M7 2025 The Open - Ready for the off

Welcome to Portrush. It's the final M7 of the year - as usual it's all gone by too quickly.

Full picks are in the email I sent and can be seen by going to https://m7golf.wixsite.com/m7golf/leaderboard.

Please check your own entry is correct. Any objections please raise before tee off. N.B. "My picks are sh*t" is not a valid objection - that is your own fault

It's a full house! With all 100 of us going for the big prizes (+ our good friends Control and Wisdom)

Prizes (TBC)

1st - S$5000

2nd - S$2800

3rd - S$1600

Best of Rest (<5 make cut) - S$600

Lets get this out the way. The following have no chance whatsoever:

• Richard 'Schlungs' Sexton as he won the US Open last month (no one wins back to back M7s - except Todd 'Ronald' McDonald once )

• Ben 'Lansdown' Hargreaves winner of last year's Open at Royal Troon (no one successfully defends an M7 championship)

What does it take to win M7?

The Open average winning score is 54 points

Who picked who?

75 different players picked which is only 48% of the field.

As usual though you haven't checked who is actually playing and Horschel, Cam Davis, Noren, Van Rooyen and Grillo aren't, so it makes it 70 different players, 45% of the field

4 of you are playing M6 (including an invalid Rasmus Hojgaard pick in >75 category).

1 of you is playing M5

There are 5 standout popular picks with 50 or more picks, not sure we've seen that before! Rahm (89), Fitz (75), Scott (53), Rory (50) and Hatton (50)

Hovland (32), Scheffler (31), Fleetwood (30), Rose (24) and Spieth (22) are the others above 20 picks

67 of you have the most popular 2 all in your team (Rahm, Fitzpatrick)

43 of you have the most popular 3 all in your team (Rahm, Fitzpatrick, Scott)

18 of you have the most popular 4 all in your team  (Rahm, Fitzpatrick, Scott, Rory)

11 of you have the most popular 5 all in your team (Rahm, Fitzpatrick, Scott, Rory, Hatton)

Norman's (Wisdom) team is Rory, Hovland, Hatton, Rai, Scott, Rahm and Fitzpatrick.....No one has the same exact same 7

An incredible 23 valid unique picks in all. This includes 5 (FIVE) in the 1-10 category

Control has 3 uniques (Hideki, McCarthy, Echavarria) and Ron 'Burgundy' Goding has 2 (Hughes, Ortiz).

Westwood is the highest ranked OWGR player (4689) picked - 3 of you have him

What about the LIV splitters?

Liv player picks are down again. They only account for 27% of all picks (vs 29% in US Open and 38% in USPGA).

12 of the 19 available have at least one pick somewhere in M7

4 of you have swerved LIV completely - Darren 'Little Plum' Robinson (again), Charlie 'Smirnoff' Vodrazka, Tommy 'The Viking' Rathleff and Rob 'Nosey' Parker

Speed and Uncertainty Fastest finger - Well done Tommy 'Hawk' Hawker

Most entries - Andrew 'Bullet Baxter' Moffat and Chris 'Blubba' Watson both with 7 Leaving it to last minute - Chris 'COK' O' Keeffe with 3 mins to spare!

Best of luck!!

Live m7 scoring will be up and running after tee off at https://m7golf.wixsite.com/m7golf.

21 is the M7 record score to beat set at the PGA last year by Bill 'You're 'avin a' Lafferrandre III but of course lets not forget the best record of the lot - John 'Cliff' Talbot Snr’s even more incredible record of 500 pts

Reminder - "You can't win M7 on the first day but you sure as hell can lose it" - Alastair 'Baloney' Loney