{"id":544006,"date":"2026-07-16T08:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/544006\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:07:10","slug":"scheffler-ready-for-title-defence-as-154th-open-gets-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/544006\/","title":{"rendered":"Scheffler ready for title defence as 154th Open gets underway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SOUTHPORT, England, July 16 &#8211; The British Open began under clear skies on Thursday at Royal Birkdale in Southport, where American Scottie Scheffler is bidding to become the event&#8217;s first back-to-back winner since 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u2022 The opening shot of the 154th edition was struck by England&#8217;s Matthew Baldwin, who is also a member at Royal Birkdale. He was joined by Belgian Thomas Detry and American James Nicholas in game one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u2022 World number one Scheffler, who finished on 17 under at Royal Portrush last year, is hoping to become the first man since Padraig Harrington to win back-to-back Opens. Harrington won his second title at Royal Birkdale.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u2022 Scheffler is scheduled to tee off at 9:58 a.m (0858 GMT)\u00a0alongside Bryson DeChambeau and Tyrrell Hatton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u2022 World number two Rory McIlroy will begin his campaign alongside 2024 champion Xander Schauffele and Matt Fitzpatrick at 3:15 p.m. (1415 GMT).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u2022 McIlroy is chasing a seventh major title. His sole Open win came 12 years ago at Royal Liverpool. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHPORT, England, July 16 &#8211; The British Open began under clear skies on Thursday at Royal Birkdale in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-544006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}