British Open 2026: Recent major winners, sentimental favorites among those to miss the cut

The bone-dry Royal Birkdale links are presenting such a unique test this week in the Open Championship that players’ current form heading into the major seems to have mattered little. Just ask this year’s major winners.

While Masters champion Rory McIlroy rallied on Friday with a three-under-par 67 to reach the weekend—though he still is well off the leaders’ pace—PGA Championship titlist Aaron Rai and U.S. Open winner Wyndham Clark were among the big names who missed the cut that came at one over par, with 78 players making the weekend.

Rai, the Englishman who captured his first major at Aronomink in May, played U.S. Open-style golf in a week that demanded much better. He suffered only four bogeys over 36 holes but shockingly managed only two birdies. Clark’s play could not have been more different. The winner of a second U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills last month shot 73 in the first round and then scored a wild even-par 70 on Friday with a front-nine stretch that included two double bogeys, three bogeys and three early birdies. Clark then closed by making two birdies and an eagle in his final four holes, but his three-over total still wasn’t enough.

Tom Kim, last week’s winner of the Scottish Open, fell 60 places with a second-round 73 and missed at three over, while World No. 3 Matt Fitzpatrick won’t be around for the weekend in his home country after shooting 72-72. It was only the second missed cut in the last 14 major starts for the past U.S. Open champ.

Birkdale also was not kind to a couple of players with emotional ties to the property. Jordan Spieth owns one of the more dramatic Open victories with his triumph at Birkdale in 2017, but he fell apart in the second round with two double bogeys and then a disastrous 9 on the easiest hole, the par-5 17th, to shoot 77 and finish at 10 over. Justin Rose made his major debut at Birkdale at 17 in 1998, and though he received a warm welcome and some football songs at 18, it was bittersweet; he shot 68, but couldn’t overcome an opening 75.

Other victims of the cut: past Open champions Cameron Smith (two over), Henrik Stenson (two over) and Brian Harman (nine over); popular PGA Tour players Viktor Hovland (four over), Akshay Bhatia (four over), Jason Day (four over) and Gary Woodland (nine over); and reigning U.S. Amateur champion Mason Howell (two over).

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Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.