The Open Championship 2026: Dan Brown leads decent English showing at Royal Birkdale, with Tommy Fleetwood also making solid start
First round ranking table of the 154th Open Championship:
-5 J Suber (USA), -4 D Brown (Eng), Im (Cor)
-3 T Detry (Bel), R MacIntyre (Sco), F Molinari (Ita), A Smalley (USA), B DeChambeau (USA), R Gerard (USA), MJ Daffue (SA), P Coody (USA), C Young (USA)
Full leaderboard
England’s hopes of becoming the first Open winner in 34 years were boosted with eight players under par after the first round, but Masters champion Rory McIlroy finished the day seven shots ahead.
McIlroy endured a rollercoaster first round at Royal Birkdale that featured six bogeys and four birdies over two rounds of 72.
American Jackson Suber is the leader with -5 points, one point ahead of England’s Dan Brown and South Korea’s Im Sung-jae.
Sir Nick Faldo was the last British player to win The Open at Muirfield in 1992. You have to go back to 1969 for the last British winner on English soil – Tony Jacklin at Royal Lytham & St Annes.
As England’s hopes of winning the World Cup faded on Wednesday, the way was cleared for the country’s best golfers to take to the stage and lift the spirits of the Royal Birkdale fans on Thursday.
Take a step towards Brown.
He and Suber took advantage of scoreable early conditions on the Merseyside links as the 31-year-old from Yorkshire shot a 66-under early on day one of the 154th Open Championship.
“It’s only Thursday but hopefully I’ll be in a similar area of the leaderboard on Sunday,” Brown said.
No golfer can win the Open or any other tournament after 18 holes, but they can certainly knock themselves out of contention.
Local hero Tommy Fleetwood, from nearby Southport, did exactly that with an opening round of over six the last time Birkdale hosted the Open in 2017.
This year, Fleetwood was determined to make amends and dropped to a solid 69-under, meaning he has plenty to build on over the next three days.
