Open Championship Rankings Recap
2026 The Open Championship | Model Accuracy Report
Mean absolute error across ~141 players at Royal Birkdale · betspertsgolf.com
Ryan Noonan
33.95
Median: 27.0
Most accurate overall
Pat Mayo
34.01
Median: 29.5
2nd overall
Ron Klos
34.26
Median: 28.5
Andy Molitor
35.84
Median: 31.5
Top 20 finishers only — who called the contenders best?
| Ranker |
MAE |
Median |
| Ron Klos |
26.35 ✓ |
22.0 |
| Pat Mayo |
29.76 |
12.5 |
| Ryan Noonan |
31.76 |
26.0 |
| Andy Molitor |
41.76 |
35.5 |
Best individual calls (top 30, error ≤ 5)
Shared misses (top 20, all rankers off 25+)
Nobody had the champion inside the top 48
Ron: 62nd · Noonan: 51st · Andy: 87th · Mayo: 49th
Nobody had him inside the top 89
Ron: 89th · Noonan: 110th · Andy: 124th · Mayo: 100th
Nobody had him inside the top 73
Ron: 79th · Noonan: 87th · Andy: 73rd · Mayo: 92nd
Closest call was still 29 spots off
Ron: 45th · Noonan: 76th · Andy: 98th · Mayo: 87th
betspertsgolf.com · ~141 players ranked ·
Matt Fitzpatrick &
Viktor Hovland both missed the cut · Cut players assigned positions after all finishers · Tied finishes averaged
Noonan wins overall by six hundredths over Mayo — 33.95 to 34.01, with Ron right behind at 34.26. Three-way photo finish.
Ron takes the top 20 comfortably at 26.35, though Mayo’s median of 12.5 is the best number on the board: when he was right, he was very right, but a few big misses dragged his mean.
The week’s damage: Ryan Fox won at 49th-87th on the boards, and Royal Birkdale ate the favorites. Matt Fitzpatrick was the consensus #2 and missed the cut, Viktor Hovland was top-12 consensus and missed the cut, Rory finished T40 after two rankers had him 2nd. The one thing everyone got right was Scheffler and Fleetwood — all four had both inside the top 9, and they finished T4 together.