​The oldest championship in golf has become the last major on the calendar. The British Open carries 166 years of history, so it hardly needs a slogan—unlike the PGA Championship’s former “Glory’s Last Shot”—for Scottie Scheffler and the rest of the field to grasp that the next major is eight months away. We look forward to these events with such anticipation that players structure their entire year around them, only for the stretch to vanish in an instant. “We look forward to them so much, we build our schedules and the year around them, and then they’re over like that,” Justin Thomas said. “It sucks when they’re done.” For the 153 players who are facing their final opportunity to win a major this season, the pressure isn’t necessarily greater, nor is there a heightened urgency to claim a major before the year ends. “But every year you don’t win is another year you haven’t,” Thomas noted.
The 154th edition of The Open Championship sails back to Royal Birkdale from July 16-19, along the Lancashire Coast in northwest England, a region steeped in the tradition of links golf—three Open venues sit roughly 60 miles (96 kilometers) apart. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews expects crowds that could reach around 300,000 spectators. This tournament presents Scheffner’s final chance to insist on a three-year streak of major victories, a feat accomplished by only seven players in the modern era since 1934: Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Brooks Koepka. Scheffler, who captured the title at Royal Portrush last summer with another commanding performance on golf’s grandest stage, does not dwell on the trophies he has claimed over the past five years. Still, the 30-year-old Texan does allow himself a moment of reflection when he glances at the names carved at the base of golf’s oldest trophy.
“The perfect size trophy—neither too big nor too small—and you get to drink out of it,” Scheffler said. “It will be very tough to hand it back on Tuesday, but I’ll be fighting like heck to get it back on Sunday.” Scheffler finds himself as the last of ten names etched onto the base of golf’s oldest prize since Rory McIlroy last claimed it in 2014. McIlroy, the back-to-back Masters champion, is chasing a seventh major and aims to join Harry Vardon as the most majors won by a European player across the Open era.
English hopes rest with Tommy Fleetwood, who grew up just a short walk from Birkdale, and Matt Fitzpatrick, whose three victories this year surpass Scheffler’s and McIlroy’s combined total. McIlroy hasn’t seriously contended in the British Open since 2022, when he played St. Andrews, though his sole appearance at Royal Birkdale yielded a tie for fourth in 2017, seven shots behind the winner. Yet he has a deep fondness for the course and relishes the challenge off the tee that it typically presents, a facet of his game that often defines his success. “The one thing I like about Birkdale is there are usually sets of bunkers on both sides of the fairway. So you’re always having to challenge one set of bunkers to reach where you want your ball to finish,” he explained, underscoring the strategic difficulty that the course presents.