The Open Championship
The Open Championship is a true spectacle for golf fans every year regardless of which course it is held on. There really isn't a bad course in the current Open Championship rotation and Royal Portrush is right up there with the best of them, despite the fact this will be just the third time it has hosted golf's oldest championship. Local favorite Rory McIlroy will be hoping to do better than he did last time he got a crack at Portrush in 2019 when he opened with a quadruple-bogey on the par-4 1st and shot 79 in the first round. Maybe second on the fan favorites in 2019 was Irishman Shane Lowry who had just a magical week that included a 63 in the third round to help him claim his first major title by six strokes.
This year both players are back looking to give the home fans something to cheer about, but there's a stellar field of 154 other players hoping to write their own history. Scottie Scheffler is looking for his second major of the year and third leg of the career grand slam. Jon Rahm is also seeking a third leg of the career slam at Portrush. Scheffler, McIlroy and Rahm have a pretty sizable gap to the rest of the field on the odds board. That said, there's a number of players lower down the board who are playing some really strong golf right now and hoping to with their first major like Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Sepp Straka and Russell Henley.
One and Done leagues will have this final major of the year circled, as it presents one of the final opportunities to make a big move in the standings. The winner will earn $3.1 million and the top three finishers will all take home north of $1 million. At this point there has to be some strategy involved based on where you are in your league's standings. If you are near the top it makes sense to take a chalky player his week, as you should maintain ground to those around you. If you need to make up ground, now is the time where you need to take a shot on a player who is unlikely to be selected by many others in your league.
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Course Tidbits
- Course: Royal Portrush (7,381 yards, par 71)
- Location: Portrush, Northern Ireland
- Purse: $17 million ($3.1 million to winner)
- Defending Champion: Xander Schauffele (-9) at Royal Troon
- 2024 Scoring Average at Royal Troon: 73.85 (+2.85)
- 2019 Champion at Royal Portrush: Shane Lowry (-15)
- 2019 Scoring Average at Royal Portrush: 72.18 (+1.18)
Royal Portrush is one of the more demanding driving courses on the Open Championship rotation. There are some internal out of bounds stakes to be wary of, the fairway bunkers and typically inside the fairway lines and the rough in some areas can be quite penal. All that to say, accuracy off the tee will be at a premium, which does open things up for players of any length to have a chance this week.
The green complexes are another big defense of this course. Most of the putting surfaces are raised and there are runoffs on multiple angles that can bring offline approaches into collections areas that create challenging scrambling opportunities. Greens in regulation often gets overlooked these days, but that is going to be at a premium. Lowry, Fleetwood and Lee Westwood were the leaders in that category last time The Open was held at Portrush and all finished top-4 on the final leaderboard.
Weather is always a topic of conversation for the Open Championship. This year it looks like there's a decent chance we could see rain all four days at some point. We should still see some decent chase in the fairways because of the firm/sandy terrain the course is located on, but spin control could become an issue with some wedges and short irons into greens. The wind should also be pretty mild for what we can sometimes get in this part of the world in this championship. There are three par-5s which can be reached depending on wind direction and a couple short par-4s that can also be taken advantage of. As long as we don't see heavy rain, you can make a fair share of birdies around Portrush if you are putting the ball in the fairway and controlling you approach shots.
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RotoWire One and Done Tools
Open Championship: One and Done Picks
Down in 26th in our RotoWire OAD pool, I've really got nothing to lose. Spieth has plenty of red flags around him at the moment coming off a neck injury and adding a third child to the family last week that surely had to interrupt his usual prep for the Open Championship. That said, his record at The Open has been incredible making the cut in all 11 starts with five top-10s and eight top-25s, including his victory back in 2017 at Royal Birkdale. Spieth has also played much better this year than many probably realize with four top-10s and eight top-25s in 15 starts. He is driving it exceptionally well , the approach game is coming back and he remains one of the strongest short game players in the world. --Ryan Andrade
It's getting late in the season, maybe just a half-dozen tournaments left. This is your last chance to use a LIV guy, so if Rahm is available, that would be the play. But if not, I'm looking for a guy who I think can win this tournament and there aren't many. A UK guy is a step in the right direction. A UK guy playing well is even better. Fitzpatrick might be playing his best stretch of golf since winning the U.S. Open three years ago. He tied for eighth at the PGA and tied for fourth last week at the Scottish Open. If you happen to be behind in your OAD pool, don't go chalk. Fitzpatrick is not chalk. --Len Hochberg
It's rare that I have so many good options to choose from this late in the season, but considering that some of those options are LIV players and therefore ineligible the rest of the season, I thought it best to choose one of them. Some of those "good options" are Fleetwood, Fitzpatrick and Rahm, so it came down to Rahm or Hatton for me, but since Rahm is likely to be much more popular than Hatton this week, I decided to go with the golfer that could help me move up the standings. --Greg Vara
You're likely clicking on Bryson or Rahm if you've saved either LIV alpha for the grand finale of their 2025 OAD eligibility, but for those who've burned both, Hatton is proving to be a viable option after posting a T4 at the U.S. Open where he also ranked fourth among the major championship's field in SG: Approach. Additionally, the Englishman tied for sixth here at Royal Portrush during the 2019 Open Championship, and he's ninth or better on LIV this season in SG: Around-the-Green and SG: Putting. --Bryce Danielson
Morikawa wasn't in the field in 2019 when The Open was held at Royal Portrush, but there's little reason to think he won't be a good course fit with his strengths of hitting fairways and precise iron play. His first week with caddie Billy Foster didn't go well in Scotland, but he also had his worst tournament of the year with his short game. A former Champion Golfer of the Year, he's on the right side of the wave split with a Thursday morning tee time and shouldn't be overly popular in One and Done contests this week. --Ryan Pohle
Open Championship: One and Done Fades
Lowry won't get to play second fiddle to McIlroy as easy this time around. Returning the site of his Open Championship triumph in 2019, Lowry will have a lot of attention on him. While I do like some parts of his game right now like his ability to drive the ball in the fairways and gain shots on approach, the rest of his game has been uncharacteristic of late. Lowry has lost strokes around the greens in four of his last five starts and ranks 136th this season in SG: Putting. If you still have Lowry available at this point, it's probably best to wait until the playoffs and let him play his way out of this rough patch. --Ryan Andrade
The Open is an acquired taste for most U.S. golfers, and DeChambeau has not acquired it yet. He's played in seven of them and, while he did have one tie for eighth three years ago, that's his only finish inside the top-30 and he's missed three cuts. He can't power his way across 72 holes like he does at a U.S. Open or PGA. Opens require shotmaking and creativity and nuance, just like Augusta. DeChambeau has gotten better at the Masters, but he's still getting comfortable on links courses. --Len Hochberg
If you're basing your picks on who played well here in 2019, then you might be considering Finau who finished T3, but I would advise against that. Finau has been off his game all season and he hasn't teed it up since mid-June. He's also struggled at the Open Championship lately, missing the cut in his last two starts at this event. --Greg Vara
Rose has crept up to the No. 7 spot in terms of projected site-wide ownership on OfficeFootballPool.com after a brilliant final-round performance in Scotland on Sunday, but if he's going to be that popular in OAD, from a value perspective you're better off just betting him at 80/1 outright if you actually like him to win The Open. The 44-year-old lost over 14 cumulative strokes from tee to green across his four starts prior to the Genesis Scottish Open. --Bryce Danielson
I know I'm not going out on a limb here, but Open setups have not been kind to JT as he's failed to post a top-10 across eight appearances despite having at least two such results in each of the other three majors. He's been wild off the tee in each of his last five tournaments and having to constantly hit out of deep fescue isn't going to be a recipe for success. You'll still have three playoff events to use Thomas, and he's always played well at East Lake. --Ryan Pohle
Don't get burned by late withdrawals. Visit RotoWire's PGA tournament field page for a live-updated summary of the field for the current week and list of players who have dropped out.
