It’s crunch time at the Open Championship. With 18 holes to play, it would seem there are any number of contenders in the mix. But who will do the grabbing at Royal Birkdale?
If history is any indicator, the soon-to-be champion golfer of the year will be somebody within three shots of the 54-hole lead (only 13 times has somebody come back from four or more, the last being Cameron Smith at St Andrews in 2022). Yet history also says the Open winner will be inside the top-four heading into Sunday’s final round (only 13 times has a player outside that spot on the leaderboard gone on to win, the last being Francesco Molinari at Carnoustie in 2018).
And the biggest comeback of all time? Well that was Paul Lawrie, who found himself 10 shots back of the lead starting the final round at the 1999 Open at Carnoustie, only to win in a playoff after Jean Van de Velde’s 72nd hole collapse.
They won’t announced Sunday’s final-round tee times until the conclusion of the third round on Saturday. Come back after play ends to see who’ll be paired together for the last round of the 2026 men’s major season.
Round 4 Parings (in AEST time)
4:40 pm
Game 1 – Jesper Svensson, Keegan Bradley
4:50 pm
Game 2 – Matthew Southgate, Laurie Canter
5:00 pm
Game 3 – Jack McDonald, Ben Griffin
5:10 pm
Game 4 – Peter Uihlein, Kazuki Higa
5:20 pm
Game 5 – Sepp Straka, John Parry
5:30 pm
Game 6 – Andy Sullivan, Aldrich Potgieter
5:40 pm
Game 7 – Marcus Plunkett, Ryo Hisatsune
5:50 pm
Game 8 – Min Woo Lee, Tyrrell Hatton
6:00 pm
Game 9 – Nick Taylor, MJ Daffue
6:15 pm
Game 10 – Eugenio Chacarra, Rickie Fowler
6:25 pm
Game 11 – Naoyuki Kataoka, Thomas Detry
6:35 pm
Game 12 – JJ Spaun, Victor Perez
6:45 pm
Game 13 – Chris Gotterup, Patrick Cantlay
6:55 pm
Game 14 – Michael Brennan, Kurt Kitayama
7:05 pm
Game 15 – Brooks Koepka, Bud Cauley
7:15 pm
Game 16 – Alex Fitzpatrick, Pierceson Coody
7:25 pm
Game 17 – Corey Conners, Johnny Keefer
7:40 pm
Game 18 – Patrick Reed, Adam Scott
7:50 pm
Game 19 – Michael Thorbjornsen, Shaun Norris
8:00 pm
Game 20 – Marco Penge, Alex Noren
8:10 pm
Game 21 – Russell Henley, Matt Wallace
8:20 pm
Game 22 – Francesco Molinari, Collin Morikawa
8:30 pm
Game 23 – Jordan Smith, Rory McIlroy
8:40 pm
Game 24 – Hennie du Plessis, Sahith Theegala
8:50 pm
Game 25 – Casey Jarvis, Kristoffer Reitan
9:05 pm
Game 26 – Cameron Young, Robert MacIntyre
9:15 pm AEST
Game 27 – Nico Echavarria, Sungjae Im
9:25 pm AEST
Game 28 – Jacob Bridgeman, Justin Thomas
9:35 pm AEST
Game 29 – Max Homa, Alex Smalley
9:45 pm
Game 30 – Jose Luis Ballester Barrio, Scottie Scheffler
9:55 pm
Game 31 – Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry
10:05 pm
Game 32 – Cameron John, Daniel Brown
10:15 pm
Game 33 – Hideki Matsuyama, Kazuma Kobori
10:30 pm
Game 34 – Eric Cole, Xander Schauffele
10:40 pm
Game 35 – Tommy Fleetwood, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
10:50 pm
Game 36 – Jackson Suber, Bryson DeChambeau
11:00 pm
Game 37 – Ludvig Åberg, Lucas Herbert
11:10 pm
Game 38 – Ryan Gerard, Si Woo Kim
11:20 pm
Game 39 – Ryan Fox, Sam Burns
