The 2024 Open Championship will be hosted at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland. This will be the ninth time Royal Troon has hosted an Open Championship.

Troon most recently hosted the Open in 2016. Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson played head and shoulders above the competition with Stenson emerging victorious with a score of 20 under. Mickelson finished three strokes behind at 17 under and the next closest competitor was JB Holmes at six under. Phil and Henrik were in a small pocket of good weather in a year where the conditions affected the field rather negatively. Regardless of the weather they were the two clear best golfers that week.

It has been said that Troon is the most Americanized course in the Open rotation and it’s hard to argue considering Americans have won the Open six of the nine times it’s been played here.

Royal Troon has been lengthened slightly since 2016 to 7,385 yards. It is a par 71 with small Bentgrass greens. As with most Links style courses, the weather is the major defense of the course and needs to be monitored. The other defense is the extremely penal deep pot bunkers. There are 98 of them scattered across the course.

Holes 1-6 tend to play downwind while holes 7-12 play with a cross wind. Golfers will then have wind to the face over the final six holes.

There are three par fives, four par threes and eleven par fours. The par fives are the easiest holes on the course and measure 599 yards, 623 yards and 572 yards. The longer par threes, all of which are over 200 yards play as three of the most difficult holes on the course. The shortest of the par threes is only 123 yard that plays into a very small green surrounded by deep pot bunkers.

Three of the par fours are from 350-400 yards, three from 400-450 yards, four from 450-500 yards and one that’s just over 500 yards.

There is a lot of trouble off the tee and a number of blind tee shots. There are deep pot bunkers deep rough and gorse bushes to worry about. The fairways are thin and undulating. The strategy should be accuracy over distance. We saw Stenson use 3 wood primarily off the tee and Phil used iron for many of his tee shots in 2016.

The greens are small and undulating with many runoff areas. This makes approach shots and more specifically greens in regulation very difficult. Add some strong winds and there will be plenty of missed greens. Golfers will have to pick and choose when to take aggressive approach shots or a more conservative approach.

With missed greens there will be plenty of opportunities to flex the around the green game. Scrambling is difficult and every chip could have a different lie. Could be tight lies in the surrounding fairways or out of deep rough or the dreaded pot bunkers. As we’ve seen with Links golf some creativity is certainly an advantage.

Ultimately golfers will need to play accurate off the tee and avoid the trouble surrounding the fairways. Hitting greens in regulation will go a long way but even the best approach players will have to rely on their around the green game.

There are 156 golfers in the field with the top 70 and ties make the cut after 36 holes.

2024 Open Championship: The Key Stats

• Approach
• Fairways Gained
• Links Experience
• Par 4 Scoring
• Par 5 Scoring
Bogey Avoidance