The fourth and final major of the 2024 PGA Tour season is upon us. Royal Troon in Scotland will host 158 of the world's best players for the 152nd edition of The Open Championship. Captured in 2023 by Brian Harman carded a final round 70 to capture the Claret Jug and be crowned Champion Golfer of the Year. With no shortage of storylines heading into one of the best weeks in golf, Rory McIlroy will look to put his heartbreaking collapse at The U.S. Open behind him and capture his first major championship in a decade. Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler is aiming to put the finishing touches on one of the best tour seasons in modern golf history by adding a Claret Jug to sit alongside his green jacket.
Chris Gallagher and Everett Davidson contributed to this article.
The Course
First established in 1878, Royal Troon is a par-71 that measures 7,385 yards. Located on the coast in Troon, South Ayrshire, it is one of the best Open Championship venues. The course features difficult par 4s with swarming fairways and challenging greenside pot bunkers that will penalize players if they are off-center on approach shots. Furthermore, Royal Troon is home to the "postage stamp," one of the golf's most iconic holes. A par three that measures just 123 yards in length, the hole has three pot bunkers in front of the green, two on the left and one on the right, and should provide no shortage of theatre throughout the weekend.
The Field
This year's Open will have 158 players and will be the first Open since 2012 that has more than 156 players competing. All of the top 50 players in the OWGR are in attendance, as are all but three previous champions under the age of 60 (Ben Curtis, David Duval, and Paul Lawrie have all essentially or officially retired from professional play). Thirty-three previous major champions are in attendance, but the Open has been known for somewhat random winners in the past, such as Curtis, Todd Hamilton, and even last year's winner, Brian Harman, so there is no guarantee that the winner will come from those 33 players. Additionally, there are players like Tommy Fleetwood, Max Homa, Viktor Hovland, and Patrick Cantlay, who are ranked highly in the OWGR but have never broken through to win a major championship.
Chris' Open Championship Picks
Outright: Scottie Scheffler
I was thinking about this leading into the week. Despite already winning six times this season, if Scheffler comes away with just one major championship, it will be a disappointment. Set to tee it up for the first time since the Travellers Championship, the 28-year-old took some time off after a stretch that saw him compete in both The Memorial Tournament and The U.S. Open in back-to-back weeks. A natural course fit at Royal Troon, which penalizes players heavily for missing fairways, Scheffler is 15th on Tour in driving accuracy (72.0) and first in Strokes Gained: Total. Furthermore, while he struggled on the greens at Pinehurst, the University of Texas native has picked up strokes with his putter in nine of his last ten tournaments outside of the U.S.
Outright: Collin Morikawa
A winner at the 2021 Open Championship at Royal St. George’s, Morikawa enters the week red hot. Kickstarted by a T3 at The Masters Tournament in April, the five-year veteran also grabbed a T4 at The PGA Championship. Along with this, he was also runner-up to Scheffler at The Memorial Tournament. One of the best ball strikers in the field, he ranks 39th in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, fourth in Driving Accuracy (78.3), and sixth in Scoring Average (69.914). Furthermore, after struggling with both his wedges and putter early on in the season, Morikawa has gained strokes in both areas over his past few tournaments. Expect him to be in the mix to add a second Claret Jug to his resume this week.
Outright: Brooks Koepka
I am trying to think of the last time a five-time major winner came into an event with 33-1 odds. This season has largely been a struggle for Koepka. The Florida native has not finished inside the top 25 in any of the four majors, with his best finish being a T26 at both The U.S. Open and The PGA Championship. However, the 34-year-old's track record at The Open Championship speaks for itself. Koepka has finished inside the top ten four times in nine starts at the event, including a T4 finish in 2019 at Royal Portrush Golf Club. Playing in a group alongside Wyndham Clark and Hideki Matsuyama, if the 34-year-old can jump out to a quick start, he will be in prime position to add the third leg of the career grand slam.
Top-10: Tyrrell Hatton
Hatton is aiming to become the first Englishman to win the Open Championship since Nick Faldo in 1992. Red hot after defecting for the LIV Tour in January, he has racked up five top-ten finishes in his last nine tournaments. This includes a win at Nashville in June by six strokes and a third-place finish at the ultra-difficult Real Club Valderrama this past week. Moreover, while his track record at the event has not been great over the course of his career, Hatton placed T5 at Royal Troon in 2016. One of the best short-game players in the field, Hatton is a brilliant putter and wedge player. Along with this, he has also been driving the golf ball with major confidence this season, making this the perfect combination for him to be in contention this week.
Head-to-Head: Tom Kim over Sahith Theegala
Still searching for his first victory of the season, Kim has had a few close calls. The 22-year-old finished runner-up to Scottie Scheffler at The Travellers Championship. Additionally, he also placed T4 at The Canadian Open and T15 at The Genesis Scottish Open a week ago. In contrast, despite being in the mix at multiple majors over the past year, Theegala has struggled over the past six weeks. Coming off a missed cut at The Canadian Open, the Pepperdine University product also placed T32 at The U.S. Open and T48 at The Travellers Championship. Ranked just 95th in the field in driving accuracy (63.9), Theegala sometimes struggles to hit fairways, which can prove costly at Royal Troon.
Everett's Open Championship Picks
Outright: Rory McIlroy
McIlroy's history in major championships has been well documented at this point, with his four major wins including a win at the Open ten years ago. He has been very good this season, and in his last seven starts, he has five top-four finishes, including two wins at the Zurich Classic and Wells Fargo Championship and a runner-up finish at the U.S. Open last month. McIlroy is coming off a T4 finish last week at the Scottish Open, and given how close he came to winning the U.S. Open, his fifth major victory seems to be close. He should be a threat to win this week, and if he is in contention on Sunday, we will be able to see if the break he took after his collapse at Pinehurst was worth it.
Outright: Ludvig Aberg
Aberg has been great this year, and his performance at the Masters in his first major appearance showed that he has what it takes to win big tournaments. He led entering the final round at the Scottish Open last week, and despite faltering on the back nine, he still finished T4, so he has the game to get it done on links courses. His game doesn't have any weaknesses, and his strong suit is his spectacular short game and putting, which comes in handy when you are playing courses where a bad bounce could turn a great shot into an awful one. Players need to be able to rebound from mistakes in order to win the Open, and Aberg's Sunday performance at the Masters, where he put a ball in the water on 11 and responded by birdieing two of the next three holes, showed that he can put mistakes behind him and come back stronger. Aberg has the mental game to win this week, but it will simply be a question as to whether his game will be strong enough to become a major champion.
Outright: Robert MacIntyre
Last week's winner comes into the tournament with +5500 odds, but he will easily be the home favorite among the Scottish crowds. MacIntyre grew up about two hours north of Troon on the west coast of Scotland and is one of four Scottish players in the field, and he is one of the hottest players in the world coming in. He has been very hit-or-miss this year, with seven top-25 finishes balancing against nine missed cuts. However, his two wins at the Canadian and Scottish Opens have led to him being a popular pick to win. MacIntyre grew up on links courses, and he has played in Scotland more than most of the players in the field, so he will know what to expect. If the MacIntyre who has the talent to win every week shows up, don't be surprised to see him in contention on Sunday.
Top-10: Adam Scott
Last week, Scott finished the 72nd hole with a solo lead and held a two-stroke lead late in the running before falling to MacIntyre, who went three-under in his last three holes. Scott is a previous major champion, having won the Masters in 2013, but his biggest disappointment came at the Open in 2012, where he bogeyed the final four holes after having a four-stroke lead with four holes to play to lose by one stroke to Ernie Els. That was the start of three straight top-five finishes at the Open for Scott, who hasn't finished in the top 10 in a major since 2019. However, Scott is a great player, and despite not having won since 2020, he has since been a consistent player who churns out top-10s. Last week was the closest Scott has come to winning since that win at the 2020 Genesis Invitational, but his game seems to be in a good spot, and to see him on the front page of the leaderboard on Sunday wouldn't be a surprise.
Head-to-Head: Min Woo Lee over Justin Thomas
Lee didn't play particularly well last week, but he has been impressive this season, with two runner-up finishes as part of seven top-25 finishes, and he has only missed one cut. Meanwhile, Thomas hasn't played particularly well since he won the PGA Championship in 2022, though he does have five top-10s this season. The Open has always been Thomas’ weakest of the four majors, and Lee has been decent, if unspectacular, in his three appearances. However, Thomas led after the first round last week, and despite playing poorly in the final three rounds, his performance seems to have made people think he will play better than he has been. Lee is a much better value pick at this spot.
(Photo by Stuart Franklin/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
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