Packed leaderboard at the Open Championship with more than half of the matches still on the course on the first day at Royal Portrush. A lot of parity. Among those who have finished, Haotong Li (-4), Jacob Skov Olesen (-4), and Matthew Fitzpatrick (-4) have taken the lead. A trio of leaders. Additionally, Matthew Jordan and Scottie Scheffler are at -3, Nicolai Hojgaard and Lee Westwood at -2, and Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, Sam Burns, and Shane Lowry have finished at -1. A lot of quality at the top of the leaderboard.
Introductions done, it’s time to get into the details. Fitzpatrick has shown that his golf is finally on an upward trajectory, as he demonstrated last week at the Scottish Open. Watch out for the Englishman. Olesen has confirmed that he is an extraordinary putter, has a star quality, and that his victory in the British Amateur was not a fluke. And Haotong Li, well, his usual antics. When he’s on form, he’s capable of cutting both ears and the tail.
Beyond the leaders, always showing respect to them, the three standout names of the day so far are Scheffler, Rahm, and Lowry. The World Number One has delivered a card of 68 strokes without being particularly dominant. It wasn’t a typical Scheffler round. Quite the opposite. He had to recover in fits and starts. Things weren’t coming easy. He struggled from the tee, and his irons didn’t show their best version either. He managed to hold on during a difficult day where there was a bit of everything: wind, rain, sun, clouds, colder, warmer, rain again, and wind, always wind. It blew more than the forecast predicted.
Scheffler held on through the round and needed just two late surges to climb to the top. They came on holes 16 and 17, which are not exactly easy. He hit two spectacular shots to within a metre and a half of the hole and made birdies. These are the demonstrations of a World Number One that catch everyone off guard. Wasn’t this guy struggling today? Yes, until he wasn’t.
Jon Rahm’s round is objectively good. A great card of 70 strokes. Magnificent performance. However, there’s good news and bad news from his round. The bad news is that he wasn’t good off the tee. Or to be more precise: he wasn’t very good. If on Sunday in Valderrama he said he was practically convinced he was going to hit every fairway every time he teed off, today in Portrush it was quite the opposite. It seemed impossible for him to be on the fairway.
It’s true that many of those fairways were missed by a small margin, but from the rough, it’s much harder to leave birdie opportunities. He missed a very clear chance on the 1st hole, and from there, he didn’t let any clear ones slip away. The main problem was the two missed drives on holes 2 and 12. Both are par 5s and two of the easiest holes on the course. From the fairway, it’s very feasible to reach the green in two. On both occasions, he found the bunker from the tee and was left without options.
The good news is that on a discreet day from the tee, he did more than just save face. He’s up there. Given that it’s one of the strengths of his game, it’s hard to imagine he’ll have another day like this. With the irons, he gave a masterclass. Not only did he hit many good shots, but he was almost always at the flag’s height. His distance control today was outstanding. The optimistic view is that if he had hit the fairways on 2 and 12, he would have at least finished like Scheffler. That might be the difference, but he shouldn’t forget that he had some luck with certain shots: on the 5th, where he thought he was in the bunker but narrowly avoided it, on the 7th, where he thought he was further right, or on the 17th, where the 18th tee and a providential relief saved him from a bigger problem.
That’s the good news for Jon, although he knows he needs to improve his performance from the tee to give himself a real chance of victory. The irons are very good, and the putter is consistent. The direction of improvement is very clear.
Great start also for Shane Lowry (-1). It wasn’t an easy day for him, the 2019 winner, playing with Scottie Scheffler, but he handled it brilliantly. The defending champion’s even-par start, Xander Schauffele (PAR), isn’t bad either. The recent history of the Open shows that the last 25 champions were within five strokes or less of the leader after the first day. None of these players need to worry.
On the other hand, those who have already made things very difficult, if not impossible, for themselves are Patrick Reed (+6), Louis Oosthuizen (+6), Wyndhan Clark (+6), Collin Morikawa (+4), Brooks Koepka (+4), or Hideki Matsuyama and Cameron Young at +3.
