Pin Sheet: Open Championship
The year's final major
Welcome back to the Pin Sheet, our weekly data-informed preview of the PGA Tour.
This week, we finish up not just the Tour’s brief jaunt to Europe, but our major championship slate with the Open Championship. It’s the oldest tournament in the world, first hosted in 1860.
Instead of the now-famous Claret Jug, the first winner received a belt with a silver buckle worth £25 at the time (which, adjusted for inflation, is a little over $5000 today). It couldn’t leave Prestwick Golf Club unless a guarantee of its safety were made, and it changed hands with every new champion WWE-style. Funnily enough, after Young Tom Morris won three straight Opens from 1868-1870, they just let him keep the belt. With no trophy to offer (not even a participation one), they didn’t even bother playing the tournament in 1871.
In 1872, the three main governing golf clubs in Scotland (based out of Prestwick, St Andrews, and Musselburgh) agreed to pool together £30 to create a permanent trophy, resulting in the Claret Jug we know and love.
The agreement also marked the start of the Open rota using those three courses as host sites, adding and removing courses over the years until we reached the 10 we have today. Musselburgh was removed in 1892 after the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers built their own course at Muirfield and relocated there, and Prestwick was removed from the rota after the 1925 Open.
Our host course this week, Royal Portrush, was added in 1951 and didn’t return until 2019, when Shane Lowry won in front of his home crowd.
One more thing to note: both this week and last week feature opposite-field events. This week’s tournament is the Barracuda Championship, a unique stop on Tour that uses Stableford scoring, where the highest score wins (explained here). Several young players have broken through for wins here, including Nick Dunlap in 2024 (who had won earlier that year at the American Express, but as an amateur), Akshay Bhatia in 2023, and Collin Morikawa in 2018. It’s a chance to get a look at the future of the game on Sunday after you watch the present duke it out for the Claret Jug.
Before I nerd out too much, let’s recap last week at the Renaissance Club.
Checking Our Scorecard
Scottie Scheffler: T8 (-9)
Of course he finished top 10. Of course. Things weren’t looking great for Scottie early on Saturday, but he was steady as usual and slowly but surely powered his way to a finish good enough for the lofty standards he’s set this year. His ballstriking was typically outstanding, but the putter was rough, losing 0.36 shots on the greens.
Sam Burns: T47 (-2)
Burns remained solid with the putter and was great off the tee, but the irons let him down hard. He lost 0.66 shots in approach, and Renaissance Club punishes you for missing your spots.
J.J. Spaun: MC (+2)
J.J.’s short game may not have fit in his carry-on this week. He lost 1.06 shots in putting and another 0.64 around the greens, and that’s rarely a formula for success on a links setup. Here’s hoping his touch is on the first flight to Belfast this week.
Harris English: T22 (-5)
English was in a good spot to start Sunday, picking up an early birdie to jump into the top 10. He couldn’t build on it, though, going +3 the rest of the way to slide out of the top 20 entirely in a tough finish. His SG: APP during that final round was a brutal -2.85, and he struggled with the putter all week, which kept him from recovering and finding a score to really compete.
Ryan Fox: T65 (+2)
Fox’s putter was basically nonexistent all week, which experts say hurts your chances at a links course. He lost 0.99 strokes on the greens, and a normally reliable driver was misfiring too, especially on the weekend, when he went +6 over two days to fall out of contention.
Justin Thomas: T22 (-5)
JT started Sunday at even par, but he got hot. He was -6 through 16 holes before just missing a 14-footer for par on his 17th hole and dropping out of the top 20 by one shot. Even so, his 65 was the second-best round of the day behind only Nicolai Hojgaard’s 64, and his irons were strong for the week, with an SG: APP of 0.81, overcoming a tough first round.
Harry Hall: T17 (-6)
After two days, Hall was -9 and in solo second with a great chance to go for the win. A third round 74, where Hall lost 1.74 shots in approach, derailed his chances, but T17 is still a respectable result for the Englishman, and he’ll have decent momentum going into the Open.
Matt Fitzpatrick: T4 (-12)
Fitzy’s short game was excellent, gaining almost 2.5 shots in the putting and ARG categories. Four rounds in the 60s, including a 63 on Friday, kept him near the top of the leaderboard all week, but he couldn’t cash in a few good looks for birdie down the stretch on Sunday to threaten eventual winner Chris Gotterup.
Robert MacIntyre: T65 (+2)
Like Fox, MacIntyre didn’t have the driver or putter working at all. There’s not much else I can say about a guy who was hanging around 65th all week, and he’ll be disappointed with his defense at his home event.
Max Greyserman: MC (E)
Greyserman’s irons were strong, but he lost any advantage he gained there off the tee, where he posted a -0.80 in the stat. Two negative numbers in the short game categories didn’t help him salvage a score, resulting in a missed cut by one agonizing shot.
Three top 20s, but two more near misses, and all three of our Draws from last week (McIlroy, Pendrith, and Reitan) finished in the top 15, including a T2 for Rory. It’s not a great week, but our Ideal Player Profile held up when compared to the top performers at the Renaissance Club.
That’s enough of last week. Let’s talk Portrush.
Course Conditions
Ideal Player Profile:
SG_OTT: 0.793
SG_APP: 1.082
SG_ARG: 0.576
SG_PUTT: 1.272
DRIVING_DIST: 285.407
DRIVING_ACC: 0.648
GIR: 0.723
New to strokes gained or wondering how we build these profiles?
Check out our Tee to Green series to get up to speed before diving in.
Royal Portrush Golf Club, in Portrush, Northern Ireland, actually has two courses on the property. The Open will be held at the Dunluce Links, named for Dunluce Castle, a 13th-century ruin just east of the course. It’s the only course outside of Great Britain to have hosted the Open, and this is our third visit to this spectacular layout. After first hosting the Open in 1951, it underwent a major renovation in 2015 to modernize it ahead of the 2019 Open, including the creation of two new holes: the current 7 and 8.
Founded in 1888, legendary designer Harry Colt laid out both courses here, adding to a resume that includes renovations of two other Open hosts (Muirfield and Royal Liverpool), as well as the original design of Pine Valley, consistently ranked the best course in America.
Once again, this isn’t very long compared to the year’s other major venues, at 7,337 yards for the par-71. For reference, Quail Hollow, another par-71, stretches to 7,626 yards, while the par-72 Augusta National sits at 7,510 yards, and Oakmont is 7,352 yards, which doesn’t seem that much longer until you realize it’s a par-70. If they were all scaled to par-72s, Portrush would come in around the length of Augusta, while Quail Hollow would be closer to 7,800 yards, and Oakmont would be around 7,700. The renovation helped Portrush keep up with distance gains, but with how much roll players get on links courses, it doesn’t play that way.
Portrush is a very old-school links layout, with all the fescue, bunkers, and slopes you’d expect from an Open. The bunkers are meticulously placed to influence decisions and get in your head, and the slopes provide a variety of ways to approach every shot. Uneven terrain means no two lies will be the same, especially if you miss in the tall grass, where weeds, hedges, and any other plants that grow in Northern Ireland wait to ruin your day. Like last week, you’ll see the low ball plenty, especially off the tee, as players look to stay below the wind and take advantage of firm turf that lets a ball run for miles. It’s stinger SZN.
Weather always plays a role at the Open, and this year is no different. Rain is expected, and wind is a guarantee, making this a test of your ability to brave and adapt to the elements, along with all the usual mental and physical pressure that comes with a major championship.
From a scoring standpoint, Shane Lowry won in 2019 at -15, but nobody else broke double digits under par. With how much players have improved and the game has changed, I think we’ll see a winning score in the -12 range, but much tighter than Lowry’s six-shot win.
To the surprise of nobody, this week’s Ideal Player Profile looks like last week’s profile got access to steroids and went all-in. Accuracy is even more important here, with both driving accuracy and GIR percentages well above average. On the greens? You need to be, as Randy Moss once said, straight cash, homie.
Featured Holes
We’ll take a look at just a few of the holes on the Dunluce Links, but every single hole could get a breakdown here.
Hole 4
This is a long and demanding par 4, stretching to 479 yards in the tournament configuration. A drive needs to keep to the right side, avoiding two large and penal bunkers in the fairway on the left and skirting around two more right in the middle of the short grass. Not too far right, though, as OB stakes are lurking. From there, your approach needs to either fly all the way to the green or run right through the middle of a strip of fairway flanked by two large mounds, restricting both the available space and your viewing angle. More mounds guard the green on the right, and misses will tend to funnel into a collection area left. Once you’re on the green, you must navigate three ridges while putting to finish the job.
Hole 5
A shorter, dogleg right par 4, sitting at 382 yards. Two bunkers sit short of the green, waiting to catch any drives that try to cut off a little too much, and the fairway has all kinds of wicked undulations. The green is right on the coast, with a drop-off straight to the beach just behind it and a view of the Dunluce Castle in the distance.
Hole 14
This looks like a straightaway 470-yard par 4 at first glance, but the danger lies in the green complex. Tee balls will need to either cover or thread the needle between two deep fairway bunkers that make escaping a perilous game. You absolutely cannot miss this green left, with a massive bunker waiting for the unfortunate souls who do. It takes a herculean effort to scramble from there, with the lip blocking your entire sightline and then some. The green itself resembles a turtleback, with slopes and dropoffs on all sides to punish players who don’t have their distance or line dialed in.
Hole 15
This hole is gorgeous. There’s no other way to describe it. The 418-yard par 4 lets you stare down the Skerries (not to be confused with the Welsh islets) and the Atlantic Ocean the whole way. Don’t get distracted by the view, though. This hole doesn’t let you take a breather. Your tee shot needs to stay left, with three bunkers down the right side of the fairway waiting. The only problem is that you want to be on the right side of the hole for a better angle on the approach, where this hole really flexes its muscle. With two bunkers left of the green, more slopes than a middle school math class, and another dropoff right, precision is a non-negotiable here.
Hole 16
This is the signature hole of Portrush. Nicknamed Calamity Corner, the 236-yard par 3 straight uphill lives up to the billing. It’s almost certain to play directly into the wind, but that’s not even the hardest part of this hole. The first time you see it on the broadcast this week, there’s one thing that will catch your eye: the massive chasm all the way down the right side of the hole. Staring it down feels like the terror of hearing that satellite phone ring in Jurassic Park III. Miss it there, and you may find yourself a full 100 feet below the green. You’ll see bailouts galore in the collection area left, which will seem like paradise compared to the alternative. Players will be happy with four tee shots to the back left section of the green, regardless of pin position this week, especially considering the GIR rate in 2019 was just 41% on this hole. If you walked up to any player in the field, even Scottie, and offered them a par on 16 every round this week, they would take it with a sigh of relief. It’s that daunting.
Pinseekers of the Week
Here are the players in the field who most closely match the ideal profile, with a higher score indicating a better fit:
Scottie Scheffler: 1.1404
Sam Burns: 0.9941
Nick Taylor: 0.9766
Tommy Fleetwood: 0.9594
Matt Fitzpatrick: 0.9551
Jon Rahm: 0.9543
Harry Hall: 0.9481
Sepp Straka: 0.9362
Harris English: 0.9308
Justin Thomas: 0.9192
Most of this list is elite, either with the irons, putter, or both, and those who aren’t are in solid form and have all the tools to win at Portrush this week.
Scottie Scheffler tops the list yet again, and nobody’s surprised. He’s the best iron player in the world right now, fourth in the field off the tee, and ranks in the top 20 in both SG: ARG and PUTT, even with his (relatively) rough outing in Scotland. It’s a great combination to have, as long as he dials in the putter.
Speaking of putting, Sam Burns was just usurped at the top of the putting charts by amateur Jackson Koivun, but he and the rest of the field unfortunately won’t be seeing the Auburn Tiger this week. Burns has been good off the tee with improving accuracy, and the irons have been strong outside of last week, so if he can shake that performance off, he could challenge for the win.
Nick Taylor has been in great form with eight top 25s in his last nine starts, though he did miss the cut at the PGA Championship in that stretch. His irons have been red-hot lately, and good accuracy off the tee combined with a reliable putter makes him a sneaky good fit here.
Words cannot express how much I would love to see Tommy Fleetwood break through this week. His irons and wedges are outstanding, ranking top 10 in both categories. Historically, he’s done well on links setups too, making this week potentially a perfect storm for the Englishman. Of course, it’s hard to look past his struggles to finish the job, most recently at the Travelers when he lost out to Keegan Bradley in agonizing fashion, but he’ll have plenty of support from the crowd at Portrush, and honestly, I hope he gets it done.
Full Disclosure: I picked major winners at the start of the year based on vibes, and Tommy was my Open pick. I’m one for three, so I’d really like to get to 50% on these. For the record, my other picks were Rory at the Masters, Ludvig Aberg for the PGA, and Scottie for the U.S. Open.
Matt Fitzpatrick is coming off that strong T4 at the Renaissance Club, and he’s been feeling it lately. Three straight top 20s and 5 top 25s in his last seven events, combined with hot ballstriking and a putter finding its groove, make him dangerous.
Jon Rahm is outstanding off the tee, has a solid short game, and his irons have been unreal lately. He just added the U.S. Open to his streak of top 15s in majors, and the Spaniard has as good a chance as anyone this week as he looks for his third major.
We mentioned how good Harry Hall’s putter has been last week, and that’s still true. His short game has honestly been great overall, but his driver will need to cooperate for him to contend, especially given his inaccuracy.
Sepp Straka is still an elite iron player, and a good putting performance in last week’s T7 finish is a good sign for his chances. The Austrian is usually reliable off the tee, and that could be a good sign for Straka Flocka Flame.
Harris English brings strong driver accuracy and a top 20 rank in SG: PUTT to Portrush, so his week could depend on how the irons are feeling. Right now, it looks like they’re feeling pretty dang good based on recent form.
Justin Thomas’s driver accuracy is concerning as always, but every other aspect of his game is money, so he’ll have a scrambler’s chance this week. If that driver (or driving iron, or mini driver) is dialed, though, this could be a big week for JT.
Draws and Fades
The Pinseekers list highlights the ten best course fits based on the model. This section looks at the next players who didn’t quite make the top ten but still bring something worth watching. These are the draws: potential sleepers with upside. We’ll also look at the fades: a few players near the bottom of the fit rankings.
Draws
Rory McIlroy (11th in model ranking out of 122)
In all honesty, if Rory wasn’t in the top 10 this week, he was getting a Draw mention regardless of model rank. He’s the hometown kid here, having grown up in Holywood, a suburb of Belfast (just over an hour away from Royal Portrush). Narrative aside, Rory’s finding form again, and his putter’s absolutely feeling it right now, giving him a great chance at avenging his missed cut the last time the Open was at Portrush.
Ben Griffin (15th in model ranking)
Another Draw that’s also a bit of a storyline pick, but I’m still a believer in Golfing Mew. His missed cut at the Deere was more down to an apocalyptic week on the greens, and he’s still solid across the board, a great fit for our Ideal Player Profile, even if he doesn’t truly excel in any categories.
Andrew Novak (18th in model ranking)
Novak’s putter has been electric lately, and a combo of decent-enough ballstriking paired with a strong short game gives him a chance to make some noise after a top 20 in Scotland.
Fades
Brooks Koepka (83rd in model ranking)
Despite a T12 at the U.S. Open, Brooks has not been playing solid golf this year. The ballstriking has been rough, he’s inaccurate off the tee, and the short game isn’t reliable enough to trust Koepka, making him a far cry from the dominant force he was in majors just a few years ago.
Mackenzie Hughes (100th in model ranking)
Hughes hasn’t posted a week with a positive SG: PUTT since the Charles Schwab in May, and like Koepka, he’s struggled with driver accuracy and ballstriking. It’s just hard to compete on a links course, especially one like Portrush, with that combination of problems.
Sahith Theegala (105th in model ranking)
Theegala is playing his first event since announcing he’d be taking time off to deal with a neck injury in June, but the outlook this week isn’t very optimistic, sadly. His short game hasn’t been there all year, and the ballstriking is erratic. You may notice a common theme among the Fades this week, and that shouldn’t be surprising when you look at our Ideal Player Profile. Accuracy and consistency are the keys here, and these guys just don’t have it.
Finishing Out
That’s everything on this week’s Pin Sheet. As a reminder, this model isn’t here to pick winners: it’s here to spotlight the players whose games line up best with what the course demands.
This week kicks off a sprint to the finish line of the Tour season, with a major, the end of the regular season, and the new look FedEx Cup playoffs waiting for us all in just six weeks, before the FedEx Cup Fall where we’ll be keeping an eye on the players battling it out for a tour card. Oh, and we’ve got a Ryder Cup to look forward to. We’ll be here for every bit of it, giving you all the info, names, and storylines you need to know.
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Enjoy the week, good luck with any picks, and we’ll see you next Tuesday.
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