There are four Majors played in golf, of which The British Open Championship is the third of the year. It is also the only one that is not played in the United States, meaning that it poses challenges to the players that are unique. It almost always played on a Links course, resulting in the weather and the lay of the land causing the golfers all sorts of problems. The Masters Tournament starts the golfing year off in April and the fact that it always takes place at Augusta means that the players can know roughly what to expect. June’s U.S. Open follows the Masters and takes place on numerous golf courses throughout the States, asking questions of the competitors.
Yet it is unquestionably the Open Championship, sometimes called the British Open to separate it from its American cousin, that asks questions of golfers that not even the best of them have all of the answers to. In fact, the versions of the tournament that have seen the lowest scores posted have tended to boast weather that is more similar to that you’d experience in the US. Links courses tend to be undulating, with open sides that welcome a brisk wind from the sea. They naturally favor British players or players that have grown up on courses where the weather can have a large impact on their play. Here we’ll look at the favorites for this year’s tournament and the odds you might be able to get on them.
Now that we know about why the course that a tournament is played on matters, let’s take a quick look at the venue for The Open this year. The Carnoustie Golf Links joined The Open’s roster in 1931 and has been used on and off since then. It last hosted the tournament eleven years ago and American golfers call it carnasty because it’s so horrible to play in adverse weather conditions. It might be worth having a look at what Mother Nature has got planned a few days before the first tee and adjust your bets accordingly…
It’s a site that can effect even seasoned golfers and it was on the eighteenth that Jan van de Velde fell apart back in 1999. He had played seventy-one holes of golf and need to post a double-bogey or better to lift the Claret Jug, but instead ended up taking his shoes and socks off and trying to hit his ball out of the stream that runs along the hole, ending up with a triple bogey before losing the play-off. Players who have shown mental weakness at any point might also be ones to avoid here, especially if they haven’t played the course under championship conditions before.
Who will win the British Open in 2024?
Dustin Johnson (11/1)
Speaking of players demonstrating mental weakness, Dustin Johnson will be extraordinarily disappointed with his US Open performance in June. The South Carolina native had a four shot lead over the field heading into the penultimate day’s golf, but notched up a 77 on Day Three that saw him pulled into the quagmire. He then posted a 70 on the last day, but the damage had already been done.
2016’s US Open remains the only Major that he’s won, belying the fact that he’s considered to be one of the best golfers in the world. He’s not typically the sort of player that allows his emotion to get the better of him, but if the going gets tough at carnoustie or the weather turns midway through the week, how will he respond? He’s understandably leading the pack in the betting, but you wouldn’t want to go too hot and heavy on him when you consider that he’s yet to really perform in the UK.
Jordan Spieth (12/1)
Whenever you’re considering a bet on a tournament that doesn’t have a clear and obvious favorite, it’s always good to see who has done well in it in the past. Jordan Spieth enters this year’s Open Championship as the defending champion, winning at Royal Birkdale by three shots in 2017. At the time of writing he’s started thirteen tournaments on the PGA Tour and made the Cut in ten of them, so he’s in reasonably good form as The Open approaches.
Spieth finished third in the Masters earlier in the year, but his preparation for carnoustie came a little bit unstuck in the Travelers Championship at Connecticut’s Cromwell course when he hit his driver on the thirteenth out of bounds. He had been leading overnight but then hit his approach shot into a lake and scored eight. Rather than recover, he got a bogey five on the fifteenth. He did post an Eagle on the sixteenth, but might that affect him heading to Scotland?
Rory McIlroy (12/1)
Like Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy is a player that goes into every tournament with people convinced he’ll win. He’s only twenty-nine, yet he’s already racked up four major wins. His first came when he was just twenty-two, meaning that he’s had the title of ‘future star’ attached to him for most of his golfing life. One of those four Majors was The Open, which is why there’ll be many a bet placed on him in the build-up to this year’s contest.
The big thing to bear in mind is that McIlroy’s win came at Royal Liverpool. That is a challenge course if the weather’s not being very friendly, but the sun was beating down for most of the week back in 2014 and it played more like a US course than a British Links one. If the wind and rain stay away from carnoustie then it might play to his strengths, but if not then his odds might look too short if anything. As mentioned before, ante-post odds on golf tournaments often allow for long odds, but you can find even longer odds on some players that are just as worthy of your consideration. Here’s a look at some of them:
Tommy Fleetwood (16/1)
There are numerous reasons why Tommy Fleetwood might be worthy of a look heading into this year’s Open, not least of which is the fact that he finished as runner-up to Brooks Koepka at the US Open in June. He’s decidedly under-performed at the British equivalent, missing the Cut in three of his four previous attempts. Event when he did make the Cut last year he still failed to challenge the top players, ending up tied for seventeenth.
Yet there’s one big thing that makes his name stand out as far as this year’s tournament is concerned – he holds the record for the lowest round scored on the course. He carded a sixty-three in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championships on the course in October of last year, meaning he knows how the course plays and has experience of taking it on when the weather wasn’t at its kindest. That’s not the sort of thing that guarantees a good performance, but at 16/1 it’s worth a punt.
Justin Rose (16/1)
There’s a quite large group of players who are all valued at around 16/1, with Justin Rose being one of them. He won the US Open in 2013 and, in doing so, became the first English player to win a Major since a certain Nick Faldo had done in 1996. Looking back even further than that, he was first Englishman to win the Open in the States since Tony Jacklin had managed it in 1970. He’s been a much lauded player ever since he chipped in from the rough in The Open in 1998, so his name is always on a list of those mentioned as possible winners of the tournament.
Rose has won twenty-two tournaments as a professional, with nine of them coming on the European Tour. That’s not as many as you’d like from a player that you’re thinking of betting big on, especially when the Carnoustie course is likely to ask some really testing questions. Even so, if you’re looking for a player to have a wager on who might over-perform expectations then he could well be your man. He beat Koepka to the Fort Worth Invitational in May, so he’s already got one tournament under his belt this year.
Tiger Woods (25/1)
Let’s be honest, many people had as good as written off Tiger Woods after he left the tour to have back surgery in 2014 and then further operations in 2015. Add into that his marital problems that blew up in 2010 and you can see exactly why he hasn’t won a Major since 2008 and didn’t even make the cut at the US Open earlier in the year.
Yet many believe that Woods is never a player to be ruled out completely, such is the muscle memory that he possesses on the golf course. That’s reflected in his odds, with bookies refusing to go as long as the 1,000/1 you can get for Darren Clarke, for example, even though the Northern Irishman has won The Open more recently than the American. Your money is probably better spent elsewhere, but an each-way shout might not be the worst idea.
Underdogs
The best thing about betting on something that offers a reasonably open playing field is the chance to dream. Bookmakers know that the best golfers in the world will be the ones that lead the field, but golf has thrown up more than a few surprised over the years and there are a couple of players that might be worth a brief look.
Padraig Harrington (100/1)
If looking at the last person to win the tournament is helpful, how useful is looking at the last golfer to win the tournament when it was played at the same venue? Not all that useful, to be perfectly honest, especially when his better days are behind him. Even so, Padraig Harrington won The Open when it was played at carnoustie in 2007 and followed it up straight away with a win in the same competition at Royal Birkdale in the following year.
He’s won three Majors in his time and thirty-one professional tournaments in total, so he knows what it takes to compete at the business end of things. Ok, so his last win worth talking about came in the Portugal Masters at the tail-end of 2016, but there’s got to be a reason he’s currently thought of as a 100/1 shot. This might be more a case of a cheeky Each-Way punt rather than a big outright Win bet, but this a time to dream.
Sandy Lyle (2,000/1)
If you really do want to place a bet on an outsider then how does 2,000/1 option Sandy Lyle sound to you? This year might well be his final Open Championship, so could we see one last hurrah from the man that has won two Majors during his career? Probably not, to be fair, but he did win The Open in 1985 so he’s got some pedigree. He hasn’t made the cut in a major since the Masters in 2014, however. With the fairways running quicker than the greens, this will be one of the most interesting Opens of all time!