The fourth and final men’s Major Championship of the season takes place this week as the world’s best gather at Royal Portrush for The 153rd Open. Here are your five things to know.
Schauffele defends
After spending so long as a Major winner in waiting, last year was a year to remember for Xander Schauffele. With victory at the US PGA Championship and then The Open over a three-month span, he confirmed himself to be a man for the big occasion. A winner of the Genesis Scottish Open – co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and PGA TOUR – in 2022, he proved his game could travel and he adapted to the links challenge that Royal Troon provided 12 months ago expertly. A final-round 65 – which he then later described as the best of his career - saw him triumph by two shots from Justin Rose and Billy Horschel as he emerged from the pack to lift the Claret Jug. While he endured a frustrating week at Quail Hollow when making his first defence of a Major earlier in the season, the challenge of trying to become the first repeat winner of The Open since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08 is sure to provide the American with plenty of motivation.
Royal Portrush’s history of big events
Founded in 1888, Royal Portrush has been a home to the game’s great champions and championships. It hosted the country’s first amateur and professional tournaments. Max Faulkner claimed the Claret Jug in 1951, when the club welcomed the first Open Championship to be played outside Scotland and England. Its global profile grew in stature as it held six Senior Opens in a ten-year span, including five in a row from 1995. In 2005, a then 16-year-old Rory McIlroy set a course record over the Dunluce Links with a 61 in the North of Ireland Amateur Championship. The coastal links was back in the spotlight in 2012, when Jamie Donaldson claimed his maiden DP World Tour title at the Irish Open. In 2018, the Boys Amateur Championship was played in Ireland for the first time, before Irish eyes were smiling a year later when Shane Lowry claimed victory as The Open made its long-awaited return. Who will be holding the Claret Jug this time around?
Record crowds
The appetite for golf in Great Britain & Ireland has never been stronger, with 278,000 fans set to gather at Royal Portrush this week. This will mark a new record for the largest attendance at The Open held outside St Andrews, and surpasses the previous high mark set on the Antrim Coast when 237,750 fans gathered in 2019. Such was the success of the long-awaited return of golf’s oldest Major to Northern Ireland six years ago, there was unprecedented demand for tickets in the ballot last year after the swift return was announced by The R&A in 2021. A remarkable 89,000 fans will attend the four sold-out practice days alone. The 153rd Open will also be the largest ever sporting event held in Northern Ireland and is expected to generate more than £213 million in total economic benefit for the country according to an independent forecast by the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University.
Harrington honour
Two-time Open champion Harrington will hit the opening tee shot at this year's tournament. The 53-year-old Irishman, who clinched back-to-back Claret Jugs in 2007 and 2008, will open play early on Thursday morning. Harrington beat Sergio Garcia in a play-off at Carnoustie for the first of his victories after starting the final round six shots back, and successfully defended his title at Royal Birkdale 12 months later with a four-shot win over Ian Poulter. Harrington, who also held off Garcia to win the 2008 US PGA Championship, missed the cut at the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush. Since then, he has enjoyed great success in seniors golf, winning ten PGA TOUR Champions titles. The latest of those came with his second U.S. Senior Open win last month.
Course guide
Ahead of The Open's return to Portrush in 2019, the Dunluce Links underwent significant changes that began in 2015. Five new greens, eight new tee boxes and 10 new bunkers were created, along with two new holes from land on the club's Valley Course that replaced the old 17th and 18th and become the new seventh and eighth. After winning by six strokes in 2019, Lowry described the course as "incredible". “Everybody has been raving about how good the golf course was,” he said. “I’d be very surprised if [the Open] is not back here in the next 10 years.” It took only six. After the widespread acclaim it received then, some refinements have been made but the holes will largely play similarly to how it did in 2019. At 7,381 yards, the course - which features several elevation changes and out of bounds off the tee on several holes - will play 37 yards longer than in 2019 after the addition of some new championship tees at the fourth and seventh.
