As Scottie Scheffler, the world No. 1, prepares to defend his title at Royal Birkdale, an analyst warns that his primary PGA Tour metric could work against him on links terrain.

Keith Stewart, founder of Read The Line, joined Gary Williams on YouTube on July 16 to preview the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

Stewart was asked which standard PGA Tour metric becomes least useful when handicapping players for the Open.

"It might be Strokes Gained: Putting," Stewart told Williams of 5 Clubs. "All of that is based upon Strokes Gained: Putting over here on the PGA Tour domestically. And as we go over there, as we saw at the Scottish Open with the fescue grasses, I mean, take the number one player in the world, right?"

Stewart's point is specific. Putting statistics compiled on PGA Tour courses are built on grass types. Those do not match what players encounter at links venues. Fescue greens overseas behave differently. A player's putting stats from regular tour events usually do not matter much at Royal Birkdale.

Scottie Scheffler won the 2025 Open at Royal Portrush. Stewart said that was one of the few times Scheffler gained strokes with his putting on a links course. According to Stewart, that was an exception, not the usual pattern.

"The only time he's ever gained on the greens over there was Royal Portrush, and we did see him win there. But before that, the Scottish, the British, Scottie doesn't gain with the putter, and that's a problem," Keith Stewart told Gary Williams of 5 Clubs.

According to Stewart, approach play is the most important part of the game this week.

The firm, fast conditions at Royal Birkdale routinely release balls completely off the greens, demanding a level of precision rarely required on soft domestic layouts.

Tom Kim serves as the model Stewart pointed to for the type of form he wants to see at Birkdale.

Keith Stewart points to Tom Kim as the profile that fits the Open Championship demands

Stewart highlighted Kim as an elite iron player, noting that his strokes-gained approach metrics entering the Genesis Scottish Open represent the exact form required to succeed at Royal Birkdale

"We saw how it worked out for Tom Kim," Stewart said in the same interview. "He was top five in the field for approach heading into Scotland. And of course, those are the same guys that we want at Royal Birkdale."

Stewart also addressed the broader challenge of handicapping the Open versus the other three majors. Weather and course knowledge both factor in. "You're going to need weather. You're going to need skill set. And we're really going to need to understand the golf course," he said.

His overall framework strips away two of the most commonly cited edges, course experience and prior Open form, in favor of current statistical indicators that actually translate to link conditions.

Do you think Scottie Scheffler's putting will hold up at Royal Birkdale this week? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Sneha Abraham

Edited by

Shubhi Rathore