A couple of months ago we visualized the skill level of every major champion since 1995. One of the key takeaways was that, of the 4 majors, underdogs have the best chance of winning The Open Championship: 5 of the 7 lowest skilled major champions since 1995 got their wins at The Open.

To understand how the typical Open champion differs from the typical major champion, we've plotted their average skill profiles since 2004:

(An important note here is that 3 of the 5 low-skill Open Champions mentioned above occured before 2004: Daly, Curtis, and Lawrie.)

The average Open Champion has been slightly worse in all skill attributes except driving accuracy when compared to non-Open major champions. These differences are all very minor with the exception of driving distance, which accounts for nearly the entire skill gap between Open and non-Open champions. The average driving distance skill—measured in yards longer than an average PGA Tour pro—of Masters, PGA, and U.S. Open champions since 2004 is about 12 yards (think Keith Mitchell or Scottie Scheffler), while for Open Champions that number is just 7 yards (think Jordan Spieth or Matt Fitzpatrick). Bombing the ball simply isn't a prerequisite at most Opens the way it is at Augusta National or a typical PGA Championship venue, which opens the door for a wider range of golfers to potentially lift the Claret Jug at week's end.

Americans at The Open

Since 1995 Americans have, on average, made up 31% of Open Championship fields. Participation bottomed out in 2004 at 27% but has since rebounded to well above 30% in recent years. This year's Open Championship features 46 US players, 29% of the field.

In 21 of the 27 Opens played since '95, the percentage of Americans finishing inside the top-25 (yellow dots) exceeded their field percentage. Their best showing was in 2000, where 15 (60%) of the top-25 was American. Their worst was in 2009 at Turnberry, where only 5 US players finished inside the top-25—oddly, two (Watson and Cink) were in the playoff to decide the champion that year.

Despite their over-representation inside the top-25, Americans actually tend to underperform at Open Championships relative to their baseline skill. We estimate they are 0.12 strokes per round worse in Open Championships on average—the worst of any country.

Rankings Update

Top 10 (see all)
Player	DG		OWGR
Scottie Scheffler	1	—	1	—
Rory McIlroy	2	—	2	1
Jon Rahm	3	—	3	1
Patrick Cantlay	4	—	4	—
Xander Schauffele	5	—	6	—
Tyrrell Hatton	6	1	13	3
Viktor Hovland	7	1	5	—
Cameron Smith	8	1	7	—
Rickie Fowler	9	3	22	1
Collin Morikawa	10	—	19	—
Notables
Tom Kim	34	8	24	1
Steve Stricker	41	8	—	—
Ludvig Aberg	61	5	301	2
Adrien D. du C.	93	20	275	46
Nicholas Lindheim	94	52	196	222
Vincent Norrman	100	30	164	122
Parker Coody	258	106	333	132
Pierceson Coody	377	2	158	2

Tom Kim set the golf world on fire at the end of 2022, winning twice on the PGA Tour and starring for the International side at the Presidents Cup. Kim has played unspectacular golf for most of 2023, falling to as low as 48th in our rankings, but a T8 at the U.S. Open and a T6 at last week’s Scottish Open has him back up to 34th.

For the last few years it's looked like Pierceson was the better of the talented Coody twins—he turned pro as the 3rd ranked amateur in the world (67th on our all-time list) and found early success on the Korn Ferry Tour with two wins. Parker had a slower start to his pro career but has been slowly gaining momentum—a T4 last week gives him 4 top-11 finishes since May on the Korn Ferry Tour. This consistency has Parker 34th on the Korn Ferry points list and 258th in the DG rankings. Meanwhile Pierceson, who has been less consistent but has a win, is 15th and 377th on those lists, respectively. The tortoise-versus-hare nature of their brotherly rivalry is similar to that of Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard.

Player Feature

Adrian Meronk

age 30 yrs, 2 months

dg rank 54th — owgr rank 49th

weeks in dg top 100 42

dg skill +0.68 strokes-gained / round¹

style above-average distance, well-rounded

career wins
PGA Tour: 0
European Tour: 3
Challenge Tour: 1
Amateur: 4

player comps
2020 Erik Van Rooyen (similarity score²: 99.7)
2019 Thorbjorn Olesen (99.5)
2020 Max Homa (96.8)

Letzig's Insight
Adrian Meronk is probably the best driver of the ball you’ve never heard of: we have him ranked 7th in the world off the tee, gaining more than 0.6 strokes/round over an average PGA Tour player. Interestingly, Meronk’s SG:OTT numbers are higher than you would predict based on his driving distance and accuracy, so he might be good at avoiding the big miss, or he’s been getting lucky.

1 Relative to an average PGA Tour field.

2 Similarity scores are uniformly distributed from 0 (least similar) to 100 (most similar). Similarity is based on overall skill and playing style over the previous 3 seasons and a measure of career-long performance. Comps are restricted to players of the same age.

Week That Was

Winner	Event	True SG	xWin
R. McIlroy	PGA — Scottish Open	+3.6	0.385
N. Lindheim	KFT — The Ascendant	+3.33	0.181
V. Norrman	PGA — Barbasol	+2.32	0.004
C. Jarvis	CHA — Euram Bank Open	+1.99	0.001
S. Stricker	SNR — Kaulig Companies	+1.72	0.0
D. Lamb	CAN — Quebec Open	+1.39	0.0

Three weeks ago, 26-year-old Davis Lamb had never had a positive true SG event in his career. He’s now won back-to-back PGA Tour Canada events (as a Monday qualifier for the first one!), averaging +1.1 and +1.4 SG per round along the way.

Scottie who? Steve Stricker continued his ridiculous run on the Champions Tour, winning for the 8th (!) time in his last 17 starts on the senior circuit. Stricker is now 41st in our rankings, wedged between Mito Pereira and Min Woo Lee. Stricker has a long history of breaking the DG model; it's good to see him continuing that tradition into his late fifties.