This year’s Open Championship will be held at the Old Course at Royal Troon in Scotland — a par-71 that measures 7,385 yards.
The last time the course hosted The Open was in 2016, when Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson put on an epic battle in extremely difficult conditions.
A classic links course, Royal Troon features the longest hole in Open Championship history (623-yard No. 6) and the famous postage stamp (123-yard No. 8).
As is usually the case in the U.K., weather will have a major impact on scoring.
The forecast calls for 20-plus-mph gusts on most of the days during the tournament.
Given how small the greens are and how much trouble there is off the tee, expect a low rate for greens hit in regulation.
This is not a course where golfers are going to be able to overpower off the tee.
They will have to contend with several blind tee shots, numerous fairway bunkers and gorse bushes and tall fescue if you stray too far offline.
Royal Troon is a strategic course, which is why both total driving and links experience are high on my list in picking outright winners.
I will also be looking at strokes-gained approach, scrambling, Open Championship experience and strokes gained per round in windy conditions.
Here are my best bets for the weekend:
Xander Schauffele (12/1, BetMGM)
Enjoying a career year, Schauffele already has 11 top-10 finishes and even picked up his first major championship (PGA Championship) a couple of months ago.
He’s elite in all four of the strokes-gained categories (off the tee, on approach, around the green and putting) and doesn’t have the same scar tissue as Rory McIlroy, who has let three majors slip through his fingers in the last couple of years.
Schauffele has an excellent track record on links courses and nearly won The Open in 2018.
Since then, he’s posted finishes of T41, T26, T15 and T17 at this event.
Now that he has a major under his belt, he shouldn’t be intimidated if he’s in the mix Sunday.
Tyrrell Hatton (28/1, DraftKings)
Hatton didn’t win on the PGA Tour last year, but had one of the most consistent seasons of any golfer.
He then joined LIV earlier this year and has been somewhat of an afterthought for casual golf fans.
However, he has posted a top 10 at The Masters and was in contention at the U.S. Open until a bad Sunday dropped him to 26th.
He’s played in two LIV events since then, winning one and finishing third in the other.
He’s long been one of the best links players in the world and has three top-20 finishes at The Open Championship in the last four years.
He is capable of being positive in all four of the strokes-gained categories.
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Hideki Matsuyama (50/1, BetMGM)
For every major, I write a betting-trends story for Action Network based on the winners of each event over the last 10 years.
This week, I found seven trends for the Open Championship and only four golfers met them all: Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele and Matsuyama, who won earlier this year at the Genesis Invitational.
Matsuyama has a top-10 and four top-20s at The Open (T13 last year), a recent top-10 at a major (T6 at The Players Championship in March), and is second on the PGA Tour in scrambling, which I expect to play a big role this week.
He’s coming off a missed cut at the Scottish Open, but he gained 4.7 strokes tee to green in the two rounds he played.
We can forgive him for one awful week on the greens (-4.8 strokes putting). He’s sneaky this week and has some very enticing odds in the outright market.