The 147th Open Championship starts today in Carnoustie, Scotland, and extends all the way to Sunday as defending champion Jordan Spieth (+1300) faces extremely stiff competing as he tries to win once again the oldest of the four major championships in professional golf.
Spieth will try to become the first back-to-back winner since Harrington as he chases his fourth career major (he’s also won the U.S Open and the Masters in 2015), but that won’t be easy at Carnoustie.
Carnoustie is one of the world’s greatest links courses and is renowned as the longest and one of the toughest venues to ever host the Open Championship. This course has hosted the Open seven times, with the most recent being in 2007, when Padraig Harrington won the first of his two straight Open titles.
Dustin Johnson (+700), the number one player in the world, undoubtedly deserves a place among the favorites although he has never before won this major. He’s come close though as he’s finished tied for second in 2011 and furthermore he has to be considered a threat to win whenever he steps into a golf course as he’s been in constant contention in plenty of other tournaments around the world as well.
Justin Rose (+1100) is also a strong candidate to win this major as he broke into the golf scene back when he was a teenager finishing fourth in his debut appearance at the Open.
Although he hasn’t been able to improve on that finish, he’s been in impressive form as of late as he’s up to No. 3 in the world rankings and will most likely stay in contention until the last round.
Rory McIlroy (+1100) is another golfer that should be among the best at Carnoustie. He’s a former winner (2014) so he’ll be looking to add more majors to his resume. He’s a very gifted golfer that already has won two PGA Championships (2012 and 2014), and one U.S Open (2011) so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him in contention come Sunday.
A player that has been in contention a lot in majors recently but has failed to actually win one is Rickie Fowler (+1100). Although he’s done well in the Open Championship before (finished second behind McIlroy in 2014) he’s yet to lift the Claret Jug.
This year Fowler finished second at the Masters and he may be at the point in his career where he finally peaks at the right time to win a major. He’s also finished second at the U.S Open in 2014.
Next in this list of candidates to win at Carnoustie is Tommy Fleetwood (+1600). He’s no stranger to this course as he actually holds the course record (63) and after a strong showing at the U.S Open, where he finished second Behind Brooks Koepka, he can’t be ignored as a contender for this year’s Open Championship.
Others worth mentioning as strong contenders are: Jon Rahm (+1600), Brooks Koepka (+1600) and Justin Thomas (+1700).
