Ben Coley’s preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: The Open Championship

3pts e.w. Tommy Fleetwood at 22/1 (Paddy Power, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

2pts e.w. Jon Rahm at 25/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Tony Finau at 45/1 (Paddy Power, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

1.5pts e.w. Patrick Cantlay at 45/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

1pt e.w. Wyndham Clark at 80/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Harris English at 250/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

0.5pt e.w. Shubhankar Sharma at 750/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

The Open Championship might be the last bastion of golf as it came to be, the place where yes you’ll see all of its modern muscles – the courtesy cars and TrackMan consoles, the entourages and the Whoop bands – but can never miss its soul. Now more than ever, it is something extremely special that will be cherished by lovers of the game across the world. For many youngsters in particular, this is where lifelong memories are made.

It isn’t just that none of us could say for certain just how much the winner will earn this week, it’s that their path to the Claret Jug is sure to involve complicated questions with multiple possible answers. To win an Open is to achieve something different and to know that however brilliant you might have been, you were also blessed by fortune. Deference to something bigger is part of the deal.

That it’s the final major of the men’s calendar is in some ways fitting, but mostly unfortunate. For as long as this sport remains committed to a 12-month rolling calendar, a gap of almost nine between the final shots here and the first at Augusta will be preposterous. But now probably isn’t the time to dwell on that. This week is to be enjoyed from beginning to end and I’m not here to put any kind of dampener on it.

Royal Troon may not be anyone’s favourite Open course, but neither is it anyone’s least favourite, and it has some spectacular features. Seldom are we viewers brought as close to the sea as we are here, for starters, but my favourite part might be the rhythm of the golf course and how it lends itself to a fantastic championship from the moment the first balls are struck, shortly after dawn on Thursday morning.

Troon can be broken up into three parts and under prevailing conditions, holes one to six are by far the most generous. Three short par-fours represent an open-arms welcome and two par-fives soon follow. That the second of them sets another new record for the longest hole in Open history is neither here nor there and it feels certain that there will be players for whom birdie at the sixth sends them to part two of the course perhaps four or five-under par.

From the seventh through the famous Postage Stamp eighth, then onto the brutal stretch from nine to 11, the next section is threatening. Still, if you are five-under standing on the tee at a par-three that can play under a hundred yards, how tempting it must be to go and take another shot from the course. This dynamic, complemented by the Open’s commitment to sending everyone out from the first, is fascinating. When you tee off in a major you’re meant to know that this is a marathon, but if you can’t break into a sprint, the pressure is really on by the turn.

Also of note is that these first six holes go along the coast, then the next play this way and that, calling to mind Muirfield, or the turn at the Old Course. Then comes the journey home, back along the coast; longer and, more often than not, into the wind. The six longest par-fours at Troon are on the back-nine, which is more than 300 yards longer than the front, and more than that again if the wind is against.

If there is a key to winning here, many locals would say ‘stay out of the bunkers’ and that’s what shock champion Todd Hamilton did 20 years ago, finding just one all week as he wore the faces out of his three-wood and hybrids. Twelve years later, Henrik Stenson, the most accurate driver among the game’s elite golfers and one of the best mid-iron players of his generation, did something similar, producing an inspired performance to reach 20-under and beat Phil Mickelson in what was a fabulous remake of the Duel in the Sun.

Not that Troon is easy. Third place that week went to JB Holmes in six-under par, 14 behind Stenson, and while it’s common for somebody to reach double-digits around here, there won’t be many, if any, who do. On that, the weather will have the final say: as of now, there’s the promise of a decent breeze and we can only hope that it doesn’t heavily favour one side of the draw. In 2016, those who teed off early in round one were at a huge disadvantage, and it was two afternoon starters who had things between them.

It has been a horribly wet UK summer and the turf is green, not brown, which while firm enough will take some of the sting out of the challenge. Gareth Lord, who caddied for Stenson, says the rain does at least mean the rough is thick and gnarly, but a 7,385-yard links course which will provide some run is not long by today’s standards, and I doubt driver will be needed all that often. Still, anything like the 20mph forecast for the weekend and we’re in for a serious test and a wonderful spectacle.

There are few things certain and that is the beauty of the Open. Not always does it deliver everything we’d like and Brian Harman’s putter removed any sense of jeopardy late on at Hoylake, but purists will be able to feast on wall-to-wall coverage of golf at something close to its most interesting, whether the top end of the leaderboard is part of that or not.

For my money, only at a calm St Andrews would the very top of the market hold serious appeal and my shortest priced Open selection down the years was 16/1 Jordan Spieth when he won in 2017. Back then he was the world number three, arriving having won his latest start. Such a profile seven years on would mean single-figure prices and while I believe that Rory McIlroy is the player most likely to give his running, having done so from the wrong side of the draw when last we were at Troon, there’s too much risk involved to be taking 15/2.

TOMMY FLEETWOOD heads the staking plan then and the first thing to say is that you can totally disregard his missed cut in 2016, which came following a run of MC-MC-69-MC-MC-62 and some of the worst golf of his career.

“Well I played terrible,” Fleetwood said last week when asked by the PA news agency for his memories of that Open. “I was really struggling with my game at the time. Troon was pretty much at that point where I was at my lowest.”

Since then, he’s barely been out of things in this Championship, making every cut and so often contending. The following year was tricky, coming as it did with expectations as he was playing very much at home having recently contended for the US Open. From Carnoustie onwards, that being the last five renewals, he’s entered the final round inside the top 10 four times.

With a strong record in the Dunhill Links and the Scottish Open, and having grown up honing his sawn-off follow-through at places like Hoylake, Birkdale, Hillside and Lytham, Fleetwood is an out-and-out links specialist, with a rounded game featuring some of the more underrated chipping in golf.

As for how he’s playing, Fleetwood was frustrated last Saturday as he explained why he felt he hadn’t been getting as much out of rounds as he should. The way he struck the ball throughout that scintillating third round summed it up but he went into Sunday ranked 69th in putting, which is where he remained once a mid-pack 34th had been signed for.

Prior to that the putter also let him down at River Highlands, where he was 15th, but bar Bay Hill he’s spent the entire last seven months playing well and his game looks in generally excellent health. The putter has been decent if unspectacular and it’s what he’ll spend the next few days focused on improving, I’m sure.

He does actually remind me of Shane Lowry ahead of his Open win in 2019. Back then, Lowry had begun the year with a win, just as Fleetwood did in January, and been hinting at another big performance in the run-up to Portrush. Yes, his price was bigger, but Fleetwood’s form and pedigree are both superior and, at ninth in the DataGolf rankings, he’s playing some of the very best golf of his career.

Pound-for-pound he’d be a top-five links golfer with me and he’s also a proven major performer, finally cracking Augusta for third place in April to go with top-fives in the other three. And as well as beating McIlroy to begin 2024, his clutch performance to help seal the Ryder Cup, just as USA threatened an unlikely turnaround, is something which might help him to take the one final step remaining in a stellar career.

Finally, timing is so often the key. Harman came here having started to make everything he looked at, Cameron Smith having contended for majors and won some big titles and then met with an ideal, risk-reward Open course. For Fleetwood, the return of his close friend and caddie, Ian Finnis, could make all the difference, the pair getting back to business at The Renaissance to hopefully prime themselves for Troon.

“I think your ultimate goal when you’re playing is to be in the most pressurised moments and the most difficult situations that you can face, so when you have someone that knows you, that you’re comfortable with that’s very good with your golf game, it can only ever be an advantage,” said Fleetwood last week, and he might feel it’s the final piece of the puzzle.

Granted a bit of luck with the draw, he may well be proven right.

Rely on Rahm being ready

Come Monday, I wonder how much we’ll be talking about the best way to prepare for an Open. Nine of the last 13 winners played in Scotland the week before and of the four who didn’t, three had their games in absolutely peak condition. Francesco Molinari for instance had two wins and two runner-up finishes in five previous starts, and both Spieth and Zach Johnson were contending week in, week out.

Lowry doesn’t fit either criteria, having neither played in Scotland nor been absolutely firing on all cylinders, but we’re talking about an exception in every sense. This was a player at home on the links, at home in a literal sense, familiar with Portrush since childhood. He had been preparing on links golf courses and so has Scottie Scheffler, who was at Turnberry at the weekend. Either could challenge the idea that the Scottish Open is beneficial.

The bigger question mark is LIV Golf, who’ve been to Nashville then on to Valderrama. There were actually two Valderrama champions inside the top 10 here back in 2016 but that’s probably coincidental, and one of the tightest, most densely tree-lined courses in Europe bears no resemblance to Troon. I feel certain that if the contracted LIV Golf players were free to play wherever they wanted, it would not have been there.

However, JON RAHM‘s price more than allows for that and I want to give the Spaniard another chance to remind us all that he’s one of this generation’s standout players.

We could talk all day about buyer’s remorse, and whether or not Rahm is absolutely thrilled to be out on the LIV Golf circuit. It seems clear he’d taken a calculated gamble, that he would be the domino that led to the two tours aligning, and with any such agreement seemingly having stalled it won’t perhaps have been easy for him.

Rahm has missed playing on the PGA Tour, of that there is absolutely no doubt, but the case here can be made without having to get to the bottom of his state of mind. He’s a professional golfer of the highest calibre and at some stage, likely very soon, he’ll get back to playing like one.

As for missing the Scottish Open, he did that last year and it didn’t stop him finishing runner-up to Harman. Rahm had in fact arrived on the back of a missed cut in a small-field event almost a month earlier, so once again I’m trusting him to be prepared even if it seems on the face of it that he has not been so far this year.

The reasons for giving him the benefit of the doubt are two-fold: price, and, in a different way, preparation. Rahm led the field in greens hit at Valderrama last week and sounded more upbeat about his game than at any point so far this year. He said that he’d been battling some swing thoughts earlier in the season but was now playing free from them; it was clear he felt that 10th place, following third in Nashville, was his best run so far in terms of the overall state of his game.

Ultimately he didn’t putt well and made one or two costly mistakes at the wrong time, and it won’t surprise me one bit if that’s the diagnosis again come the weekend. That being said he’s been inside the top three in two of his last three Open Championships, he made the cut here from the worst of the draw on his Open debut in 2016, and he’s a winner at both Portstewart and Lahinch in the Irish Open.

This is Rahm’s third and final chance to show that joining LIV Golf didn’t set him back to the extent that he sacrificed a year’s worth of majors. Win this, and he’ll head to the PGA Championship in 2025 in search of the career grand slam, and as likely than anyone to go ahead and complete it. A better start than he’s so far managed and all this might soon feel entirely possible at what’s an almost unimaginably big price.

In-form Open specialist overpriced

Lowry is typically among my Open selections but his overall record is becoming a bit patchy and the market probably has him about right, even taking into account the fact we do have to elevate him up any ranking list when under links conditions. No, he hasn’t always delivered in this, but who among us would be surprised were he to emulate his friend and mentor Padraig Harrington, and win the Claret Jug twice?

Above all else, the thing I want most in a selection this week is some substance to their Open record, the kind Harman had, and so in his own way did Smith, who had played well for 54 holes in each of the previous two. Lowry had been ninth, as had Molinari, and Spieth had missed the St Andrews play-off by a shot. Stenson had contended several times, ditto Zach Johnson; McIlroy of course had been undone by the draw in 2010, and really the only Open winners without Open form lately were Collin Morikawa (2021) and Louis Oosthuizen (2010).

Next on the list then is TONY FINAU, who made his Open debut here in 2016 and finished 18th, one of six top-30 finishes in succession before he putted too badly to extend that run last year, instead missing the cut.

Back then though, Finau’s overall form had been very poor by his standards whereas right now he’s among the hottest players around, a change in putter helping to trigger a run of 18-17-8-3-5 over his last five starts, two in majors, all bar one in extremely strong fields.

It was in fact his short-game which did most of the heavy lifting in the Travelers last time and for my money he’s one of the most underrated players in the sport when it comes not only to his approach play, which is outstanding, but his chipping and pitching.

A proper shot-maker who works the ball both ways and can hit all kinds of trajectories, his versatility explains why he’s been inside the top 10 in a third of his 33 major starts, dating back almost a decade now, and so often he’s been at his most effective under conditions somewhat akin to these.

That’s why it wasn’t a shock to see him contending at Pinehurst and if he continues to putt better than average, there’s every chance he’s in the mix. This will be the first time Finau returns to an Open venue he’s played before and while he’s been absent since June, we’re talking about a player yet to take part in the Scottish Open previously.

Third place in 2019 followed his appearance in the 3M Open, ninth at Carnoustie came after the Greenbrier, and he’d been 74th in the Quicken Loans National before his first Open here eight years ago. We may never know whether playing The Renaissance might be beneficial but what we do know is that not playing there hasn’t stopped him from building a fine Open record so far.

This is the major for the experienced 30-something to get one over the young guns and if it isn’t McIlroy underlining that point, or indeed Fleetwood, then it could well be Finau. He’s paid his dues and at close to 50/1 rates a smashing bet.

As touched upon, those who’ve won the Open without playing links golf in the build-up have almost all been in exceptional form and that’s also the case with PATRICK CANTLAY.

He’s a really big price to my eye, especially after finally sticking around all week in a major at the US Open last month. So often, majors are won by those who almost won a recent one, sometimes the single most recent one, and that was the case at Pinehurst with Bryson DeChambeau.

For Cantlay, combining that with his gutsy Ryder Cup effort confirms to me that he’s very much a potential major champion and I expect seeing his closest friend, Xander Schauffele, capture the US PGA also had something to do with it. Certainly, it wouldn’t be the first time that this has happened and when Adam Scott won the Masters, Justin Rose text to say ‘this is our time’, then duly won the US Open.

Cantlay also has a solid Open record, finishing 12th at Carnoustie on his delayed first try and adding eighth at St Andrews in 2022. Only at Royal St George’s has he missed the cut and that was by a narrow margin at one of the funkier courses on the rota, where many players feel uncomfortable.

Like Finau, he’s prepared in all kinds of ways for majors and that first go at Carnoustie came in his first start since the Travelers, the formula he’s now set to repeat. I’d still have liked him to be in Scotland but we’re being compensated, because this is a top-class golfer by any and every measure, and he’s lower than that in the betting. Among DataGolf‘s top 10, he’s twice the price of the next longest, and that seems peculiar.

‘I love the variety and imagination’

Cameron Young’s Open record (2-6) merits respect but one of those was at St Andrews, a very different test which can be passed with exceptional driving prowess, and I’m not sure he’ll really look like a proper links specialist when his time is up. Tom Kim might and makes more appeal, with his precision a likely weapon, but 22-year-old Open winners are rare and he’d in fact be the youngest in the post-War era, taking over from Seve Ballesteros.

Perhaps it’ll prove a mistake on my part to dwell on his date of birth but at bigger odds I don’t need much of an excuse to side with WYNDHAM CLARK instead.

With Clark we do have to accept that an Open top-10 is lacking but he has made the cut in both appearances, only one of which came after his ascent to world-class levels. That was last year and he was close to the places for most of the week (11th at halfway), eventually settling for 33rd thanks to a cold putter.

As I said earlier, timing is everything and he now comes to an Open having putted well on links greens for the very first time in five attempts, which helped him to power through the field for 10th place in the Scottish Open on Sunday. It was a very similar performance to those of Harman (12th) and Smith (10th) and Morikawa is again an outlier here: most Open champions arrived after a good week somewhere.

Having also rattled home for ninth in the Travelers, Clark is one of just a handful who arrive at Troon on the back of successive top-10 finishes, and he’s also one of the elite golfers who has won in elite company this year. Yes, he was a tad fortunate not to have to go out and get the job done at Pebble Beach, where he led through 54 holes when play was abandoned, but there’s obviously a decent chance he’d have done it.

Later runner-up twice to Scheffler in Florida, then third behind him at Harbour Town, Clark’s best golf in 2024 has been equal to just about anyone bar the tournament favourite and the other two major champions and with a strong Scottish Open record to draw upon, I do think this style of golf suits.

Gladly, so does Clark, as he explained last year: “I played the Amateur Championship in Portrush and then I spent another six, seven days in Ireland, played a bunch of links courses and that’s where I was first exposed to it.

“I just fell in love, I think it’s the purest test of golf. It’s more fun than I think any other golf that we have around the world just because every day is different. I love the variety and the imagination.”

That sort of attitude is a great start given that there are some players in this field who definitely don’t love being out on the links, and an in-form major champion with the game for these conditions, whose putter has come good, looks overpriced at above 50/1. Americans, by the way, have bossed the Open at Troon down the years, and they’re often underrated in the betting.

At least four of last year’s top 10 could be classed as genuine outsiders but there really weren’t many of those across the previous few renewals and my inclination is to try and focus on players with what could be called realistic win prospects. Everyone will have their own definition of that and some will cling to Todd Hamilton’s surprise win in 2004, but he was the world number 56 and a winner that year on the PGA Tour.

Of those at monster prices, SHUBHANKAR SHARMA perhaps has the most to recommend him and while it is undeniably hard to imagine him making history for India, I can’t leave him out at the odds.

He was fifth two starts ago, eighth in this last year, and striped it last week, where he closed with a round of 65. That’s quite a compelling combination for a player who has made the cut in all three Open starts and can be backed at 750/1 in places.

Sharma was in no sort of form this time last year whereas he returns having had two chances to win in his last 10 starts, before signing off from the Scottish Open on a high with a round of 65.

His iron play and putting are both outstanding so while we’ll need him to tidy up off the tee and avoid those pot bunkers, 500/1 and bigger, which he is virtually across the board as I type, has to be worth a small go.

English winner in Scotland?

Finally I’ll side with someone who has a good bit more pedigree in majors, HARRIS ENGLISH.

His three top-10 finishes have all come in the US Open but he’s made five Open cuts, with a best of 15th so far. Notably, perhaps, he struck the ball well and finished 46th when playing here, but was one of those on the wrong side of the draw and can be upgraded as a result.

To underline his sneaky majors pedigree he has two top-25s from three this year, neither of them at his beloved US Open, and I like the way he hit the ball last week. Like Sharma, English closed with a round of 65 and he was more solid off the tee than he can be, while ranking 10th in greens hit.

It’s three years now since he won but his closest calls since have come on tough courses in elite company, which is how he likes it. And I do wonder if the fact that he’s so close with Harman, to the extent he was waiting for him at St Simons Island airport when Harman returned to the US after winning the Open, might serve as a little inspiration should it be needed.

Ultimately he’s one of the few outsiders I believe has the class and pedigree to go ahead and become the biggest-priced Open winner since Hamilton at 250/1 with 10 places and 275/1 with eight at the time of writing. As such, we’ll make room for him in the staking plan and hope that he does what he’s certainly capable of, and produces a putting display something like his friend did 12 months ago.

Posted at 1700 BST on 15/07/24

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