BUILT FOR BIRKDALE: THE 2026 OPEN'S FAVOURITES 

Published: 16/07/2026 | By: Alex Courbat

Every major throws up a slightly different conversation about who's going to win, but the Open always adds an extra layer that the other three don't really ask. It's not just about who's playing well, it's about whose game actually translates to a firm, wind exposed links course where the ground plays as big a part as anything in the bag. Here's where the market sits heading into Royal Birkdale, and why the shape of each contender's game either helps or hurts them this week. 

Scottie Scheffler: The Favourite With A Missed Cut To Explain AwayTo Explain Away 

Scottie Scheffler goes in as favourite, and on the balance of a season that's included a dominant win at Portrush last year and a run of form that's rarely dipped below elite, that's not controversial. What makes it interesting is the timing. He arrives off the back of his first missed cut in years at the Scottish Open, which is the kind of result that would normally spook a market, except his iron play, historically the best in the world by a distance, is exactly the skill that travels best to a course like Birkdale.  

Flatter fairways and firm, fast greens reward precise approach play over raw power, and Scottie's ability to control distance and trajectory in wind is as good as anyone's in the field. A missed cut the week before a major has happened to plenty of eventual champions. The bigger question is whether whatever went wrong at the Scottish Open was mechanical or just a one-off. 

Rory McIlroy: The Power Game Built For Wider Fairways 

Rory McIlroy sits closest to him in the market, and it's been a strange season by his own standards, a second straight Masters win bookended by a fade at the US Open, but he looked considerably sharper at the Scottish Open, contending into the weekend before finishing seventh.  

Rory's length off the tee is a genuine weapon at Birkdale, where the fairways are wider than a typical rota course and reward players who can carry trouble rather than thread through it. The concern with McIlroy at any Open is never the talent, it's whether the putter and the patience hold up over four rounds in changing wind, but if there's a course on the rota built to let his power do more of the work, this is close to it. 

Tommy Fleetwood: The Local Knowledge That Might Matter As Much As The FormThe Form 

Tommy Fleetwood might be the most compelling story near the top of the market, and not just because he grew up minutes from this stretch of Merseyside coastline. He arrives off a top fifteen finish at the Scottish Open, and his whole game has always looked built for exactly this kind of week, a naturally low ball flight, strong long irons and the creativity needed once the course stops behaving predictably.  

Players who grow up on this terrain tend to read wind and ground conditions on instinct rather than working it out shot by shot, and Tommy's challenge has never been the talent. It's converting strong major weeks into an actual win, and Birkdale is about as good a stage as he'll get to finally do it. 

Matt Fitzpatrick: The Precision Player Who Rarely Beats Himself 

Matt Fitzpatrick arrives in similarly good order, with a third-place finish at the Scottish Open behind him. His game has never been about overpowering a course, it's about not making the mistakes that turn an Open round into a recovery mission.  

Accurate off the tee, sharp with wedges, comfortable scrambling when the lie isn't cooperating, Matt's whole profile is built around staying in position rather than forcing anything, which matters enormously on a course that punishes the wayward far more than it punishes the merely long. 

Jon Rahm: The Class Argument Still Waiting On The Form To Match It

Jon Rahm is the harder one to read this week. There's a T2 finish at the PGA Championship on his record this season that shows the level is still in there, but either side of it has been messier than his reputation suggests, a missed cut at the US Open, a T38 at the Masters, and a T36 at last week's Scottish Open where he was losing shots to the field on approach rather than gaining them. That's the part of his game that travels least well to Birkdale, since a firm, fast links course has little patience for anyone leaking strokes with the irons.  

What keeps him in the conversation regardless is that Rahm has never needed to be in rhythm to contend at a major, and a player with two majors already to his name and genuine power off the tee is never one to write off purely on a quiet run of results. 

Robert Macintyre: The Left-Hander Who Plays With The Wind Instead Of Against It

Robert MacIntyre is the name worth watching closest among the next tier down. He's finished inside the top fifteen in three of his last four starts, including that same top three finish at the Scottish Open, and his history at Birkdale specifically reads well, a top ten finish in 2019, another in 2021, and a top ten again last year.  

A left-hander who flights the ball low and controls it well in wind, Robert's game is built for exactly these conditions, and the pattern of his last month suggests he's peaking at the right moment rather than just showing up in form. 

Brooks Koepka: The Major Winner With The Receipts, If Not The Recent Form 

Brooks Koepka's case is built almost entirely on history rather than current shape, and at a major that's rarely a bad bet. He was T6 the last time the Open visited Birkdale in 2017, and Koepka's whole career has been defined by peaking specifically for these four weeks a year regardless of how quiet the build-up looks.  

This year's build-up has been genuinely quiet, a T12 at the Masters followed by a missed cut at the US Open after a nerve issue forced him to withdraw from the Canadian Open the week before. He's since said he's back to full strength, though the Shinnecock result suggests the recovery is still a work in progress. None of that changes the fact that Koepka has a five major habit of showing up when it matters most, and a course he's already proven he can play well is as good a place as any for that pattern to repeat. 

The Birkdale Test 

What ties the leading contenders together is control rather than power for its own sake. Birkdale's dunes frame the holes without necessarily punishing every mistake the way a tighter rota course would, but the wind off the Irish Sea and the buckthorn scrub either side of the fairways mean accuracy and low, controlled ball flight matter more than distance alone. The players near the top of the market who combine both, rather than leaning entirely on one, are the ones worth paying closest attention to once the wind picks up on Thursday. 

Birkdale has a habit of looking generous and playing hard. The dunes are wide enough to hide the trouble rather than confront it directly, which is exactly why the winner is rarely the man who overpowers the course with driver alone. History backs that up too. Every champion Birkdale has crowned bar one has gone on to win multiple majors, a course that seems to find the players with the game and the temperament to last four rounds of changing wind rather than simply the hottest week. The name lifting the Claret Jug on Sunday is unlikely to be whoever gains the most off the tee. It will be whoever loses the least once the course stops playing fair.