Open Championship 2026 Big Board: A firm, fiery Royal Birkdale will complete major season

Let’s start with a stat that hasn’t been relevant in nearly four years: The last time Scheffler missed a cut, he finished T3 the following week, which was during the FedEx Cup playoffs in 2022. After his streak of 78 consecutive weekends was snapped at the Scottish Open, the game’s No. 1-ranked player will again seek not just some motivation from the MC, but perhaps an antidote for his most recent performance, which came on the heels of 13 straight winless starts that included four runner-up finishes, eight top-fives and nothing outside of the top 25 — until now.

Five years ago, Morikawa made his first trip to Europe to compete in the Scottish Open, finished in a share of 71st place and explained that he’d yet to figure out the nuances of playing a links course. Well, he’s either a quick learner or he’s got a heck of a poker face. The very next week, he claimed the Claret Jug at Royal St. George’s, posting four rounds of 68 or better. Though he hasn’t since come close to replicating that success — a T16 and three missed cuts in his four subsequent starts — he’s playing some very high-level golf this year, with a pair of top 20s in the first three majors.

Two years ago, Schauffele finally broke the seal, turning a boatload of close calls into his first major championship at the PGA Championship and making things look easy with a two-stroke victory at The Open. Not much has come easy for him lately, though. The ball-striking numbers remain solid, but he hasn’t contended for a title since the Florida swing and his recent results table shows just one top-25 finish in his last four starts. There’s plenty of reason to believe that could change this week, as he’s posted top 20s in six of his previous eight career starts at this major.

In the past 26 months, Gotterup’s PGA Tour victory odometer has gone from zero to five, including three titles this season. A big-hitting, fast-playing, no-nonsense type, he’s very quickly transcended from young player with potential to one of the best in the world — though he’d love to prove it again on the biggest stage, as he did last year, when he followed a victory at the Scottish Open with a solo third-place result at Royal Portrush. For a player who enjoys flighting his ball low, he seems to have cultivated a nice relationship with links golf.

It’s been a breakthrough season for Young, who reached the highest highs in his career with victories at The Players Championship and Cadillac Championship and a share of third place at the Masters. However, the lows have been suspiciously so for a player who never appears to ride any roller coaster of emotion, with a middling T26 at the PGA Championship and T43 at the U.S. Open. In fact, he hasn’t finished in the top 25 in his last four starts, nor has he in his last two Open appearances after a runner-up in his first and T8 in his second.

One year ago, Clark was mired in a summer of temper tantrums that only turned for the better when he made the trip overseas, finishing T11 at the Scottish Open, then T4 at The Open one week later. There’s no tangible way to analyze just how much that fortnight helped his recent success, but know this: It certainly couldn’t have hurt. Fresh off last month’s U.S. Open victory, he now appears to be brimming with confidence, with a T5 at the Travelers Championship and T13 at the Scottish Open in his last two starts. It’s hard to believe he won’t keep riding that momentum this week.

The lack of yellow squares for this event on Thomas’ personal Wikipedia page is always a bit jarring. In nine career starts, he’s never finished inside the top 10; in fact, a T11 in 2019 remains his lone top-30 result. The surprising part of this is that, perhaps more than any other player, the two-time major champion prides himself on being not just a ball striker but also a shot maker, armed with the ability to hit high cuts, low draws and everything in between. Those results might not make much sense, but it’s a fairly large sample size at this point.

Most of the world’s top players prefer to prepare for The Open by competing in the previous week’s Scottish Open. Not Henley, who kept his streak unblemished by again eschewing the festivities at the Renaissance Club. The results were mixed for a long time, as he failed to post better than 20th in his first eight starts at this event, but he finished solo fifth two years ago and T10 last year, suggesting it’s simply taken a while for something to click for Henley overseas. Or maybe it simply correlates with his ascendancy, as the 37-year-old has only turned into a top-five player in recent years.

For a player whose major championship history is littered with close calls, big misses and — in recent years — literal misses when he’s failed to qualify, Fowler has been remarkably even in his performance level across the board. He owns four top 10s at the U.S. Open and three at each of the other three majors, including The Open, where he was T5 in 2017, the last time it was held at Royal Birkdale. At age 37, perhaps his best chance to finally win a big one might come in the U.K., where he’s always seemed comfortable flighting shots in breezy conditions.

Could lightning strike twice? Three years ago, the lefty known more for his Southern roots, bulldog tenacity and affinity for hunting than for any proficiency on links courses took Royal Liverpool by storm, lapping the field by a half-dozen strokes for his first career major championship. So far this season, his performance has largely outweighed his results — he’s yet to post a single top 10 — but his approach play and short-game numbers remain solid. Despite winning in torrential rain in 2023, his game might actually be better served by fast and firm conditions this week.

Mark Twain used the term “lies, damned lies and statistics” to show how numbers can be manipulated to support weak arguments, and Mr. Clemens surely wouldn’t have enjoyed spending his hard-earned money on a player such as Kitayama. The numbers, at least from tee to green, have looked fantastic for a while now; however, the results too often peak at the “very good” variety, as Kitayama rarely gets himself into serious title contention. Even so, it’s hard to have a low floor when you hit it as flush as Kitayama seems to on a very regular basis.

Only two winners at Royal Birkdale are in this week’s field, and it can be argued that 2008 champion Padraig Harrington might have as much of a chance of repeating history as Spieth, who’s yet to put together all aspects of his game in a single tournament this season. The results show nothing inside the top 10 in the past year, but there is a bright side when it comes to performance, as he ranks above PGA Tour average in three of the four major statistical categories and just 0.003 to the negative in his wedge play around the greens.