Is Royal Birkdale’s ‘Easiest’ Hole One of Its Best?

It will not be any comfort to the sadists but I am here to praise the easiest hole on the golf course at the 2026 Open Championship. It is the easiest to par, statistically speaking, but we all have come to understand that par is just a construct at this stage. 

The par-5 17th hole at Royal Birkdale may be more of a par 4.5, and it has ranked as the easiest on the course in each of the first two rounds at this week. But its brilliance has less to do with par and more with the journey to get there. 

On Friday afternoon, I posted up there, taking a rare couple hours to sit and act more like a fan than a roving media hack looking for odds, ends, comments, and scenery. I went there simply to catch the end of Lucas Herbert’s potentially record-setting round and then … I just stayed. Group after group came through, but I couldn’t pull myself away from the fun of watching shots come in and the recoveries attempted from around the green. I should have moved on to pursue other things, but I was stuck. I was a fan, engrossed. I don’t do that as much as I’d like anymore, but it was the most fun I’ve had at a major in recent memory, diving headfirst into simply watching pro after pro try to navigate the penultimate hole to pick up a red number coming into the house. 

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The par-3 15th is the subject of intense scrutiny this week as a brand-new hole. But once you move on from that, Birkdale’s finish, for an Open Championship, has some zip. The 16th can become drivable in the right wind. The 17th is a scoring chance, but you have to work for it. The 18th is an absolute lemon booty minefield offering very few birdies and described as both “shit” and the “best finishing hole in links Open golf” in each of the last two days. Come Sunday, the finish can offer it all in the final moments.

Let’s focus on the 17th, a favorite. Both par 5s at Birkdale — the other one being the relocated 14th (old 15th) — have long, narrowish greens. The 17th is a delight, a slender, uphill green sitting between the dunes. It welcomes precise shots bounding in from mid-irons and an occasional hybrid or wood, the ball climbing and tumbling, hoping to find the right segment for the day’s pin. A boundary on the right side makes the left, where many patrons have posted up, a frequent duck-and-cover spot for the misses. The green’s narrowness means mishits from low-lofted clubs are often playing roulette up in these dunes on the left. Herbert found a nice sandy lie and hit an outrageous shot that used a slope on the back right of the green. Shane Lowry a few groups later from a similarly sandy lie, or so he thought, did not get under it enough, rocketing the ball through the green and into the high stuff on the other side. He made six after sitting two just 25 yards from the green. 

There’s so much excitement up around the green with its attractive, narrow figure and with shots kicking off slopes, bounding in, and rolling to success or doom. But the tee shot is as intriguing to consider. One coach told me it’s his favorite on the golf course, and that driver, a club he’s prone to advocating for, did not seem like the obvious best play. You can see the right side of the fairway, and this coach thought something other than driver might be preferable because the driver line can get really uncomfortable down the left.

Birkdale does not have much blindness, but if you’re going big off the tee here and have the power, you’re almost certainly going up and over a massive dune and hoping it covers on the other side. 

Bryson DeChambeau took this line and failed to make it back into the turning fairway on Thursday. Rory McIlroy, seeing red and looking for a birdie or eagle late in the round Friday, ran off too far right and into a penal bunker at the turn in the fairway, making it a three-shot hole and an eventual par. Needless to say, the firmness of these fairways obviously makes the line off the tee that much more critical.

Nicolai Hojgaard pulled driver, took the line over the dune, and rolled out to almost 400 yards. He’d cash it in with a 30-foot eagle putt that momentarily kept his made-cut hopes alive. 

While Hojgaard’s second shot came from just 164 yards, Collin Morikawa put his approach shot from 264 yards to 15 feet. His eagle putt, inside Nico’s, did not fall, but it was the approach of the day. 

Whether it’s the club choice and execution question the coach pondered at the tee, or the more flashy excitement the fans get watching from up at the green, the 17th is a nice showpiece hole at the end of the championship. A hole can be fun, exacting, and rewarding on the scorecard. This has all those elements. Par be damned, it’s 18th-ranked on the stats sheet but near the top of the list to watch, and it will be again this weekend.