SOUTHPORT, England – The English are coming! The English are coming!
Paul Revere is nowhere to be found but 20 English golfers are in the field this week at the 154th British Open at Royal Birkdale attempting to become the first English champion to have his name etched on the Claret Jug on home soil in 57 years.
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Nick Faldo was the last English winner of The Open in 1992, while Tony Jacklin remains the last English victor at home back in 1969. This might be the best chance to end “the curse.”
“This is the one – certainly for an English player,” said Justin Rose. “It’s been a long time and hopefully I can be the guy to knock off that curse. And you have to say that is exactly what it is, a curse. There’s no getting around how long this has been going on.”
Jacklin won his first of two majors at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 1969. Faldo hoisted three Claret Jugs in Scotland, the last of them at Muirfield in 1992.
Justin Rose speaks with the media after a practice round ahead of the 2026 British Open at Royal Birkdale.
But this year, the English contingency includes three of the top-10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking – Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood and Rose – six players ranked in the top 50 and 11 in the Top 100, a staggering improvement from 25 years ago when there was one.
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That honor belonged to Lee Westwood. He is among the old English guard consisting of Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Ian Poulter and Rose, who won titles big and small, cashed checks for millions, and starred on victorious Ryder Cup teams. But they claimed only one major among them — the 2013 U.S. Open by Rose —and have failed to win The Open.
“It’s one of those crazy things that none of them have won The Open,” said Jacklin. “It boggles the mind. It’s hard to believe.”
An Englishman has won other majors, including Faldo in 1996 and Danny Willett in 2016 at the Masters, Fitzpatrick at the U.S. Open in 2022 and most recently Aaron Rai at the PGA Championship in May. Rory McIlroy knows how hard it can be to play in front of the home crowd. He flamed out of the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, missing the cut, but handled the pressure better in his second go-round last year, finishing T-7.
“It’s a tough environment,” he said. “It’s a great environment but tough in a way that you just feel the extra expectation on your shoulders, and you feel like you’re trying to play well for everyone else and not for yourself.”
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No one will quite face as much pressure as Tommy Fleetwood, the world No. 9, who grew up 5 minutes from Birkdale and is the pride of Southport.
Tommy Fleetwoodspeaks with the media after a practice round ahead of the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
“It’s an absolute dream to play here in my hometown in front of people that are all here to support me,” he said. “I’m no different to any other person in terms of every single person that is playing in The Open dreams of winning in The Open and wants to win it. There’s really nothing different to anybody else in that sense. I just think I am the lucky one that gets to have home support and use that as like really, really positive fuel.”
Fitzpatrick, the world No. 3, knows what it’s like to win a major and seems to have finally figured out his home Open. He finished T-4 last year, his first top-10 in 10 tournament appearances. He’s already notched three titles this season and with a win this week would become the first player from England in the modern era to earn four wins in a season on the PGA Tour. The big difference for Fitzpatrick has been improving his iron play.
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“My irons have never really been a strength. I’ve had good seasons but never really taken advantage of that, I don’t feel like; whereas now I feel like I’ve got that,” he said. “I think sort of the level of experience and maturity I have, I guess, with playing and being in these situations is obviously much better now, even than before 2022.”
Rose, who is No. 10 in the world and making his 23rd Open Championship appearance, with runner-up finishes in 2018 and 2024, is seeking at 45 years old to become the oldest major winner since Phil Mickelson won the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50. Rose was a young buck when he holed a 45-yard pitch shot at the final hole at Birkdale to finish as low amateur and win the Silver Medal, tying for fourth at the 1998 British Open, the best finish for an amateur since 1953 and the best finish for a 17-year-old since Young Tom Morris won the thing in 1868.
“There’s no bigger buzz I’ve ever experienced than that moment on the 18th green when that pitch shot went in,” Rose said. “There’s no doubt about it. I think I’ve had as satisfying moments on the golf course, but never quite that same sort of buzz.”
Rai has risen to No. 17 after lifting the Wanamaker Trophy in May. He’s hoping to extend a streak where the two PGA champs before him – Xander Schauffele in 2024 and Scottie Scheffler in 2025 – claimed the Claret Jug too.He’s making fifth start at the Open Championship with a best of T-19 in 2021 and his debut at Royal Birkdale.
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“There’s always pressure every single week no matter what tournament it is. I think most of that is self-imposed,” Rai said. “I don’t feel a huge amount more pressured than what I used to.”
And if those big four don’t crack the code perhaps Tyrrell Hatton, Alex Fitzpatrick, Matt’s younger brother, or even Joe Dean, a former grocery delivery driver who won the Last-Chance Qualifier on Monday, could make England proud and end the dastardly winless drought at the Open.
“I think a lot of those guys are pretty level-headed, and they’ll go out there and stick to their routines and do their thing, and it will be great,” said McIlroy. “It would be great for them all to have a great week because obviously with England in the World Cup still and everything that’s going on, it would just be an amazing atmosphere for the tournament.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Justin Rose among 20 Englishmen looking to snap The Open skid in England
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