With The Open Championship beginning at the very strong Royal St Georges course on Thursday, we have just enough time to have a look at the many side markets that have been priced up for the tournament to give us even more outright interest.
We have all the usual markets that come with a major tournament such as the various nationality and region markets as well as the hole in one and make and miss the cut ones too. There are bets I like in three of them.
Top Irish Player
There are four players in the Top Irish market this year and we have a competitive market as a result of that. You would think we would have an odds on shot in this field given that Rory McIlroy is here but that isn’t the case.
Indeed all four players in this market have won this tournament before. There is the 2014 winner McIlroy, the effective Royal St Georges defending champion Darren Clarke, twice champion Padraig Harrington and the defending champion Shane Lowry. McIlroy leaks too many drives for my liking given the thickness of this rough while Clarke should be competitive in this company. Lowry is the defending champion which leaves Harrington who went well enough last week and reminded us that he can still play links golf at Kiawah Island. I do think this is between Lowry and Harrington and their short game is very similar. At three times the price I’ll side with the Ryder Cup captain here.
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Top Canadian
Another market where there are only four runners is the Top Canadian market where the favourite is the PGA Tour star Corey Conners. I understand why he is the favourite but he has missed his last two cuts and in the main his form has been on the decline since he opened up with the lead in the USPGA Championship.
That leaves me wanting to take him on with Mackenzie Hughes, Adam Hadwin and Richard T Lee. The latter should be a little out of his depth at this level and is priced accordingly while Hadwin has missed three cuts in his last four events and wasn’t really a factor in the other one. He only has two top 10s all season which highlights a lack of form. I like Hughes here. He went well at Torrey Pines and drives it straight enough to stay in play here. Conners does that too so the difference between the two may well come in the form of their short game where Hughes is a mile ahead of his fellow Canadian and at 5/2 he looks a fair price in this market.
To Miss the Cut
Everyone in the field is priced up in the final market I have an interest in this week but there is only one player I am targeting in it and that comes in the form of the former US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau for whom I don’t think Royal St Georges is anything like a perfect match.
DeChambeau has played this tournament three times and missed the cut in two of them. He was outside the top 50 in the other so this isn’t his favourite event anyway but there is no ground it and pound it strategy to be applied here so the biggest weapon in the artillery of DeChambeau is immediately neutralised. I don’t see the American adopting another play though so he’ll still look to pound the driver but if he leaves the fairway here he’s toast. Even if he changes his game to rein it in and find the fairways his tough from short to mid-iron range has been out in recent times and his short game isn’t good enough to be playing this course from around the greens. There is just too much against DeChambeau here so the 11/4 that he doesn’t compete in the final 36 holes looks a little too big to me.
Tips
Back P.Harrington Top Irish Player for a 1/10 stake at 6.50 with Coral
Back M.Hughes Top Canadian Player for a 2/10 stake at 3.75 with Coral
Back B.DeChambeau to miss the cut for a 2/10 stake at 3.75 with Coral
Back them here:
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