The 154th Open Championship takes place at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England from July 16 to 19, 2026. All rounds are in British Summer Time (UTC+1), with final-round pairings going off from approximately 09:00 BST. It is the only men’s golf major played outside the United States.
The Open Championship is the oldest major in golf, first contested at Prestwick in 1860, and it plays a version of the game that most of the world never sees on television. Links golf. No trees. No irrigation. No perfectly manicured parkland. Instead: firm turf that bounces the ball unpredictably, pot bunkers deep enough to require a ladder, knee-high fescue rough that swallows golf balls whole, and wind off the Irish Sea that changes direction between the front nine and the back. Links golf is about imagination and survival, about playing a low punch into the wind with a 5-iron when the yardage says 7-iron, about using the ground as an ally rather than fighting it with aerial approach shots. For fans who only watch American golf, The Open is a revelation.
Royal Birkdale is widely considered the fairest course on The Open rota, which is not the same as calling it easy. The layout was designed by George Lowe and F.G. Hawtree in 1931, routing fairways through valleys between towering sand dunes on the Lancashire coast. This means players can actually see where they are aiming, which is not always the case at links venues. But the wind funnels unpredictably through the dune corridors, and the rough, a mix of thick marram grass and willow scrub, makes recovery difficult and sometimes impossible.
Birkdale’s Open history reads like a roll call of the game’s greatest players. Arnold Palmer won here in 1961. Lee Trevino in 1971. Tom Watson in 1983. Seve Ballesteros, the great Spanish showman, hit one of the most famous recovery shots in golf history from the car park to the right of the 16th fairway during the 1976 Open, a moment now marked by a plaque on the course. Padraig Harrington retained his Claret Jug here in 2008. And in 2017, Jordan Spieth produced one of the great final-round performances, recovering from a wild drive on the 13th that ended up on the practice range, taking a penalty drop, and then birdieing five of his last six holes to win by three strokes.
For American viewers, the BST timezone is the most favorable of all four majors, and it is not close. Royal Birkdale is five hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time, so when the final group tees off around 14:35 BST, it is 09:35 EDT, a perfect Sunday morning start on the East Coast. Full afternoon coverage at Birkdale lands between 09:00 and 15:00 EDT, the most viewer-friendly window American golf fans get all year. For European viewers, it could not be easier: home timezone, afternoon and evening coverage, no alarm clocks required. For Japanese fans, BST is only eight hours behind Tokyo, meaning a 14:00 BST start is 22:00 JST, a far more civilized hour than the 03:00 starts required for the three American majors. Australian fans get a midnight to early-morning window in AEST.
Tommy Fleetwood, who grew up in Southport just minutes from Royal Birkdale, will have the galleries squarely behind him. Rory McIlroy, the 2014 Open champion, has the links pedigree to win anywhere on the rota. Shane Lowry, who won The Open at Royal Portrush in 2019 with a masterful display of wind management, will be dangerous. And Scottie Scheffler arrives with the game and the composure to win anywhere, on any surface, in any conditions.
For more on the venue, see our Royal Birkdale guide. To check the current local time at the course, see Liverpool time or browse all United Kingdom time zones.