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ESPN Senior Writer- Senior college football writer
- Author of seven books on college football
- Graduate of the University of Georgia
The 2025 Open Championship gets underway Thursday at 1:35 a.m. ET at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.
Xander Schauffele is the defending champion, while Shane Lowry won the last time the Open was played on the course in 2019.
Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy enter as No. 1 and No. 2 in the world and winners of two of the year's first three majors.
Will the big names battle it out at the top? What long shots could contend? And how will Royal Portrush play over the next four days? We try to answer some of the biggest questions heading into the 153rd Open.
Is Scottie Scheffler still the overwhelming favorite this week?
Mark Schlabach: The Open is the only major championship in which Scheffler hasn't finished in the top three, but links golf hasn't exactly befuddled him. He has four top-25s in as many starts in the event, including a tie for seventh at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland last year.
Links golf would seem to fit the three-time major champion's game perfectly. His world-class iron play shouldn't leave him in too many difficult spots, and on the rare occasion when he does miss the green, his exceptional short game should be able to bail him out. His putting, which was once considered a weakness, has improved dramatically; he ranks 22nd on tour in strokes gained putting (.362) this season.
McIlroy, Jon Rahm and others are more than capable of lifting the Claret Jug on Sunday, but how can you go against Scheffler at this point? He hasn't finished outside the top 25 in each of his 15 starts on the PGA Tour this season, and he was in the top 10 in each of his past 10.
Paolo Uggetti: Yes, but with a caveat. While Scheffler hasn't exactly performed poorly at this major, as Mark pointed out, there is some tension between Scheffler's propensity for fairness on a golf course and the essence of links golf, which can often straddle the line between fair and unfair.
It appears, however, that Scheffler is trying to embrace that a bit more. It helps, too, that he considers Portrush on the fairer side of links tracks, especially its pot bunkers.
"I think some of the links courses I've played, it was kind of hit or miss when you went into a bunker what kind of lie you were going to get," Scheffler said. "There's a lot more slope into the bunkers where the ball kind of funnels into the middle. I would argue that might be a little bit more fair than two guys hitting a similar shot and one guy has to putt it back into the bunker and the other guy has a clean lie."
Yet, as always with Scheffler, it may just come down to his putting. Though he has improved in that area, he is coming off a week at the Scottish Open where he lost nearly a stroke and a half to the field on the greens. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his ability to handle another week of links surfaces.
"I think getting adjusted to speed is always kind of the most important over here," Scheffler said. "Outside of that, putting is putting. Golf is still golf no matter where you're playing."
What do you expect from Rory McIlroy this week?
Schlabach: I'd be stunned if it doesn't go much better than the last time we saw McIlroy competing in an Open at Royal Portrush. In the first Open Championship in Northern Ireland in 68 years in 2019, McIlroy seemed overwhelmed by the expectations of being the crowd favorite in his homeland.
On the first tee, McIlroy pulled his drive left into internal out of bounds, leading to a quadruple-bogey 8. He carded a double-bogey 5 on the 16th and triple-bogey 7 on the 18th, adding up to an 8-over 79 in the first round.
To McIlroy's credit, he rebounded to make seven birdies and one bogey in the second round, nearly rallying to make the cut with a 6-under 65.
"You get to an Open, it's a major championship, everything that comes along with it, and I just think that feeling, the walk to the first tee and then that ovation, I was still a little surprised and a little taken aback, like, 'Geez, these people really want me to win,'" McIlroy said this week.
"I think that brought its own sort of pressure and more internally from myself and not really wanting to let people down. I guess it's just something I didn't mentally prepare for that day or that week. But I learned pretty quickly that one of my challenges, especially in a week like this, is controlling myself and controlling that battle."
McIlroy and Ireland's Shane Lowry, who captured the Claret Jug in 2019, figure to have the biggest galleries following them again.
McIlroy's game seems to be in a better place after his post-Masters victory lull; he tied for sixth at the Travelers Championship and for second at the Genesis Scottish Open.
He certainly has some fond memories of Royal Portrush as well: He set the course record with a 61 as a 16-year-old.
Uggetti: For all the talk about how McIlroy might be freed up after his Masters win and what has happened instead, it's ironic and fitting that the place where he has looked perhaps most comfortable and in his element has been here -- in Scotland last week and Northern Ireland this week.
McIlroy talked Monday about embracing the homecoming he knows he is going to get from local fans instead of isolating himself like he did in 2019. You can already tell he's doing that as he takes time to sign for fans and give them nods and acknowledgments throughout his practice rounds.
Of course, none of that matters if his game isn't up to par. The good news for McIlroy is that it appears it is. At the Scottish, McIlroy's game looked sharper than it has since the Masters and he seemed content with where things stand heading into the last major of the year.
"I'm excited with where my game is. I felt like I showed some really good signs last week," McIlroy, who finished second, said. "I feel like I'm in a good spot and had -- not that last week was a pure preparation week, but I definitely feel like it put me in a good spot heading into here."
At this point, I would be more surprised if McIlroy isn't in the mix come the weekend than if he is.
Thoughts on Xander Schauffele's defense?
Schlabach: It's the last major championship of the year and the final shot at glory, and the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year could use something positive to salvage what has so far been a lost season.
It's not as if Schauffele has played poorly this season; he hasn't missed a cut in 12 starts on tour and has seven top-25s. His campaign simply feels incomplete after he missed eight weeks with a painful rib injury. His best finishes were a tie for eighth at the Masters and last week's Scottish Open.
It isn't hard to figure out why Schauffele hasn't won in 2025 after capturing his first two majors at the PGA Championship and The Open last season. He ranks 112th on tour in strokes gained off the tee (-.018) and 138th in putting (-.144).
Uggetti: The more I hear Schauffele talk, the more I think he will win multiple Open Championships, whether it's this week or beyond.
It seems like he has the ideal approach and attitude toward links golf in that he knows it will be difficult, he knows it will be unpredictable and yet he is relishing the opportunity to grind through anything the course and the conditions throw at him.
"It's just the mentality. I think, when you say links golf, it comes with weather, and when you play in bad weather, you have to have a good attitude," Schauffele said. "You have to visualize a lot more than just hitting your number on a machine."
Schauffele hasn't had what I imagine is the follow-up he expected to a dream season last year, but he is clearly trending in the right direction after a T-12 in the U.S. Open and a T-8 at the Scottish last week. If the conditions get unruly this weekend, there aren't many guys you would trust to excel. Schauffele is one of those.
What to know about Royal Portrush and how you expect it to play this week
Schlabach: It's all going to depend on the weather and wind because Royal Portrush is exposed to all of the elements on the northern tip of Northern Ireland.
That being said, Lowry and the rest of the field enjoyed unbelievable scoring conditions in the first three rounds in 2019. The rain stayed away and the winds were calm, as Lowry carded a bogey-free 63 on Saturday to set a 54-hole scoring record in The Open.
Then on Sunday, torrential rains and steady winds blew as Lowry and others held on.
"We'll see how the weather turns out this week," Scheffler said. "Weather has a pretty dramatic effect on how the golf course is going to play. You can play your practice rounds and prepare, but ultimately when you step on the tee on Thursday, whatever the weather presents is going to be probably the strongest part of the test."
Schauffele noted that the wind can even affect golfers' putts.
"Putting is always tricky with wind," Schauffele said. "There's some holes where the mounds cover the greens and some holes that are more exposed where the wind is going to affect the ball on the green. I think whoever wins this week is an extremely well-rounded player."
Uggetti: It can be gettable (see Lowry's 63 in 2019) and it can also feel impossible depending on the strength of the wind and the direction. Above all, it will require a great amount of strategic decision-making.
Case in point: During his Monday practice round, I watched McIlroy hit a driver into a 400-yard par 4 and then 3-iron into a 474-yard par 4. I watched him debate with his caddie Harry Diamond for a few minutes about what club to hit off the tricky 15th hole if it played downwind.
As Scheffler and others have pointed out, Portrush is a links course but it is unique in that there are more elevation changes than at most links courses. This makes for an interesting combination of ground game and air game.
The players who can figure out when it is right to use one or the other will likely be the ones fighting for the Claret Jug come Sunday.
One longer shot that could be in contention this week?
Schlabach: It wasn't long ago that 2022 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick described his game as "rubbish," and it had been a while since the English golfer had been in the mix at one of the big four until he tied for eighth at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club in May.
The 30-year-old doesn't have a great track record in The Open, but he's coming in with good form after tying for eighth at the Rocket Classic and for fourth in the Scottish Open. If the weather gets tricky on the weekend, Fitzpatrick is more than capable of handling the conditions, just like he did at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, when he captured his first major.
Uggetti: How about Justin Rose? Not only did he take McIlroy to a playoff at the Masters, but just last year at Royal Troon, Rose had a real shot to win on the back nine and came up short of Schauffele by only two shots.
Rose is also coming off an impressive finish at the Scottish Open, where he shot 7 under in the final round to jump all the way up to sixth place. If Rose is able to conjure up one more run at a major this week and end a 33-year drought for Englishmen in the Open it would be an epic story.