2023 Open Championship: The Real Winners And Losers At Hoylake

The last major of the season has finished after the 2023 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool was won by Brian Harman this weekend. We take a look at the true winners and losers coming out of Royal Liverpool.

2023 Open Championship Winners

Alex Fitzpatrick

The younger brother of 2022 US Open Champion Matthew Fitzpatrick, Alex is currently grinding on the Challenge Tour trying to earn a card on the DP World Tour.

Alex progressed through regional qualifiers to earn a spot at his first major in the 2023 Open Championship (notably doing what Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell tried and failed to do).

Alex finished T17 at Royal Liverpool to earn €168,625.97, an eye watering €126,197 more than his previous highest payday on the DP World Tour. This will give Alex a huge boost in his chances to earn a full card for the 2024 season.

Max Homa

Max will be thrilled to take a huge milestone and earn his first top 10 finish in a major at his 17th attempt. It will be a surprise to many that despite 6 wins on the PGA tour and being one of the breakout players in the last few years, Max only has 2 top 25s in an underwhelming major performance history. The tide has now changed.

Tom Kim

Kim started the week pretty badly by slipping in his rental house and tearing his ankle, leaving him in need of a piggyback service from his agent to navigate the course.

To add insult to injury, Kim considered withdrawing and was three over after the first 18 holes. Kim persevered to shoot 68-68-67 and finish T2 to secure his second major top-10 in what is an incredible debut season with a full PGA Tour card.

Henrik Stenson

Despite being dishonourably discharged from being Team Europe Captain at this year’s Ryder Cup after defecting to LIV, the 2016 Open Championship winner reminded the crowds that he still has a good game after shooting 73-68-71-69 to finish T13, his best major finish since a T9 at the 2019 US Open four years ago.

Ryder Cup Team Europe

Team Europe’s 2023 Ryder Cup team will take huge inspiration from the performance of their likely players at the 2023 Open Championship.

Sepp Straka, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, and Tyrrell Hatton all finished in the top 20 in glowing form.

2023 Open Championship Losers

Cam Young

Young now has 4 top-10 major finishes in the 2022 and 2023 majors. Despite a solid T-8 finish this weekend, Young was in the final pairing on Sunday and would have hoped a strong performance could have earned him his first major.

Instead, Young shot a leaky 2-over par 73 to drop down the leaderboard and finish 8 back of the eventual winner.

Tommy Fleetwood

Unfortunately, this week was the same old story for local lad Tommy Fleetwood. Being in the hunt on Sunday without a victory has been the unfortunate pattern in recent years.

Being just a few miles away from his hometown of Southport, the timing may have seemed right for Tommy at 5-under on Sunday. Unfortunately, after an opening round of 66, Tommy only lost ground and finished at a disappointing 4-under par and T10.

Perhaps Tommy is waiting until Royal Birkdale as Southport hosts the 154th Open Championship in 2026, which is Tommy’s actual hometown.

Justin Thomas

With only 3 top-10s, and three missed cuts at the majors (and the made cut was a 12-over par showing at the PGA Championship), the less said about JT’s 2023 season the better.

JT opened at Royal Liverpool with an 81 to continue the tone of his season. JT steadied the ship with an even-par 71 on Friday, but the damage was done. JT’s Ryder Cup hopes now hang in the balance.

Dustin Johnson

An honourable mention for DJ who shot an uncompetitive 74-81 to finish above only 10 players in the 156-man field; including being beaten by a severely limping 57-year-old John Daly.