To win a British Open, you must embrace the unique test of golf. With unpredictable weather, players who manage their ball-striking and mental game throughout the week are the most successful. For these reasons, it’s often the toughest major to predict a winner, as many long-shot players have won the Open by playing creative shots and keeping a cool head.
There isn’t any shot-by-shot data for Royal Portrush, as the last Open Championship at the venue was in 2019. So to uncover what skills are required to win there, I analyzed the stats of recent Open Championships. With the help of Arccos Pro Insights, here are the three skills required to win the Open.
With current tour venues, playing in heavy winds is less common these days. At Royal Portrush in July, however, we can expect winds to gust more than 20 miles per hour at some point throughout the week, requiring players to have command over their trajectory. Being able to hit the ball low and work it both ways is the key. Who does that suit? I looked at the players who have performed best over the past two years on tour in winds of 15 mph or more. Joaquín Niemann and Shane Lowry top that list.
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In 2019, accuracy off the tee played a massive role. Some of the holes at Royal Portrush are quite narrow, and thick rough lines the fairways. Lowry, who won by six shots, drove it great that week, and an unusual percentage of players at the top of the leader board were straight hitters, like Tommy Fleetwood and Lee Westwood (who went through Final Qualifying and is back to play again for the first time since 2022). Six years later, some of the most accurate players off the tee in the field are Collin Morikawa, Aaron Rai and Daniel Berger.
Tour players are used to putting on greens 12 or greater on the Stimpmeter. At the Open, due to the high winds and the type of grass, the greens will be much slower, around 10 or 11 on the Stimpmeter. Players will not only need to hit putts harder than normal on Royal Portrush’s large greens, but slower greens break less than faster ones, so matching the slower speed with the line will take an adjustment. I looked at who over the last five years on tour has putted best on greens slower than 11 on the Stimpmeter, and Sungjae Im, Cameron Smith and Matt Fitzpatrick are near the top, all gaining over 0.7 shots per round on the field on those greens.
Players I like at Royal Portrush
Fleetwood and Lowry excel in these categories, and as Europeans who grew up on links courses, they have years of experience in these conditions. Lowry, of course, won here in 2019, and Fleetwood was runner-up. Fleetwood is long overdue for a major, and this course couldn’t set up better for him, as long as the putter behaves. I also like Niemann as he is a great player in the wind and is having a nice season despite his major championship stumbles.
EDOARDO MOLINARI, a former U.S. Amateur champion, Ryder Cupper and three-time winner on the DP World Tour, is Arccos Golf’s Chief Data Strategist.
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.