Ryan Gerard was part of a Royal Birkdale day built on speed, firmness and pressure, with the course baked by heatwaves during The 154th Open. Fast fairways, singed rough and firm greens turned the first round into a test that asked the field to decide between woods and irons on almost every tee.
Royal Birkdale and 156 players
156 players faced the same problem, and the numbers showed how selective the course became. By the time Rory McIlroy finished late in the evening, only 72 players had found the fairway more than they missed, a split that put premium value on the tee shot rather than on bailout play.
Justin Thomas said the morning conditions were not something you would want to do every week. He also said the majority of players would probably choose an Open to be like this, and that part of the attraction is the demand it places on decision-making before the ball is even struck.
Scottie Scheffler's 13 of 14
Scottie Scheffler hit 13 of 14 fairways and finished one shot behind Bryson DeChambeau, a gap that came as the leaderboard began to separate from the traffic around it. Bryson DeChambeau, one of the day’s central talking points alongside Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, hit four of 15 fairways and still stayed in the mix because the course was forcing everyone to trade accuracy against aggression.
That split is the practical takeaway for anyone tracking The Open at Royal Birkdale: the players who managed the tee shot best were already building room to separate, while the rest were spending strokes trying to recover from the wrong side of the fairway.
Stewart Cink at Birkdale
Stewart Cink, who made his Open debut at Royal Birkdale in 1998, said this was his fourth time playing at Birkdale and the first three visits were very similar each time. “This is my fourth time playing at Birkdale, and the first three times it was very similar each time. It was kind of lush and green and extremely windy.”
He added, “This is not the Royal Birkdale I've ever seen before. Lush would be the opposite of the way to describe this place right now, and obviously very calm.”
He also said, “The wind was not there and then when it picked up it shifted about 90 degrees or more today. It's a different Royal Birkdale. It's way different.”
Jackson Suber Monday lead
Experience was expected to matter, but Jackson Suber, playing his first round of links golf on Monday, held the overnight lead. That is the sharpest break in the day’s logic: the field’s veterans had the course memorized in theory, yet the player with the least links background handled the opening round well enough to finish on top.
The next question is whether the same firmness keeps rewarding disciplined tee shots or starts pulling the leaderboard back toward the players who can survive mistakes better. At Royal Birkdale, the edge belonged to anyone who could choose the right club before the wind and baked turf had the final say.
