MATT VINCENZI, SENIOR WRITER
Your favorite to win?
Jon Rahm is a fantastic links player who’s won two Irish Opens: 2017 at Portstewart and 2019 at Lahinch. The Legion XIII captain said last week after charging up the leaderboard at Valderrama on Sunday that he hit the ball “better than I have in the last year and a half.”
Rahm has been a reliable major championship performer this season, finishing T14, T8 and T7 at the Masters, PGA Championship and U.S. Open, respectively. He had his best LIV Golf strokes gained approach week of 2025 last week (+1.53 per round) and is peaking at the right time to win his third major and third leg of the career grand slam.
Name another major winner who’ll contend Sunday.
Sergio Garcia has a remarkable record at The Open Championship, with 10 top-10 finishes over the course of his career. The Fireballs GC captain switched drivers last week, and it paid off. After adding the Titleist GT3 to his bag at Valderrama, Garcia gained 1.58 strokes per round off the tee, which was his best result in the category of the season.
Garcia, absent from The Open since 2022, will enter the year’s final major under the radar and extremely motivated.
Name a non-major winner who’ll contend Sunday.
Although the U.S. Open didn’t end how Tyrrell Hatton would have liked, the fact that the Legion XIII star hit meaningful shots in the final hole of a major championship will only benefit him going forward. Hatton is one of the best links players in the world and The Open is the major that should suit him best. If the conditions are difficult and windy this week, Hatton should be amongst the favorites to get it done at Royal Portrush.
Who’ll be the biggest surprise?
Lucas Herbert hasn’t played his best golf of late on LIV Golf, but I believe he’s an underrate links player that will thrive in this particular test. The Australian has creativity in spades and, due to his captain on Ripper GC being one of the best around the green players in the history of golf, has an underrated short game. Herbert has gained strokes around the green in seven of his past eight starts and has gained strokes putting in nine of his 13 worldwide starts in 2025.
Herbert’s caddie, Nick Pugh, grew up playing links golf at Hoylake and will be a weapon on the bag for the talented Aussie this week at Portrush.