The Open 2026 Retrospective: Was Royal Birkdale a Fair Test or Over the Line?
· Major Golf Hub
Two days after the Claret Jug was hoisted at Royal Birkdale, we analyze whether the R&A's 2026 course setup provided a fair test or crossed the line into unfair territory.
The dust has settled at Royal Birkdale, and the Claret Jug has a new home. Two days removed from a grueling final round at the 2026 Open Championship, the golf world is no longer debating swing planes or putting strokes, but rather the strip of links land itself. As the Champion Golfer of the Year begins their victory tour, the post-mortem on the R&A’s course setup has become the central talking point of the championship.
Royal Birkdale has always been regarded as one of the fairest tests on the Open rota. Unlike the blind shots of Royal St. George’s or the quirkiness of North Berwick, Birkdale typically rewards good shots and punishes poor ones with mathematical precision. However, the 2026 setup pushed that reputation to its absolute limit, leading many to question if the line between ‘tough’ and ‘unfair’ was blurred during an attritional weekend.
The controversy began to brew during Friday’s afternoon wave when the wind shifted to a steady 25 mph gusting to 35 mph. While the R&A cannot control the weather, their decision to keep green speeds at a modern standard led to several instances of balls moving on the putting surfaces before players could address them. The par-3 12th hole, in particular, became a flashpoint. With a tucked pin on the back-right shelf, the scoring average for the field ballooned to 3.7 during the second round, causing a significant bottleneck and a five-and-a-half-hour pace of play.
By Sunday, the setup took an even more aggressive turn. The R&A opted for several ‘risk-reward’ tee boxes, moving them forward to tempt players into taking on Birkdale’s infamous pot bunkers. While this resulted in a handful of spectacular eagles, it also led to a high volume of unplayable lies for those who missed their targets by mere inches. The primary criticism from the field was not the difficulty of the rough—which was lush due to a wet Lancashire spring—but the firmness of the greens relative to the wind speeds.
Defenders of the setup argue that the wining score, which remained in the single digits under par, represents a classic Open test. In an era where distance often threatens to make historic venues obsolete, the R&A’s refusal to yield to the players is seen by some as a necessary defense of the game’s heritage. The champion’s ability to navigate the treacherous closing stretch without a bogey on Sunday is a testament to the fact that the course was, indeed, playable for those in peak form.
However, the statistical dispersion of scores tells another story. The gap between the top 10 and the rest of the field was one of the largest in recent Open history, suggesting that the course setup may have removed the element of recovery. Once a player fell ‘behind the curve’ of the course’s difficulty, Birkdale offered no way back, leading to several rounds in the 80s from world-class players.
Ultimately, the 2026 Open will be remembered as a championship determined by patience and park-standard putting. Whether the R&A went ‘over the line’ depends on one’s philosophy of major championship golf. If the goal was to identify the most resilient golfer under extreme duress, the mission was accomplished. But if the goal was to showcase variety and creativity, some might argue that the setup forced players into a defensive crouch that stifled the natural brilliance of the field.
As the R&A leaves Southport, the debate remains open. Royal Birkdale remains a crown jewel of the rota, but the 2026 setup will serve as a case study for years to come on how far a championship venue can be pushed before it begins to push back too hard.