Royal Birkdale’s Baked Turf Makes 2017 Form a Flawed Starting Point for 2026 Open Forecasts

Royal Birkdale in mid-July 2026 bears little resemblance to the course that hosted the Open Championship nine years ago. Turf that ran brown under weeks of hot European weather, structural changes to multiple holes, and playing conditions severe enough to draw comparisons to the most punishing links setups in recent memory have combined to make the 2017 results an unreliable guide to what will happen when the field tees off on Thursday.

For those recalculating the field’s prospects, the conditions themselves have become the primary variable. Karla Ruiz, a sports content specialist who covers international sports markets for Apuestas.Guru, notes that the shift is already registering in Spanish-language forecast coverage. The physical state of the course, she observes, has displaced historical performance as the central input. apuestas.guru rebuilds its Open Championship contender odds around exactly this kind of firmness-and-weather assessment of Birkdale rather than relying on 2017 form, treating the course’s current playing characteristics—not its historical record—as the baseline. “When firmness and run-out change this dramatically, the players who thrived in a softer setup nine years ago are essentially being assessed on the wrong evidence.” The reported news follows.

Brown Fairways, Extreme Run-Out, and a Carnoustie Comparison

According to The Associated Press, Royal Birkdale’s turf is more brown than green, the direct result of hot weather baking the course in the weeks before the Open. The conditions are not merely aesthetic. They are altering ball behavior in ways that strip conventional distance and club calculations of their normal reliability.

Peter Uihlein, playing a Sunday practice round, hit a 6-iron from 256 yards on the par-4 14th. The ball landed short of the green and finished 40 yards beyond the hole. That single shot captures the severity of the situation more plainly than any summary could.

Caddie Joe Greiner, who works for Akshay Bhatia, reached for a recent historical parallel to describe what he was seeing.

“It’s as close to Carnoustie as I’ve seen.”

Carnoustie in 2018 became shorthand for extreme links conditions, a setup so firm and fast that players drove the first green and Hideki Matsuyama sent a 3-wood into the burn nearly 425 yards away because the ball simply refused to stop rolling. That Greiner invoked that benchmark unprompted says something about where Birkdale sits right now.
How the Course Itself Has Changed Since 2017

The conditions alone would complicate any comparison to nine years ago. The structural changes to the course make that comparison nearly impossible.

A new 241-yard par-3 now plays as the 15th hole. It was not part of Royal Birkdale’s 2017 layout. When Uihlein reached the tee during his practice round, his reaction was immediate.

“What the hell?”

A few holes later, still processing what he had seen, he said quietly, “I just don’t remember a 240-yard par 3.” The hole represents the second time in four years that the R&A has effectively built a new hole into the course’s championship setup. The reachable par-4 fifth has also been redesigned, and several other hole angles have been altered since 2017.

The geography that defined Jordan Spieth’s championship is simply gone. The area off the 13th fairway where Spieth took his famous 2017 drop, which launched a birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie run that secured the claret jug, is now a Fan’s Village and marked out-of-bounds. The par-3 14th from 2017, where that run began, no longer exists. What plays as the 14th today is the former par-5 15th, its fairway shifted. Spieth’s 2017 route through the closing stretch cannot be replicated. The physical infrastructure that made it possible has been erased.

Trajectory Control Over Club Selection

The conditions impose a specific set of demands on players, and Uihlein, having watched his 6-iron travel 40 yards past its intended destination, articulated them plainly.

“It’s windy and firm and you need creativity to land it short — very short — of the green and not be afraid of it.”

The instinct on a links course is to flight the ball low to keep it under the wind. Here, that instinct must be refined further. Landing on the green is not the target. Landing well short of the green and letting the ball run on is the only viable approach when the surface is this firm. Players who default to conventional loft logic will misread distance repeatedly.

Uihlein made the point explicitly after his practice round, flipping through the irons in his bag.

“Loft means nothing when it’s like this.”

Run-out, not carry, determines where the ball stops. That single shift in the governing variable recalibrates shot-making across every club in the bag and rewards players with the patience and imagination to work the ground rather than the air.

Scheffler’s Missed Cut, Qualifier Routes, and the Trophy Return

The week’s preparation has unfolded along several parallel tracks. Scottie Scheffler, the world No. 1, missed the cut at the Scottish Open, his first missed cut in nearly four years. Brooks Koepka also missed the cut there. Both played Royal Birkdale on Sunday, using the available practice time to assess conditions firsthand ahead of the Open.
Uihlein arrived at Birkdale through a different route. He is one of 20 players who earned their place in the field through 36-hole qualifying rounds held in the United Kingdom. Three additional spots came out of the Scottish Open, including Johnny Keefer. A Last Chance Qualifier was held at Royal Birkdale on Monday, offering 12 players a final opportunity to claim the last remaining spot in the field.

Scheffler won the claret jug at Royal Portrush last year. Before the 2026 Open begins, he must return the trophy ceremonially. Then he has four rounds to win it back.