Day One of the 2025 Open Championship unfolded under the rather gloomy skies of Royal Portrush. The start of the 153rd Open Championship delivered a classic blend of drama, tension, and the unpredictable challenge that only links golf can conjure.
- RELATED: It is an absolute myth to say LIV Golfers can’t compete at the majors. Here are the stats to prove it
- RELATED: 6 things you WILL see at The Open this weekend
There was no short of happenings for the NCG Golf Podcast team to talk about. From excruciatingly long rounds, to Rory McIlroy’s unconventional opening round and the overriding feeling that The Open Championship is once again delivering.
On The NCG Golf Podcast, Tom Irwin and Dan Murphy discussed all the major talking points from day one at The Open Championship.
How big is too big?
Something that never fails to strike you, if you are lucky enough to attend an Open in person, is the sheer size of the Championship. With the first tee time being at 6:35 am on Thursday and with McIlroy’s group still out on the golf course come 9pm, the first day action span well over 15 hours.
The playing field is 158 golfers strong, which does beg the question with rounds taking around 6 hours to complete is The Open too big? Tom Irwin does tend to agree; “I feel like sometimes we should just have a voting off button for when players aren’t adding anything. But on the other hand, Zach Johnson’s got it round in one under par. But really, and you sort of take your pick from anybody else in the field, Dan Clark, as a previous winner, had a good day at four over, but he’s not going to make the weekend. Like the Masters kind of deals with this with ceremonial starters. At what point do you say? Actually, this is just a bit silly.”
“I do wonder about the size of the field”, said Dan Murphy. “Does it need to be quite this big? But I personally wouldn’t be shoving the likes of Darren Clarke, Justin Leonard has had a good day today, Zach Johnson out of the door. I like seeing the past champions myself.
Advertisement
“I just think, you just look down at the board today, and there are, there are an awful lot of names that are not exactly household so I just wonder if, if the fields a bit too large for that. But hang on a minute here, because that will be excusing the pace of play today. And I would think that is an indefensible thing to do.”
Touching on the, at times, painfully slow pace of play Irwin said; “I think it’s another one where I’m just not sure which side of it I fall on, where this is a showcase of golf, where you’ve got people perhaps tuning in for the first time, watching players do almost nothing for minutes and minutes on end. The other side of it is, it’s the biggest championship of the year, and people are going to take their time because it is small margins.”
“There are lots of demanding shots to be played”, Murphy said. “I mean, there are ball searches. I mean, I’ve seen plenty of that today, which obviously doesn’t help, and it just backs up. But ultimately, if there’s no incentive to play quicker, and then these players are obviously playing for their livelihood, they’re trying to win the greatest championship of their lives. They’re going to take as long as they want until somebody penalises them or threatens to penalise them with shots, which is the only currency that a professional sportsman understands.”
A loss of Links craft?
Dan Murphy watched the play at 16 and was surprised by the lack of creativity and shot variation on offer: “I saw almost nobody trying to fly the ball right to left into a left to right wind, which would have been, I think, pretty much a staple of a great links player back in the day, so that they all stick with their stock fade. And they do relentlessly fade.
Advertisement
“There’s almost no hookers these days, and the shot didn’t work and they didn’t have enough club. And I just thought of all the information, all the data they’ve got. You do you worry sometimes that there’s just a loss of a little bit of craft as to how to play this hole that aiming away from a flag doesn’t come naturally. But it was quite surprising to watch.”
Irwin added: “I’ve just gone and watched McIlroy and Fleetwood in particular, hit driver off both 12, it’s playing kind of down and off the left the wind and the bunkers were kind of leaving you, sort of 230 yards into the green. They both had good tee shots off there, and they both went in bunkers. Fleetwood went straight in, and McIlroy further right, and they both had to chip out.
I was just kind of looking at thinking, What are you doing? Like, why? Why are you even bringing those bunkers into play? Why not lay back when McIlroy could have it is long iron off there, not reach those bunkers, and still got up to the back right edge, which is where everyone’s going to end up, regardless of what club you hit.”
“My take on it is, is that they just don’t play in these conditions anymore”, Murphy further added. “I think the combination of it being it was wet most of the time I was there, and we know, don’t we, because we play in these sorts of weathers. You know, the ball start, it goes nowhere. That air gets heavy and and thick and cool. You’re probably not swinging it quite the same degree that you would be, and that they don’t play in wind, they don’t play in temperature, they don’t play in rain.
Advertisement
“I just don’t think they could quite grasp the what the hole was asking you to do, which is that classic thing on the links, course, where you have to find a way of getting through it, don’t you, and get onto the next one.”
A true Open test
“It’s just a massive relief to me”, Irwin said. “We were looking at the weather forecast earlier in the week, and it looked like it was going to be completely still, and looking at a very kind of green looking golf course, you just think it’s not going to play like an Open so I think the RNA obviously have to hold the golf course back.
“So I think it’s you often see a green or open venue in comparison to the golden busses in the area where they won’t have irrigated the fairways, etc, etc. But you can see from having been out there today that it’s plenty firm enough. And like when the ball is hitting the green out of rough, it is bouncing through. There’s plenty going on.
“I would say it’s been just about perfect in terms of the kind of the level of difficulty, the amount of wind there is, the amount of balls moving on the ground, I would argue the course has been set up to protect it a little bit, and perhaps that is leading to some slightly higher numbers.”
Advertisement
Murphy added: “It’s a spectacular course, but there are some changes of elevation, and that means that, obviously that accentuates a firm bounce if it’s on, if it’s on the side of a hill.
“I think what we’re really looking for from a great open is a bit of everything, isn’t it? I think we all enjoy those periods when the sun comes out and the players are in there in shirt sleeves and driving par fours and all the rest of it. And we also like a little bit of it where you have to come through some adversity. I think that’s the classic open to me, is a bit of everything. And today has been a bit like that.”
Rory being Rory
“I mean, he’s, he’s played pretty horribly let’s be honest, I don’t think either of us truly understand how he is under par”, said Murphy. “It feels like he barely hit a decent shot on the back nine.”
Irwin added: “Well, I just think that he looked unbelievably skitish from the word go. And this is like something we’re quite used to seeing Rory, certainly pre his Masters win, he’s always very, very jumpy at Augusta.
“And hopefully that he will now be settled down there in years to come, but he’s like Tiger was. He’s a terrible starter and you’re always just hoping that he manages to get through round one. He’s did some good things and he’s quite a lot of, bad things especially with his driver. And so it feels like this sort of work to do to get himself back on an even keel.”
“I think you make a good point, though, that often, if he gets himself into a tournament, he can grow into it”, said Murphy. “And he obviously relishes that, that feeling of of them putting some pressure on as the as the tournament goes on.
Advertisement
“It can go from being quite scrappy to being unbelievable in the blink of an eye concert. So let’s hope it gets it in and then goes forward from there.”
A Diverse Leaderboard
Murphy said: “There was a bit earlier when it felt like it was about 2005 all over again, with guys like Westwood and Fowler and Scott and Glover and Rose and Mickelson and all these guys. Yeah, a little bit of everything isn’t there, slightly underwhelming day one leaderboard, but given that leaders are only at four under par, that there are so many players pretty close to the lead that, you know, I don’t think that anyone’s worried yet about the star quality of the leaderboard.”
“What is interesting to me about the leaderboards, a lot of the fancied names have kind of delivered today”, Irwin added. “So if you think about, there’s an awful lot of talk about Hatton going into this into this week, who had a very good finish in the US Open has been in kind of good, major form, and he’s right in the mix at three under.
“There is a lot of a lot of attention and kind of love for Rose, who’s obviously a near miss last year, and the very near miss in the Masters. Jon Rahm is right in it, Scheffler is right in it. So I think a lot of the kind of names that you were kind of humming and arring about going into the week was thought would be favors for the event are still right in it.”