2025 Open Championship: Fitzpatrick leads tight pack with Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, and Rickie Fowler in pursuit

Royal Portrush flexed its muscle in Thursday’s opening round of the 2025 Open Championship, with swirling weather and tough conditions holding the field in check. Just 31 players finished under par, and five share the lead at 4 under after grinding out 67s: Matt Fitzpatrick, Harris English, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Haotong Li, and Jacob Skov Olesen.

Fitzpatrick, the 2013 low amateur, is finally off to a strong Open start after years of underwhelming finishes despite major success elsewhere. He eagled the par-5 2nd, carded just one bogey, and capped his round with a highlight-reel chip-in on 16.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler sits one back at 3 under, overcoming shaky driving with pinpoint irons and a hot putter—an encouraging sign on links greens where he’s historically struggled. Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm also sit at 1 under, keeping all three pre-tournament favorites firmly in contention.

McIlroy hitting approach shots from the rough was a consistent occurrence all day as he missed 11 of 14 fairways in his round. That was a big reason for his wild ups and downs; when he drew a good break with the lie, he created birdie opportunities, but when the ball settled down, he quickly had to battle just to make par. 

McIlroy and Scheffler will both be looking to straighten things out off of the tee, but their key focus Thursday was not to put themselves out of contention -- as Bryson DeChambeau did with a 78. All three pre-tournament favorites accomplished that goal, and they head into Friday firmly in the hunt. 

2025 Open Championship leaderboard breakdown

T1. Matt Fitzpatrick, Harris English, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Haotong Li, Jacob Skov Olesen (-4): Fitzpatrick and English, who is playing without his normal caddie, are unquestionably the most experienced players in the tie for the lead. Li does have a top 5 Open finish in the past (2017), but he, Olesen and Bezuidenhout will all need to do something we've rarely seen from them -- putting together mulitple terrific rounds at a major -- to maintain their position into the weekend. 

T6. Scottie Scheffler, Tyrrell Hatton, Matthew Jordan and Sadom Kaewkanjana (-3): Scheffler is obviously the biggest threat here, and he is now an even stronger favorite (21/10) to win than he was coming into the tournament (7/2). That said, Hatton was a trendy pick for a reason, and he handled himself quite nicely Thursday, giving himself a chance to best his performance at the U.S. Open when he notched a T4 for his top finish at a major in his career. Jordan is also no stranger to an Open Championship leaderboard, as he's become seemingly an annual presence on the first page, scoring back-to-back T10 finishes the last two years. And then there's Kaewkanjana, the Thai golfer who is also an ordained monk, making him one of the most fascinating stories on the leaderboard. 

T10. Rickie Fowler, Lee Westwood, Brian Harman, Justin Rose and six others (-2): Thursday was a great day for the old guys at The Open. Westwood turned back the clock with his 69, as did Rose. In the group one behind them, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Justin Leonard (!) all carded rounds in the 60s. Aside from Rose and Garcia, few would expect most of those names to hang around through the weekend, but the 2 unders also include Fowler, who got into the field just a couple weeks ago and is making the most of that chance, and the 2023 Open Champion Brian Harman. 

T20. Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry, Phil Mickelson, Joaquin Niemann and eight others (-1): McIlroy battled the emotions all day but managed them much better than in 2019 and now might be able to finally exhale and just focus on the golf. The rest of the group at 1 under -- including Rahm, Niemann and the 2019 champion at Royal Portrush, Lowry -- all have things they'll feel they can do better but kept themselves close to the lead and will hope to build on this performance through the weekend. 

"I'm trying to embrace it as much as I can -- the ovations when you're walking up on the greens, and when you hit a great shot. It's absolutely amazing," McIlroy said. "To have the support of a country behind you is a wonderful feeling. But at the same time, you don't want to let them down, so there's that bit of added pressure. It's amazing to be here playing The Open at Portrush. I'm just so happy to get off to a decent start."

T32. Xander Schauffele, Robert MacIntyre and 11 others (E): Schauffele and MacIntyre were also pre-tourney favorites who didn't have their best on Thursday, but they scratched out a decent rounds of 71 to get into the championship and keep their hopes alive of winning.