The 2023 Open Championship heads to Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England. The tournament will be held from Thursday, July 20th through Sunday, July 23rd. The British Open is the last of the majors. Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, and Wyndham Clark won the first three majors of 2023.
This will mark the 151st Open Championship, and the 13th hosted at Royal Liverpool. Tiger Woods won at Hoylake in 2006, and Rory McIlroy emerged victorious there in 2014. Last year, Cameron Smith won his first Claret Jug at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
The first British Open was held in 1860, and only four separate occasions have stopped the Claret Jug from being awarded. The tournament wasn’t held at all in 1871, and World War I kept it from happening from 1915-1919, as did World War II from 1940-1945. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 also forced a year to be missed.
England’s Harry Vardon holds the record for the most wins at the Open Championship with six (1896, 1898, 1899, 1903, 1911 and 1914). James Braid of Scotland, John Henry Taylor of England, Peter Thomson of Australia and Tom Watson of the United States are all tied with five wins.
Old Tom Morris of Scotland won the Open Championship four times, as did his son Tom Morris Jr. The fun part? A Morris won the Open Championship five years in a row between 1867 and 1872 with the event not being held in 1871. Morris Jr. is the only golfer in history to win the trophy four consecutive times.
Woods has won the event three times (2000, 2005 and 2006), but will not return to the field this year as he continues to recover from foot surgery. Padraig Harrington won back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008, and returns to the field this year. No golfer has ever won two British Opens at Royal Liverpool.
The betting favorites in 2023 are Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy, both of whom are installed at +700 at DraftKings Sportsbook. They are followed by Rahm at +1300. Koepka enters at +2000.
2022 winner Smith is listed at +1600 to be the first back-to-back Claret Jug winner since Harrington.