2026 Open Championship: 8 Data Points to Build into Your Model this Week

The 2026 Open Championship heads to Royal Birkdale in Southport, England, and these are the eight data points worth building into your model this week. Birkdale is a par-70 links of about 7,220 yards, first laid out in 1889 and reworked hole by hole for 2026 by Tom Mackenzie of the firm Mackenzie and Ebert. It runs through the valleys between big dunes, which frames the targets cleanly and gives you a fair, honest ball-striker’s links rather than a tricked-up one.

What defends it is firmness and wind, not length. After weeks of drought and a regional heat wave, the turf is baked brown and crunchy, firmer than the 2017 edition, so drives release forever and approaches skip through greens running near 12 on the stimp. Scottie Scheffler is the +620 favorite and the defending champion, but he arrives off a shock missed cut at the Scottish Open and softer wedge play than his 2024 and 2025 peak. The market has spent all week moving toward the accurate iron players, and so does this preview.

The Foundation, Start Here

1. Tee to Green Is the Whole Ballgame

View: Strokes Gained | Column: SG:T2G | Possible Filters: Par 70, Field Strength Very Strong, Course Length Long

On a baked-out Birkdale the players who control the ball from tee to green separate fast, because there is nowhere to hide a loose one. Start the model with SG:T2G and treat short game much lighter. Scheffler still fits this profile as well as anyone in the field, which is exactly why passing his number is uncomfortable. The player pushing him is Matt Fitzpatrick, a top-two or top-three ball-striker on tour over his last 50 rounds, with Rory McIlroy right there on similar recent form.

2. Driving Accuracy Over Raw Distance

View: Off The Tee | Column: Dr Accuracy % | Possible Filters: Fairway Accuracy Difficult, Missed Fwy Penalty High, Rough Penalty High

Birkdale is a driving test that pays you for finding short grass, not for swinging out of your shoes. The rough is graduated, so a small miss is fine, a medium miss finds wispy fescue, and a big miss vanishes into gorse, and the firm fairways send any offline ball bounding into trouble. Back in 2017 the shorter, straighter hitters quietly outperformed the bombers here, and many players will club down off the tee again this week. Russell Henley is the most accurate driver in the field at about +5200, which is a big part of why one preview called anything over 50 to 1 crazy, and Fitzpatrick and Aaron Rai belong in the same accurate-driver bucket.

3. Approach Play and Long-Iron Control

View: Approach | Column: SG:APP | Possible Filters: Gain APP Difficult, GIR Accuracy Difficult, Par 70

Firm greens near 12 on the stimp punish the wrong trajectory, so this is about long-iron control and flighted approaches, not soft-course proximity from a bombers’ week. Tom Kim arrives as one of the hottest approach players in the game after winning the Scottish Open, and his price has steamed to about +5900. Robert MacIntyre gained close to 10 strokes on approach at that same Scottish Open in a nearly identical links style and sits around +4100. Colin Morikawa fits here too, with the iron control that won him a claret jug in 2021.

Getting Granular, One Layer Deeper

4. Long-Iron Proximity from 200-Plus

View: Overall Approach Proximity | Column: 200+ | Possible Filters: GIR Accuracy Difficult, Course Length Long, Par 70

This layout asks for more long clubs than a normal Open. The par 3s stretch to 219 and 241 yards, the old 15th is now a 602-yard par-5 14th into the prevailing wind, and the 18th was pushed past 500 yards, so who holds a green from distance actually matters. Jon Rahm is the name here. One model rates him second behind only Scheffler and ahead of McIlroy on this course, citing a long-and-straight profile and past finishes at Royal St. George’s, Portrush, and Hoylake, and at +1550 that is a contrarian angle worth a look.

5. Around the Green from Short Grass

View: Around the Green | Column: Scrambling Short Grass % | Possible Filters: Scrambling – Short Grass Difficult, Greens Speed Fast, Greens Surface Bent

Offline approaches here do not settle in thick greenside rough. They release into tightly mown collection areas, so the up-and-down is a short-grass skill rather than a hack-out. That is Fitzpatrick’s exact edge, since he is the best player in the field at scrambling from short grass, and it is a real reason his +1850 keeps getting backed. Chris Gotterup, fresh off winning the John Deere for his third title of the year, has the complete short game to match at about +3100.

6. Bogey Avoidance and the Pot Bunkers

View: Scoring | Column: Bogey AVD % | Possible Filters: Scoring Conditions Average, Missed Fwy Penalty High, Rough Penalty High

Birkdale’s 109 pot bunkers are true one-shot penalties, often a lateral punch-out, so keeping the card clean is worth as much as making birdies. The field can go 13 holes without a par 5 and then face the 602-yard 14th where bogey is very much in play, and the lengthened 18th with three new fairway bunkers is one of the toughest closers in the rotation. Give me the flighters who make the ball stop, the Fitzpatrick, Scheffler, and Gotterup types, over the high-ball bombers. Bryson DeChambeau is the cleanest example of the wrong fit, with a poor Open record and a missed cut in all three earlier majors this year.

Down the Rabbit Hole

7. Par 3 Efficiency Across Four Directions

View: Par 3 Efficiency | Column: SG: Par 3 | Possible Filters: Par 3 Scoring Difficult, Greens Speed Fast, Par 70

The par 3s now play 219, 151, 186, and 241 yards and point four different ways, so they test every club in the bag and every wind read. The brand-new 241-yard 15th is long and narrow with steep runoffs, and the rebuilt 151-yard 7th plays about 30 yards shorter than before but sits on a raised green that rejects anything loose. Par-3 scoring is a quiet separator this week, and it rewards the same accurate iron players, MacIntyre, Fitzpatrick, and Henley, that the rest of the profile points to.

8. Course History and Conditions Comps

View: Strokes Gained | Column: SG:TOT | Possible Filters: Event Type Major, Greens Surface Bent, Course Length Long

The renovation touched nearly every hole and retired the old course records, so treat Birkdale as a new track and lean on conditions comps instead of dusty history. Tick the Load Comp Courses box inside The Rabbit Hole and let firm, warm links results do the talking. One detailed preview pegged Royal St. George’s in 2021, where Morikawa won at 15 under, as the best scoring and conditions match, which is another point in his favor at +3100. History also says do not go dumpster diving, because recent Open winners already owned a major or a major runner-up, had a top-25 in a major that same season, and usually tuned up at the Scottish Open.

Think accuracy matters more than putting at Birkdale this week? Prove it. Get 25% off any plan with code BSG26 at The Rabbit Hole, and weight the strokes gained PGA categories however you want.

Pulling It All Together

Add it up and Birkdale wants an accurate, controlled ball-striker who can flight it down, get up and down from short grass, and stay out of the pot bunkers, with putting a distant tiebreaker. Matt Fitzpatrick at +1850 is the strongest play on the board, steamed from +2150 and backed by four separate previews on form, links fit, and short-grass scrambling. Colin Morikawa at +3100 is the best value add given the St. George’s comp, with Russell Henley at +5200 and Robert MacIntyre at +4100 as accurate-ball-striker longshots, Chris Gotterup at +3100 as a complete-game lean, and Jon Rahm at +1550 as the contrarian near the top. The main fade is Scheffler at +620, a pass on the short defending-champion number despite the near-perfect fit, alongside the high-ball bombers led by DeChambeau.