Cornwall last week with Shane Lowry to help sharpen up his links game, and you can expect the reigning Masters champion will have left no stone unturned in his search to back up his one and only Open victory which was achieved all the way back in 2014 at nearby Hoylake.
Rory’s relatively light playing schedule fits in with his busy lifestyle these days, but it may also not help him keep as match fit as he would like, so it’s hard to know whether the balance of practice/competing is paying off in quite the way that he may have hoped.
HAS TOMMY’S TIME COME?
While Rory won’t be short of support on his quest for a sixth major title, the one player who is set to raise the rafters at Royal Birkdale is Tommy Fleetwood. Born in Southport, and with the town now sporting a 40-foot mural of his face on the wall of a local sports club, Fleetwood knows Birkdale like the back of his hand, having sneaked onto the course for illicit childhood rounds. He knows the prevailing winds and the nuances of the lie of the land better than anyone else in the field, with perhaps the exception of fellow local lad Matthew Baldwin.
With a phenomenal links pedigree and elite ball-striking capabilities, Fleetwood is long overdue a major championship to go alongside his many other career achievements, and after his second-place finish behind Brian Harman at Royal Liverpool in 2023, this hometown boy will make him a highly popular pick to lift the Claret Jug this time around. For that to happen, he’ll need to get hot with the putter, a club that has a habit of letting him down when the pressure is on, and not get too distracted by the partisan galleries, many of whom will arrive at Birkdale in a febrile football crowd state of mind.
Having lifted the Claret Jug at Royal Troon in 2024, Xander Schauffele has proven he possesses the temperament and all-around game required to master links golf. He has no obvious weaknesses and his ability to grind out pars when the weather goes south makes him a solid candidate to cope with the tough conditions that he may face on the Southport coast. He once again flattered to deceive at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills, bagging a tenth consecutive top-15 finish, but with more playable conditions expected at Birkdale it’s hard to rule the quietly spoken American out.
If you’re looking for reasonably recent Open Championship form, then Collin Morikawa, the winner at Royal St George’s in 2021, must also enter equations. Now up to sixth in the world on the back of five top-10 finishes this season and a win at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, this brilliant iron player must be a solid each-way investment if the wind stays manageable and the tournament devolves into a second-shot course.
The same can almost be said of reigning US PGA champion Aaron Rai, who, as a past winner of the Scottish Open, shows he has the aptitude for links golf and is also a strong iron player who rarely misses a fairway
Other longer odds options to consider are Brian Harman, whose straight driving and unerring accuracy with his broom-handle putter make him a force to be reckoned with on links courses, while Viktor Hovland, Norway’s second-best sporting export behind goal machine Erling Haaland, is fresh off a win at the John Deere Classic, where he came out on top in a head-to-head with Scottie Scheffler, would also be worthy of consideration now that he seems to come out of the dip in form that followed his swing changes in 2024.
FITTING FINALE
With tickets having been long-since been snapped up for all four championship days, there promises to be a new record crowd number set for an Open at Birkdale this year. So, whether you’re one of lucky ones to have bagged a ringside seat, or whether you’re going to watch it on the small screen at home, everyone will be hoping that the 154th Open Championship produces a suitably memorable conclusion to the year’s Major season.
LATEST OUTRIGHT OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP ODDS – VIA BETWAY
Scottie Scheffler 5/1
Rory McIlroy 7/1
Tommy Fleetwood 14/1
Jon Rahm 16/1
Xander Schauffele 18/1
Matt Fitzpatrick 20/1
Cameron Young 22/1
Ludvig Aberg 22/1
Brooks Koepka 25/1
Justin Rose 25/1
Tyrrell Hatton 28/1
B DeChambeau 28/1
Collin Morikawa 28/1
Robert MacIntyre 33/1
Shane Lowry 33/1
Wyndham Clark 33/1
Viktor Hovland 33/1
Joaquin Niemann 40/1
Justin Thomas 40/1
Chris Gotterup 40/1
Patrick Reed 40/1
Sam Burns 40/1
Jordan Speith 50/1
Others 50/1 or more (1/4 odds top 5 places)
For all the latest Open Championship betting odds, visit Betway.
The Open Championship will air on Sky Sports Golf from July 16-19. For the full schedule of live coverage, visit www.skysports.com
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