The Open: McIlroy, Smith gather at Royal Liverpool Golf Course as veterans look to stamp authority

There are many UK doubles waiting to be celebrated as the 151st Open Championship begins at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club on Thursday, July 20.

It starts with Australia's defending champion Cameron Smith and Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy.

Smith, winner last year at the Old Course in St Andrews in sensational fashion, registered his first-ever LIV Golf title in Centurion Club near London less than a fortnight ago.

Mcllroy, who was the champion when The Open was last played last played here in 2014, won the Genesis Scottish Open in North Berwick in Scotland last week.

And then there is the former world No1 Jon Rahm, who is trying to make it a Spanish double, following his compatriot Carlos Alcaraz’s thrilling Wimbledon win over Novak Djokovic on Sunday.

You can also add the only Indian player in the field, Shubhankar Sharma, to that list. He turns 27 on Friday and will be hoping for his double celebration on Sunday.

Last year, it was Smith’s unbelievable putting display that helped him edge Mcllroy and Cam Young on the final day. At Royal Liverpool, the title will probably be decided by who is the best off the tee and Mcllroy has an edge there.

When he won in 2014, Mcllroy was in imperious form with his driver and brought the golf course to its knees by playing the par-5s to 12-under par for the four days, making nine birdies and two eagles en route to a 17-under par total.

The course will play more difficult this year with the 10th hole being reduced to a par-4, but even then it will be to his advantage. With his length, the world No2 will be able to clear many of the fairway pot bunkers, some of them so deep that the only option would be to play out sideways.

When Tiger Woods won here in 2006, he famously used the driver only once and plotted his way around the golf course like a game of chess – vying for positions rather than distance.

A bit of the bite has been taken out of Royal Liverpool with the heavy rains over the past week. The fairways and greens are soft, which may not result in the nearly 60-70 yards of roll that was the case when the turf was bone dry.

Smith may have dropped down from the career-high of No2 in the world ranking to No7, but that has more to do with the fact that he moved to LIV Golf, which has been denied ranking points thus far. He has shown time and again that his short-game magic is still intact, but it is the driver that has been giving him issues.

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The soft-spoken but fiercely passionate Rahm, who started the season winning three titles in the first seven weeks of the year, has cooled down considerably. He notched up a top-10 in the US Open last week and has done extremely well on links courses with his short game and imagination.

We haven’t yet spoken of the reigning world No1. Scottie Scheffler is having a most incredible stretch, in which he has never finished outside the top 12 in 18 starts this PGA Tour season, apart from winning twice. That’s almost Tiger Woods-like dominance. The difference that links courses make would be a challenge, but the Texan showed he is warming up to them with a tied third place last week in Scotland.

The resurgent Rickie Fowler and the consistent Viktor Hovland would be two players with the form and ability to upstage the favourites.

Sharma, who has made the cut in his two previous Open starts, said of the championship: “It falls on my birthday week. I guess that is also one of the reasons why I like it even more. Even when I was a kid, The Open used to be a double celebration. The last time I played the Open at Royal Portrush, it was on a Sunday and a Friday in Carnoustie. This is a tournament that has always given me good vibes.”

The tournament starts Thursday.

(Author:Joy Chakravarty (@TheJoyofGolf) is a Dubai-based golf journalist who has been associated with the sport for nearly three decades. A former media manager of the PGA Indian Tour, he has covered over 25 major championships and Ryder Cups)

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