Our FRACAS model has revealed which players have the best chance to win, make the cut, finish in the top 10 and more at Royal Portrush. It’s our Open predictions.
Our projection model is having a nice year in major championships, as the Open Championship returns this week to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.
Opta Analyst’s FRACAS (Field Rating and Course-Adjusted Strokes Gained) prediction model loved Rory McIlroy at the Masters, saw Scottie Scheffler blowing away the field at the PGA Championship, and put up a pretty solid showing at the U.S. Open, too: FRACAS gave winner JJ Spaun the 25th-best chance to win that week, well ahead of where most betting markets pegged the first-time major winner.
To some extent, FRACAS’ outlook for the Open will be old news to anyone who has not been living under a rock. Scottie Scheffler is our favorite, just as surely as the wind blows on a links course. But Scheffler probably won’t win, and FRACAS sees a changed pecking order behind him, with McIlroy still in the mix but one of his Ryder Cup teammates supplanting him as the likeliest non-Scheffler winner.
Does Jon Rahm have the form to fulfill that lofty expectation? Coming into most majors the past few years, the consensus answer would have been “no,” but Rahm’s game has evolved of late.
Why Is Rahm Now Scheffler’s Top Competition?
In short, form. Rahm has mostly been a dead duck at majors since he left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf before the 2024 season, showing up and quickly becoming an afterthought.
But he has not had a down week on LIV all season, finishing in the top 11 in every tournament, and his Masters, PGA, and U.S. Open results have gone T-14, T-8, and T-7. He had a legit shot to win the PGA on the back nine on Sunday before a few bad holes doomed him to watching Scheffler hoist the Wanamaker Trophy.
Rahm is a good philosophical fit for Portrush, too. He’s one of the most arrogant players in the world, the kind of ball striker who pretty much never sees a pin he doesn’t want to take on. This sometimes gets him into trouble. (You may recall Sunday at the PGA, when Rahm was chasing Scheffler and decided to go right at a left pin tucked up against the water on a 216-yard par 3. Whoops.)
It doesn’t always work out, but at a links course that’s going to force players to flirt with ridges, runoff areas, and dunes to go right at the hole, you want to pick someone who will play to win.
Could this approach blow up? Certainly. FRACAS gives Rahm a slightly negative course adjustment at Portrush. But the potential for a boom is clear.
Who Are The Other Top Contenders?
McIlroy looks much livelier heading into Portrush, effectively a home game for him, than he did at either the PGA Championship or U.S. Open. Russell Henley has had a great year and made himself practically a shoo-in for the American Ryder Cup team. Matt Fitzpatrick has had a terrible year, calling his performance “rubbish” back in April, but he’s played better of late.
Of the other players in our top 10 in win probability, my eye can’t help but wander to Tommy Fleetwood, who’s still looking for that elusive major or PGA Tour win. At 2.1% to win at Portrush, you can squint and see it.
Which Dark Horses Look Like a Strong Fit for Portrush?
Lucas Glover is 45 now, 16 years removed from his 2009 U.S. Open win. But he’s in fine form lately, and FRACAS indicates he’s a sharp fit for Portrush. Glover is a good player most of the time these days, and he carries a 1.55 FRACAS estimate into this championship. (Think of that as an expression of how many strokes he’s likely to gain on the field average per round.)
But the model course-adjusts Glover to a 1.67 – maybe worth an extra shot over the week – on the belief that he’s well cut out for Portrush’s blend of long, difficult par 4s. That puts him 11th in course-adjusted FRACAS after the group below. His 2.1% win probability is 12th.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout, the 31-year-old South African, has never won on the PGA Tour. He won three European Tour events between 2019 and 2020, though, and he’s been good in a handful of big-time events this season. (These include a tie for 12th at the U.S. Open and for 13th at the Scottish Open last week.)
Bezuidenhout is one of the world’s crispiest short-game players and putters, and his around-the-green prowess will play nicely on a links course that values creativity. He gets the biggest course fit bump in FRACAS projection for the week of any professional, from 0.69 to 0.84, and his 0.49% win probability is 44th.
You could imagine him being in the mix on moving day, couldn’t you?
Any Off-the-Board Players Worthy of Your Attention?
The field at Portrush is more variable than in the other majors this year. FRACAS’ 25 likeliest champions by win probability have a combined 77% chance of lifting the Claret Jug.
That is a good deal lower than at the other three majors, where the top 25 had between an 82-88% collective win probability. In all three cases – albeit narrowly, thanks to Spaun – one of those players won.
This makes intuitive sense. The Open has the most consistent ugly weather of the majors, and the Americans who make up a good chunk of the world’s best players do not have as much links golf experience as many of their competitors.
Most commonly, a mega-elite player wins anyway, but we have seen a handful of recent surprises: Shane Lowry was ranked 33rd in the world when he won by six shots at Portrush in 2019. Brian Harman was 26th when he won by the same margin at Royal Liverpool in 2023.
Will you find any longer shots than those winning this tournament? Not likely. But one name from well down our board has been on my mind this week: Nico Echavarria, the 30-year-old Colombian, is 53rd on the FRACAS list with a 0.3% win probability.
The 50th-ranked player in the world just had an elite approach week at the Scottish Open, gaining more than a shot per round with his irons, according to Data Golf. Royal Portrush puts a small premium on short par 3s, with three of the course’s four par 3s playing at well under 200 yards.
Our hole-by-hole projection model points to Echavarria gaining the third-most strokes in the field on the 177-yard third hole, for example, and the fifth most on the 194-yard sixth.
Does Echavarria have the rounded game to win the whole thing? Doubtful, but one big skill helps, and FRACAS is big on his approach play that has been whipped into contending shape.
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The Open Predictions: Who Will Take Home the Claret Jug? Opta Analyst.
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