Firm, fast conditions greeted the world’s best golfers Thursday in Round 1 of the final men’s major championship of 2026.An Open debutant tops the leaderboard, with several marquee names well within striking distance.Here are the top numbers and notes to know from the first round of the 154th Open Championship.1. American Jackson Suber, 26, headed to this year’s Open with just two previous starts in major championships – the 2024 and 2026 U.S. Opens. On Thursday, he shot 65, becoming just the fourth player in the championship’s history to shoot 65 or lower in his debut round. Suber needed just 24 putts in his round, gaining more than three strokes on the field on the greens. He played the last five holes in 4-under, a stretch that included an eagle at 17.Suber is the fourth player in the last five years to hold at least a share of the lead at The Open following his debut round. Cameron Young led by two at St. Andrews in 2022, amateur Christo Lamprecht shared the lead in 2023 and Englishman Dan Brown led by a shot two years ago at Royal Troon. The last player to lead or co-lead after Round 1 at The Open and go on to win? Jordan Spieth, here at Royal Birkdale in 2017.2. Speaking of Brown, he matched the low round of the early half of the draw Thursday with a 66, his lowest first-round score worldwide since the KLM Open in June 2025. Currently 136th in the Official World Golf Ranking, Brown entered the week off the back of four consecutive missed cuts. Thursday he hit 12 fairways and 14 greens in regulation, with eight of his approach shots to 20 feet or closer.Grouped with Brown was Sungjae Im, who matched the Englishman’s score with a 66 of his own. Im was excellent through the bag Thursday, earning positive strokes gained numbers in every category. This is Sungjae’s sixth career start at The Open and the first time he’s begun his week with a sub-70 round. His best finish to date is a tie for seventh place in 2024.3. Young, ranked No. 4 in the world, is part of a large group of players at 3-under. The reigning Players Champion, Young had seemed to turn his putter from a liability into a lethal weapon through spring of this year. But since winning the Cadillac Championship in May, Young was losing, on average, more than a half-stroke to the field putting in 20 competitive rounds. That all changed Thursday, as Young picked up more than a stroke-and-a-half on the greens.In that 20-round stretch entering the week, Young was making 68 feet of putts per round. Thursday he made more than 132 feet. The even-keeled American has seven top-10 finishes in major championships since the beginning of 2022, the most of any player without a victory in that span. Is this the week he breaks through?4. Through the first three majors of the season, Bryson DeChambeau struggled out of the gates. At the Masters, PGA and U.S. Open, the two-time major winner was a combined 10-over-par in Round 1, carding 14 bogeys or worse. His short game was especially shaky those days, as he lost nearly a combined six full strokes to the competition on shots around the green alone.Thursday at Royal Birkdale was a different story. Like his Ryder Cup teammate Young, DeChambeau also shot 67, buoyed by more than a stroke and a half gained on the field with shots around the green. DeChambeau hit just four fairways on his round but wasn’t particularly penalized for missing the short grass as he hit 15 greens in regulation.His missing that many fairways in a major championship round isn’t particularly rare – it’s the 14th time he’s hit four or fewer in the last 10 seasons, most of any player. Doing that and still hitting 15 greens is another story. Entering today, there were 1,779 instances in men’s major championships since 2000 where a player hit four or fewer fairways in a round. In only eight of them did that player also hit 15 greens in regulation or more. It was the first time DeChambeau has done it.Why is this golf course’s bunker shaped like a donut?Gabby Herzig and Lauren Morales-Jones5. Early on Thursday, it looked like Scottie Scheffler was going to sprint ahead of the pack in his Open title defense: a 43-foot birdie at the sixth moved him to 4-under and for a brief time, the solo lead. Scheffler didn’t keep up his torrid pace, however. Over his last 12 holes, he did not make a single putt of 5 feet or longer, losing more than two strokes to the field on the greens.Scheffler wound up carding a respectable 68 but had to feel like he left strokes on the course. He hit all but one fairway in Round 1, the sixth time in his major championship career he’s hit at least 13 fairways in a round. In the five previous major rounds where he did that, he was a combined 17-under-par.In Scheffler’s four major wins, he has been anywhere from one to five shots off the lead after the first round. At Royal Portrush last year, Scottie was tied for sixth place after Day 1, one shot behind a quintet sharing the lead.6. Ten other players sit at 2-under alongside Scheffler. Two men in that group are past champions, Henrik Stenson (10 years ago) and Collin Morikawa (five years ago). For Stenson, 50, it is the first time he has started a major championship with a round in the 60s since the 2019 U.S. Open. He finished the day with a flurry, making birdie on three of his last four holes.In the top-10 this season in many statistical categories on the PGA Tour, Morikawa fit the eye of many pre-championship prognosticators this week. He gained more than three strokes on the field with his trademark stellar iron play, fifth-best among all players in Round 1. It was the first time since Morikawa’s victory in 2021 at Royal St George’s that he carded a score below 70 at The Open.7. It was a largely frustrating first round for Rory McIlroy, who missed three putts inside 5 feet on his way to a 2-over-par 72. Of the 156 players in the field, Rory ranked an abysmal 148th in strokes gained putting on Thursday. His total of -2.73 in that statistic was his worst single round in a major championship since Saturday of the 2022 PGA at Southern Hills (-3.84).Rory McIlroy has feasted on par 5s throughout his major championship career, playing them in a combined 167 strokes under par entering the week. Thursday, he made bogeys at both 14 and 17. Of the 257 rounds McIlroy has played in majors, it’s just the fourth time he’s made bogey or worse on multiple par 5s.McIlroy is tied for 85th place after Round 1. The only player to be outside the top-80 after Round 1 of a men’s major championship and win was Steve Jones at the 1996 U.S. Open (tied for 84th).Hometown favorite Tommy Fleetwood has work to do to get into contention. (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)8. Englishman and local favorite Tommy Fleetwood hit just nine greens in regulation Thursday but managed to claw his way to an opening round score of 69, four behind Suber. It was just the second time in Fleetwood’s major championship career he has hit half the greens in regulation (or less) and still manufactured a round in the 60s.Countryman and pre-tournament analytical darling Matt Fitzpatrick was not able to generate the same type of late-round magic. Fitzpatrick, who entered the week averaging nearly five birdies per round this season, managed to make just one on Thursday. There is promise for a bounce-back on Day 2: the four other times this season Fitzpatrick has shot over par in the first round of a tournament, his score the next day was at least four shots better each time.9. The afternoon half of the draw had it tougher Thursday, averaging 1.86 strokes over par as a group. The morning wave was 1-over on the nose on Thursday. The disparity was more significant on the front nine (0.63 strokes tougher) than the back (0.23). Four holes yielded a green-in-regulation rate of less than 45 percent for the day: four, six, 13 and 18.The field made just four eagles collectively, with three of them coming on the par-4 17th hole. There were 10 or more eagles in each of the first three rounds the last time The Open was contested at Royal Birkdale in 2017.10. Each of the last 26 Open Champions were within five strokes of the lead after Round 1. That significant historical sample size keeps all 59 players who shot even par or better within the trend line after one day.Two players have won The Open at Royal Birkdale from more than five shots off the pace entering Round 2: Peter Thomson was six behind Tony Lema in 1965, while then-reigning Masters champion Mark O’Meara was seven behind after Round 1 in 1998.