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The Open Championship might be the last bastion of golf as it came to be, the place where yes you'll see all of its modern muscles – the courtesy cars and TrackMan consoles, the entourages and the Whoop bands – but can never miss its soul. Now more than ever, it is something extremely special that will be cherished by lovers of the game across the world. For many youngsters in particular, this is where lifelong memories are made.

It isn't just that none of us could say for certain just how much the winner will earn this week, it's that their path to the Claret Jug is sure to involve complicated questions with multiple possible answers. To win an Open is to achieve something different and to know that however brilliant you might have been, you were also blessed by fortune. Deference to something bigger is part of the deal.

That it's the final major of the men's calendar is in some ways fitting, but mostly unfortunate. For as long as this sport remains committed to a 12-month rolling calendar, a gap of almost nine between the final shots here and the first at Augusta will be preposterous. But now probably isn't the time to dwell on that. This week is to be enjoyed from beginning to end and I'm not here to put any kind of dampener on it.

Royal Troon may not be anyone's favourite Open course, but neither is it anyone's least favourite, and it has some spectacular features. Seldom are we viewers brought as close to the sea as we are here, for starters, but my favourite part might be the rhythm of the golf course and how it lends itself to a fantastic championship from the moment the first balls are struck, shortly after dawn on Thursday morning.

Troon can be broken up into three parts and under prevailing conditions, holes one to six are by far the most generous. Three short par-fours represent an open-arms welcome and two par-fives soon follow. That the second of them sets another new record for the longest hole in Open history is neither here nor there and it feels certain that there will be players for whom birdie at the sixth sends them to part two of the course perhaps four or five-under par.

From the seventh through the famous Postage Stamp eighth, then onto the brutal stretch from nine to 11, the next section is threatening. Still, if you are five-under standing on the tee at a par-three that can play under a hundred yards, how tempting it must be to go and take another shot from the course. This dynamic, complemented by the Open's commitment to sending everyone out from the first, is fascinating. When you tee off in a major you're meant to know that this is a marathon, but if you can't break into a sprint, the pressure is really on by the turn.

"Well I played terrible,” Fleetwood said last week when asked by the PA news agency for his memories of that Open. "I was really struggling with my game at the time. Troon was pretty much at that point where I was at my lowest."

Since then, he's barely been out of things in this Championship, making every cut and so often contending. The following year was tricky, coming as it did with expectations as he was playing very much at home having recently contended for the US Open. From Carnoustie onwards, that being the last five renewals, he's entered the final round inside the top 10 four times.

With a strong record in the Dunhill Links and the Scottish Open, and having grown up honing his sawn-off follow-through at places like Hoylake, Birkdale, Hillside and Lytham, Fleetwood is an out-and-out links specialist, with a rounded game featuring some of the more underrated chipping in golf.

Rely on Rahm being ready

Come Monday, I wonder how much we'll be talking about the best way to prepare for an Open. Nine of the last 13 winners played in Scotland the week before and of the four who didn't, three had their games in absolutely peak condition. Francesco Molinari for instance had two wins and two runner-up finishes in five previous starts, and both Spieth and Zach Johnson were contending week in, week out.

Lowry doesn't fit either criteria, having neither played in Scotland nor been absolutely firing on all cylinders, but we're talking about an exception in every sense. This was a player at home on the links, at home in a literal sense, familiar with Portrush since childhood. He had been preparing on links golf courses and so has Scottie Scheffler, who was at Turnberry at the weekend. Either could challenge the idea that the Scottish Open is beneficial.

The bigger question mark is LIV Golf, who've been to Nashville then on to Valderrama. There were actually two Valderrama champions inside the top 10 here back in 2016 but that's probably coincidental, and one of the tightest, most densely tree-lined courses in Europe bears no resemblance to Troon. I feel certain that if the contracted LIV Golf players were free to play wherever they wanted, it would not have been there.

However, JON RAHM's price more than allows for that and I want to give the Spaniard another chance to remind us all that he's one of this generation's standout players.

We could talk all day about buyer's remorse, and whether or not Rahm is absolutely thrilled to be out on the LIV Golf circuit. It seems clear he'd taken a calculated gamble, that he would be the domino that led to the two tours aligning, and with any such agreement seemingly having stalled it won't perhaps have been easy for him.

Rahm has missed playing on the PGA Tour, of that there is absolutely no doubt, but the case here can be made without having to get to the bottom of his state of mind. He's a professional golfer of the highest calibre and at some stage, likely very soon, he'll get back to playing like one.

As for missing the Scottish Open, he did that last year and it didn't stop him finishing runner-up to Harman. Rahm had in fact arrived on the back of a missed cut in a small-field event almost a month earlier, so once again I'm trusting him to be prepared even if it seems on the face of it that he has not been so far this year.

Back then though, Finau's overall form had been very poor by his standards whereas right now he's among the hottest players around, a change in putter helping to trigger a run of 18-17-8-3-5 over his last five starts, two in majors, all bar one in extremely strong fields.

It was in fact his short-game which did most of the heavy lifting in the Travelers last time and for my money he's one of the most underrated players in the sport when it comes not only to his approach play, which is outstanding, but his chipping and pitching.

A proper shot-maker who works the ball both ways and can hit all kinds of trajectories, his versatility explains why he's been inside the top 10 in a third of his 33 major starts, dating back almost a decade now, and so often he's been at his most effective under conditions somewhat akin to these.

He's a really big price to my eye, especially after finally sticking around all week in a major at the US Open last month. So often, majors are won by those who almost won a recent one, sometimes the single most recent one, and that was the case at Pinehurst with Bryson DeChambeau.

For Cantlay, combining that with his gutsy Ryder Cup effort confirms to me that he's very much a potential major champion and I expect seeing his closest friend, Xander Schauffele, capture the US PGA also had something to do with it. Certainly, it wouldn't be the first time that this has happened and when Adam Scott won the Masters, Justin Rose text to say 'this is our time', then duly won the US Open.

With Clark we do have to accept that an Open top-10 is lacking but he has made the cut in both appearances, only one of which came after his ascent to world-class levels. That was last year and he was close to the places for most of the week (11th at halfway), eventually settling for 33rd thanks to a cold putter.

As I said earlier, timing is everything and he now comes to an Open having putted well on links greens for the very first time in five attempts, which helped him to power through the field for 10th place in the Scottish Open on Sunday. It was a very similar performance to those of Harman (12th) and Smith (10th) and Morikawa is again an outlier here: most Open champions arrived after a good week somewhere.

He was fifth two starts ago, eighth in this last year, and striped it last week, where he closed with a round of 65. That's quite a compelling combination for a player who has made the cut in all three Open starts and can be backed at 750/1 in places.

Sharma was in no sort of form this time last year whereas he returns having had two chances to win in his last 10 starts, before signing off from the Scottish Open on a high with a round of 65.

His iron play and putting are both outstanding so while we'll need him to tidy up off the tee and avoid those pot bunkers, 500/1 and bigger, which he is virtually across the board as I type, has to be worth a small go.

English winner in Scotland?

Finally I'll side with someone who has a good bit more pedigree in majors, HARRIS ENGLISH.

His three top-10 finishes have all come in the US Open but he's made five Open cuts, with a best of 15th so far. Notably, perhaps, he struck the ball well and finished 46th when playing here, but was one of those on the wrong side of the draw and can be upgraded as a result.

To underline his sneaky majors pedigree he has two top-25s from three this year, neither of them at his beloved US Open, and I like the way he hit the ball last week. Like Sharma, English closed with a round of 65 and he was more solid off the tee than he can be, while ranking 10th in greens hit.

It's three years now since he won but his closest calls since have come on tough courses in elite company, which is how he likes it. And I do wonder if the fact that he's so close with Harman, to the extent he was waiting for him at St Simons Island airport when Harman returned to the US after winning the Open, might serve as a little inspiration should it be needed.

Ultimately he's one of the few outsiders I believe has the class and pedigree to go ahead and become the biggest-priced Open winner since Hamilton at 250/1 with 10 places and 275/1 with eight at the time of writing. As such, we'll make room for him in the staking plan and hope that he does what he's certainly capable of, and produces a putting display something like his friend did 12 months ago.

Posted at 1700 BST on 15/07/24

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