Open Championship analysis: Ryder Cup, Bryson DeChambeau, Harry Hall, Portrush and more

For reflections on Open champion Scottie Scheffler, click here

Portrush is near perfect

I was at Portrush in 2019 and while the week was magical, I couldn't really have given you a fair assessment of the role the golf course played. Now, having seen it on television, I feel comfortable declaring that it's among my favourites on the Open rota. As a whole, the Open at Portrush might just be the best, or at least second to St Andrews if that's your thing.

So many holes here are memorable: the first, for its out of bounds either side; the second for the early chance to score; the third and sixth, but also the fourth and, particularly, the fifth. There's one of the finest short par-fours in the sport, surely. It's difficult to think of weak holes and in actual fact, if pushed, I might settle for the end of both nines, which admittedly isn't ideal.

But whatever you make of 18, it's preceded by a dramatic 16th and then the big elevation change of the 17th, which can play ten different ways. The start of the back-nine features the brutal 11th followed again by a scoreable hole, the par-five 12th. I forgot to mention the 10th, whose narrow chute provides an ideal blend of opportunity and risk and looks gorgeous on the screen.

Portrush may not have been quite the star, but it was clear second.

Hall shows his mettle

Harry Hall extended his run of top-30 finishes to eight events with a solid final round, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Considered a live outsider entering the week, Hall's Open was over before it had even started, or so it seemed, after a triple-bogey eight at the second followed by a bogey at the third. Four-over through three on a relatively gentle opening day.

From there, he played beautifully. Two birdies and no further mistakes salvaged round one, seven birdies helped him shoot 67 in round two, then another seven birdies in a third-round 68 saw him further climb the leaderboard. Hall's memorable week was then capped by a closing 71 in the company of Justin Rose, who knows a thing or two about never giving up, and that had looked set to be lower until he finished five-five.

Maybe this wasn't enough for Hall to properly arrive as a Ryder Cup candidate, but he's inside the top 10 European performers per DataGolf and at least deserves a place in the conversation. No, winning the 2024 ISCO and playing consistently throughout the summer of 2025 probably isn't enough, not for an away Ryder Cup at Bethpage. But this performance suggests there are bigger and better things to come.

Hall will next play at the Wyndham Championship followed by the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Thereafter, his schedule will be determined by just how well he plays, just how far into those Playoffs he can go. Failing that, there's always Europe. Nobody looks more likely to force their way from relative obscurity right into the reckoning, but does he need one more step up?

DeChambeau's Open awakening

Bryson DeChambeau may never win the Open, because it will never truly play to his strengths, but his performance in rallying from a first-round 78 was immense. If he does go on to get his hands on that Claret Jug, the fightback here at Portrush will have been a key part of that story.

DeChambeau was eighth at St Andrews and shot 65 at Royal St George's, but the final 54 holes of this Open makes it by some distance his best yet regardless of his actual finishing position. It came about because he found a way to harness that power and dial in his approaches, with rounds two and three actually short of what they could've been had he holed a few more putts, and round four simply sensational.

The challenge will be what happens when the wind blows and you sense that such conditions will always make life hard for a golfer who is rigid in the way he chooses to play the game: indelicately, with high power, high spin, and therefore high volatility when the weather intervenes. But if he ever gets a crack at the Old Course at its most benign, maybe he really can overcome this challenge and gets his name on there alongside Scheffler's.

There are some ways in which DeChambeau sets a fantastic example. Always believing in better and never giving up are two principles that anyone can get behind. It's a pity that the realities of the modern professional game and its deemphasis on links golf do not compel him to strive to really figure out this puzzle. If he truly did that, few would bet against him solving it.

Gotter be in the Ryder Cup reckoning

Chris Gotterup was, to all intents and purposes, a golfing nobody two weeks ago: we might have known all about his raw power, his potential, the way in which he dominated the Myrtle Beach Classic, but not many did. Back then, his ambitions ought to have been as simple as making the FedEx Cup Playoffs and building on some promising signs all year long.

Now he's the Scottish Open champion, where he downed McIlroy, and an Open third, where he was beaten only by Scheffler and Harris English. This is form of the highest calibre and while it's come under conditions worlds away from Bethpage Black, where the Ryder Cup takes place, here's the thing: those conditions, so close to where he was born and raised, should only serve to help him unlock even more improvement.

We could be about to find out just how willing Keegan Bradley is to rip up the old rules and do things differently. How much does he value summer form? How vulnerable really are those players just outside the automatic qualification places? To what extent is he thinking about the specifics of Bethpage, and how that might help to separate candidates like Gotterup and say Brian Harman?

Now, Gotterup will need to maintain something close to this level of form, pop up on leaderboards, reach East Lake. Based on the last fortnight, all of that should be well within his capabilities, East Lake not far off a mathematical formality thanks to this latest boost. America found a new star in the UK; Europe may be about to get to know him even better in New York.

As for English, they know him already. And his place in Bradley's side is surely now guaranteed, after his second runner-up finish in this year's majors. On both occasions, it's taken the world number one to beat him.

And what of Europe?

For a long time now, the European side for 2025 has looked like it might resemble that of 2023, perhaps just with a different Hojgaard, Rasmus ahead of Nicolai in the pecking order. Now that Matt Fitzpatrick has confirmed his return to form, the prospect of an identical list of surnames has strengthened, the feeling being that potential form weak-link, Justin Rose, has had his spot booked since finishing second at Augusta.

What now can change? Well, Hojgaard (Rasmus) could fail to qualify, his cause not helped by another stumbling finish to a major in a year of unrealised promise. He does not have a single top-10 since November, not if you ignore the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, a pairs event in which, somewhat ironically, he and his brother finished second.

If that happens, Luke Donald will have many other options: PGA Tour winners Hall, Aaron Rai, Thomas Detry. Breakout powerhouse Marco Penge, perhaps. Matt Wallace, Jordan Smith, any other of the myriad Danes who are capable, including Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen. Even the experience of Alex Noren could yet prove alluring, or the curveball promise of young Tom McKibbin over on the LIV Golf circuit.

For Europe, then, more is certain: 11 names to be precise. The 12th remains up for grabs.

Hao do you like them apples?

Finally, a word for Haotong Li. As recently as 2021, he could not keep his golf ball on the course. That is no exaggeration: the Chinese youngster lost on average two shots per round off the tee. That means that over four rounds, he would give an average driver an eight-shot head start. Driver is the club that ruins careers and it seemed set to do the same to his.

So much of this had to do with a global pandemic which originated in his home country, where he could not return. When he did, finishing second at the end of that year, things began to look up. Little more than six months later he was a winner again, taking the BMW International Open in typically Haotong fashion. Houdini Li might be a decent moniker and backers of Thomas Pieters still won't know how they lost.

That came just before the Open at St Andrews, yet by the end of that his driving woes had already returned. In 2023, somehow he was back where he'd started: 23 appearances, just two cuts made, more issues with the driver. Who knows what happened that Christmas. When he returned from it, Li finally began to deliver on the promise of 2017's Open third, 2018's McIlroy slaying.

This year, he's been among the best players on the DP World Tour. Next year, he could be on the PGA Tour. He may well win out there, too. And while this didn't quite end the way he'd have hoped, his effort to match Scheffler's birdie at the first and later respond to a crushing double-bogey at the 14th was more than commendable; fourth place deeply impressive if not quite a personal best.

We don't talk enough about English the world of professional golf is. For a player like Haotong, who sometimes rubs people up the wrong way by wearing his heart on his sleeve, by being just a little different, but who is as popular among those who travel that golfing world with him as he is among the media, this was a mighty achievement.

Future Chinese golfers will have a lot to thank him for.