The Open Championship: Date, course, previous winners & how to watch

The last of 2023's four golf Majors, The Open Championship, will be played at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England over four days starting on Thursday 20th July.

The tournament, which is often also known as the British Open, takes place for the 151st time and Australian Cameron Smith is the defending champion following his 2022 success at St Andrews.

What	The Open Championship
Where	Royal Liverpool GC, Hoylake, England
When	Thursday 20th July - Sunday 23rd July, 2023
How to watch	Kayo, Foxtel
Odds	Rory McIlroy 8.50, Jon Rahm 10.00, Scottie Scheffler 10.00, Brooks Koepka 15.00, Cameron Smith 17.00

When is The Open Championship?

The Open starts on Thursday 20th July and lasts for four days. The tournament is always held in the third week of the seventh month of the year.
 

Where is The Open Championship being held?

The Open is hosted on different courses on a rotation basis and the 2023 edition, which is the 151st championship, will be held at Royal Liverpool Golf Club on Merseyside.

It will be the 13th occasion that Hoylake has played host to the event.
 

Can I watch The Open Championship?

Yes, Foxtel and Kayo will be offering full streaming of the Major.
 

How many times has The Open Championship taken place?

The first Open Championship took place in 1860 and 2022 was the 150th battle for the Claret Jug.
 

What courses host The Open Championship?

The Open is always played on a links course, which are natural tracks that use the characteristics of the land, rather than being specifically built.

Typical characteristics include deep gorse rough, few trees and the need to manage the weather as stiff breezes can cause problems and mean the ball has to be hit lower to avoid problems.
 

What is the format of The Open Championship?

A total of 156 players contest for the prize and the field includes a number of qualifiers and amateur hopefuls.

After the first two rounds, the top 70 players and ties will qualify to play in the final two rounds, the rest miss the cut. Simply, the player with the lowest total score over the course of four rounds is then declared the winner.
 

What is the play-off format at The Open Championship?

Rather than sudden death, which tends to be used in regulation tournaments on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, The Open uses a four-hole aggregate play-off to decide the winner should two or more players be level at the top of the leaderboard upon the completion of the regulation 72 holes.

The last play-off at The Open was in 2015, when American Zach Johnson won the Claret Jug for the first time after beating Australian Marc Leishman and South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen in extra holes.
 

Who has won The Open Championship the most times?

The record for Open Championship wins is held by Harry Vardon, who won the last of his six Claret Jugs in 1914.

Australian Peter Thomson took the trophy home for the fifth time in 1965 and the only other player to have triumphed that many times since the Second World War is Tom Watson.

He last won at Royal Birkdale in 1983, but came close to equalling Vardon's record when he lost a play-off to fellow American Stewart Cink in 2009.

South African Bobby Locke won four times and five of the greatest names in the sport's history have all won three times - Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.

Nicklaus, who holds the record of 18 Major triumphs, has also been runner-up at the tournament seven times.
 

Who has won The Open Championship for Australia?

The five victories of Thomson account for half of Australia’s successes at the tournament, with Kei Nagle (1960), Greg Norman (1986 & 1993), Ian Baker-Finch (1991) and Cameron Smith in 2022 the other winners.
 

What is the record 72-hole shot total at The Open Championship?

The record 72-hole total of 264 was registered by Sweden's Henrik Stenson at Royal Troon in 2016.
 

What is the record low round at The Open Championship?

The record 18-hole total is 62 by South Africa's Branden Grace at Royal Birkdale in 2017.

It is the lowest round ever shot at any of the four Major tournaments - the Masters, the US Open, the US PGA Championship and The Open.
 

What is the biggest margin of victory ever in The Open Championship?

The biggest margin of victory at The Open was Old Tom Morris' 1862 win, when he triumphed by 13 shots.

It remained the largest winning distance in any Major until 2000, when Tiger Woods won the US Open by 15 shots at Pebble Beach in California.
 

Who was the last player to successfully defend the Claret Jug?

The last defending champion to win The Open was Ireland's Padraig Harrington, who won at Carnoustie in 2007 and then repeated the trick at Royal Birkdale the following year.

Tiger Woods, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Arnold Palmer, Peter Thomson (who won three times on the bounce between 1954 and 1956) and Bobby Locke have all won in successive years since the Second World War.
 

Who are the favourites for the 2023 Open Championship?

2014 winner Rory McIlroy heads the field at 8.50, with his victory nine years ago having come at Hoylake.

He is closely followed by 10.00 Jon Rahm and world number one Scottie Scheffler at 10.00, with Cameron Smith at 17.00 to emulate the above feat of Harrington by retaining the Claret Jug.

The next best Australian prospects are Min Woo Lee at 51.00 and former Masters champion Adam Scott at 67.00.