Number crunching

The field for The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush is set, with 156 players competing for the chance to hoist the Claret Jug.

Portrush delivered some of the most memorable celebrations in Open history in 2019 when Shane Lowry gave the fans a popular home triumph to toast.

There are scores of previous champions joining him in the field on the Northern Irish coast, along with a string of major winners for whom the Claret Jug remains an elusive prize.

The amateur field boasts some intriguing names while the list of debutants is headlined by a man who delivered one of the greatest winning shots in major championship history just last month.

Here’s how the field for The 153rd Open breaks down.

Previous Champions: 16

Xander Schauffele arrives as the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year and returned the Claret Jug on Monday.

Much of the attention around Champion Golfers is likely to be focused on Lowry as he seeks a repeat of his famous triumph at Portrush six years ago.

Darren Clarke will of course have plenty of support at the course he calls home, with his medal from his triumph at Royal St George’s at The 140th Open sitting pride of place in the Portrush clubhouse.

And with the Masters monkey off his back, Rory McIlroy will also have vocal backing in his quest to win a second Claret Jug 11 years after his first.

A man from the island of Ireland to have achieved that feat, Padraig Harrington, is set to tee it up for the 28th time at The Open. He has the honour of getting the action underway as he hits the first shot of The 153rd Open at 6:35am on Thursday.

While his search for the career Grand Slam will stretch for at least another year, Jordan Spieth will hope to find the same comfort he displayed in the surroundings of Portrush in 2019, when he was T8 after three rounds before going on to finish T20 alongside fellow past champions Louis Oosthuizen, Henrik Stenson and Stewart Cink, who will all be in the field again.

Francesco Molinari, Champion Golfer at The 147th Open, will have designs on building on his performance at Portrush a year later, when he was T11.

Amateurs: 9

The race for the Silver Medal will be as competitive as ever, with nine golfers in pursuit of a title claimed by some of the sport’s most illustrious names.

Among the amateurs is Richard Teder, who secured his place at The 153rd Open with a dramatic hole out from the fairway for an eagle in his Final Qualifying play-off at West Lancashire.

Scottish teenager Connor Graham also came through a play-off, at Dundonald, while Sebastian Cave and Frazer Jones qualified from competitive fields at Royal Cinque Ports and Burnham & Berrow respectively.

Ethan Fang arrives fresh from winning The 130th Amateur Championship, just the second American to do so since 1979, at Royal St George’s.

Cameron Adam, a left-handed Scot, secured his spot through The Open Amateur Series, while Justin Hastings won the Latin America Amateur Championship to book his place.

Filip Jakubcik and Bryan Newman, a 17-year-old South African who won February’s Africa Amateur Championship in his homeland, will also look to shine on their Open debuts. Which leads us to…

Debutants: 37

The nine amateurs are among 37 golfers having their first crack at The Open in the coming days.

Among those is US Open winner JJ Spaun, who made an incredible 64-foot birdie putt on 18 to land his maiden major in June and now hopes to translate that form across the Atlantic.

Christian Gotterup, who sensationally won The Genesis Scottish Open to become one of the three final players to book their spots in the field, is also in the field along with Cornishman Harry Hall, who has enjoyed an impressive year on the PGA Tour and booked his spot through Final Qualifying.

Frenchman Adrien Sadder recorded a remarkable back nine of 30 to win the Italian Open and punch his Portrush ticket, 13 years after his first start on the DP World Tour.

PGA Tour and DPWT Winners in 2025: 26

This list includes Champion Golfers such as McIlroy and Brian Harman along with world No.1 Scottie Scheffler and rising star Ludvig Aberg.

Daniel Brown, who led the way after round one of The 152nd Open at Royal Troon following a bogey-free 65, is also included after his win at the BMW International Open while Viktor Hovland, Justin Thomas, Min Woo Lee and Hideki Matsuyama are among the other notable names who already have silverware to their names this year.

Nationalities: 31

Players from America, England, Australia and South Africa may dominate the field but 31 nationalities will be represented at Royal Portrush.

Teder is Estonia’s first-ever representative at The Open while Jakubcik is the first Czech player to feature in the Championship's long and illustrious history. Venezuela (Jhonattan Vegas), Colombia (Nico Echavarria), Finland (Oliver Lindell), Cayman Islands (Justin Hastings) and Chinese Taipei (Kevin Yu) also have one player apiece in the field.

They will each hope to join the list of six countries with one Open winner. Of the existing six, France, Italy, New Zealand and Sweden are represented in this year’s field, while Argentina and Zimbabwe are not.

Major winners: 30

Ernie Els’ withdrawal on the eve of the Championship has reduced this by one but 30 major winners will line up at Royal Portrush, with Spaun the newest of those.

Matt Fitzpatrick and Justin Rose are bidding to add to their sole majors with one they grew up dreaming of winning, while two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau is also determined to prove he has cracked the links golf code.