British Open highlights: Five players tied for lead after opening round

Five players with a combined one major championship win between them are tied for the lead after Thursday’s opening round of the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club on the northern coast of Northern Ireland.

A five-way tie after the first round of the Open hasn’t happened since 1938, according to the PGA Tour.

Matt Fitzpatrick, Harris English, Jacob Skov Olesen, Li Haotong and Christian Bezuidenhout all finished the day with a 4-under-par 67. Fitzpatrick won the 2022 U.S. Open, but no player has a better finish in this event than Li’s third place in 2017.

Olesen, who played in the morning wave, and English, who played in the afternoon, both got to 5 under at one point as the solo leader but only lasted a few holes. The top of the leaderboard, save for world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, is fairly bereft of the sport’s biggest names after 18 holes. Of the golfers in the top 10, only Brian Harman is a previous Open winner.

Rory McIlroy, a Northern Ireland native who grew up only about an hour from Portrush, is one of the 31 players under par, as well as Ireland’s Shane Lowry.

This is the third time Portrush has hosted the year’s final major championship and the first time since 2019, when Lowry won. American Xander Schauffele is the defending champion from last year’s tournament at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland.

Some highlights from the opening round:

Aberg struggles again at a major

One of the most talented young players on the PGA Tour, 25-year-old Ludvig Aberg, has been frequently anointed as a future major championship winner.

But outside of the Masters, Aberg has struggled in golf’s biggest tournaments. It happened again in the first round of the Open.

Through 16 holes, Aberg is tied for 74th at 2 over. This is his eighth major start. He has two top-10 finishes at Augusta National Golf Club. In his five other appearances before Thursday, he has missed the cut four times.

Aberg is ranked No. 9 in the world, according to the Official World Golf Rankings.

Several other big names struggled, including Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Tommy Fleetwood, Brooks Koepka, Viktor Hovland, JJ Spaun, Patrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark and Bryson DeChambeau.

Hojgaard twins with identical 2-under scores

Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard, the 24-year-old Danish twins, find themselves right next to each other on the first-round leader board. The siblings haven’t often played well at the same time.

Nicolai had a hot start to his career making the European Ryder Cup team in 2023 and briefly held the solo lead during the third round of the 2024 Masters, his first major appearance, but ultimately finished 16th. But he had struggled this season, including missing the cut at the Players and the Masters and didn’t play in the U.S. Open after failing to get through qualifying rounds. He turned his play around, though, with a top-five finish last week at the Scottish Open.

Rasmus, despite missing the cut at the Scottish Open, has played far better this season. He made the cut in each of the year’s three majors.

The twins teamed up to shoot a 59 playing as a duo at the Zurich Classic earlier this year, and in 2021 they became the first pair of brothers to win on back-to-back weeks on the European Tour.

Bezuidenhout finishes at 4 under par

Christiaan Bezuidenhout became the fourth player of the day to take a 4-under 67 into the clubhouse, and the first of the afternoon wave of players. He joins Olesen, Li and Fitzpatrick who all shot a 67 in the morning window.

Bezuidenhout is coming off his best major championship finish, ending tied for 12th in the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. The 31-year-old South African plays on the PGA Tour, but does not have a PGA Tour win. He has three wins on the European Tour, but none since 2020.

At the time he finished, Bezuidenhout was tied for the lead at 4 under. Harris English since surpassed him to take a solo lead at 5 under, the first player to reach that mark since Olesen briefly did during his round.

English, Glover, Bezuidenhout rise

The weather has meant for much better scoring conditions for this later wave of golfers. English, Glover and Bezuidenhout all got off to strong starts to get to 4-under-par, creating a six-way tie at the top of the leader board as of 1 p.m.

One shot behind them, Sadom Kaewkanjana is having his best major performance since finishing tied for 11th at the 2022 Open. Certainly, his 3-under score was one of his best rounds since returning from a break in 2023 where he became a monk.

Scheffler heats up on back nine, finishes at 3 under

The No. 1 ranked player in the world found his best form of the day over his final three holes. Scheffler hit his tee shot to just over 3 feet away from the hole on the par-3 16th hole and nearly holed his approach shot from 110 yards out on the 17th. Scheffler made birdie on both holes to jump up the leader board.

Scheffler’s 3-under day puts him one shot back of the lead as of the time he completed his round.

Scheffler didn’t necessarily play his best golf throughout the round. He lost shots relative to the field off the tee, according to DataGolf, a stat that he has led the PGA Tour in for the 2025 season. But he was so strong on his approaches to the green (gaining four shots over the rest of the field) and putting (gained two shots over the field) that he still positioned himself high up the leader board.

Olesen, Li turn in first-round 67s; Fitzpatrick chips in to tie lead

Olesen and Li finished tied for lead after each shot a 4-under-par 67 in their opening rounds. Olesen’s only other major start came last year at the Open, where he finished tied for 60th. Olesen won The Amateur Championship last year in Ireland and turned professional in November, playing on the European Tour. Olesen made two birdies and an eagle on the back nine to take the lead at -5 before bogeying the 18th.

Olesen, 26, played college golf at both TCU and Arkansas. As a graduate student at Arkansas, Olesen was named an All-American. Since he turned pro, Olesen has three top-10 finishes on the European Tour, but does not have a win.

Li, however, is not a new name during the early round of a major. Most notably, the 29-year-old from China was the 36-hole leader at the 2020 PGA Championship. His best finish in a major was at the 2017 Open Championship where he came in third. He has four pro wins including one this year at the Qatar Masters. Li plays on the European Tour. He had four other top-10 finishes this year. His strong opening round comes after he missed the cut last week at the Scottish Open.

Li had a bogey-free opening round.

Former U.S. Open winner Fitzpatrick joined the duo at the top of the leader board after he chipped in from deep down the hill off to the side of the green of the 16th hole, nicknamed Calamity Corner. Wasn’t quite so for Fitzpatrick.

7 a.m. update: European-dominated leader board

Of the 10 golfers at 2 under or better as of 7 a.m., seven are from European countries.

Olesen, a 26-year-old Dane, finished his round tied for the tournament lead at -4 in just his second-ever major appearance. Olesen made an eagle on the 12th to take the lead by himself.

And on the 15th, Olesen chipped in for a birdie to extend his lead.

Fellow Dane Niccolai Hojgaard finished at 2 under, bouncing back from a double bogey on the 11th with birdies on the 12th and 13th. Englishmen Matthew Jordan, Fitzpatrick and Lee Westwood are all 2 under or better. So are Lowry and Norway’s Kristoffer Reitan.

Age is just a number

Phil Mickelson, 55, and Lee Westwood, 52, had two of the better rounds of the overnight wave. Mickelson was briefly the solo leader at 2 under, but fell back with two bogeys on the back nine.

Westwood was even better, sitting at 4 under. Westwood, a former No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, has never won a major before. He’s played well at the Open, having made it to the weekend in each of his past seven appearances. Westwood had to go through qualifying rounds to make it into this year’s field.

Which side of the draw is the right one?

A yearly conversation during the first two rounds of The Open: Was it better to be in the early group of tee times for round one and late for round two, or vice versa?

Often, that’s an answer dictated by weather. It rained throughout the early rounds. Mickelson changed into a full rain suit with two gloves at one point during his round. After 6 a.m. Eastern, the rain began to fade, and scoring improved. No one took advantage better than Olesen. So far, many of the golfers who had tee times later in the morning got off to far better starts than those before them.