VIDEO: Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler or someone else? - Fans give their predictions for The Open champion at Royal Portrush
World number one Scottie Scheffler is the favourite to be crowned Champion Golfer at The Open on Sunday evening – but can somebody stop him?
Scheffler’s seven-under par 64 on Friday helped him surge up the leaderboard, but Matt Fitzpatrick joined him at the top on Saturday after a stunning eagle at the second hole.
If Scheffler does go on to claim his maiden Open crown, he would be only a US Open title away from becoming the seventh player to complete a career Grand Slam – the same feat achieved by Rory McIlroy at The Masters in April.
McIlroy’s bid for home glory got off to a splendid start on Saturday afternoon when he birdied three of his opening four holes – much to the delight of his army of supporters following him around the Dunluce course.
China’s Li Haotong still remains in contention, as does Russell Henley and Tony Finau, who alongside Scheffler will be looking to continue America’s proud Open tradition – three of the last four winners of this tournament have hailed from the States, including defending champion Xander Schauffele, who picked up an eagle at 12 to stay in touching distance.
Before the tournament got underway, Opta Analyst’s FRACAS (Field Rating and Course-Adjusted Strokes Gained) prediction model felt Scheffler had an 18.7% chance of winning – the highest by some margin with Jon Rahm (7.1%) and McIlroy (6.7%) following behind.
The model is proving to have some success with Scheffler, Henley, McIlroy and Fitzpatrick, who were all in their top-10 potential winners, occupying good positions on the leaderboard.
We asked some of the fans who attended Northern Ireland’s biggest-ever sporting event on Saturday for their opinions – and wondered if it’s possible we could be celebrating magical McIlroy major success on Sunday evening.
Watch what they had to say in the video attached above.