The first day of The Open is in the books and the players weren’t challenged too much in the end due to the seriously benign conditions out on the links at Royal Troon but that is all set to change on Friday as the weather take a turn for the worse and low scoring turns into a battle of survival.
Thursday Recap
It was a really calm opening day and as such the scoring was really good. Phil Mickelson leads the way in the tournament having shot an eight under par round of 63 and had a putt lip out on the last to be the first man to shoot 62 in a major championship.
He leads by three from Patrick Reed and Martin Kaymer with a whole host of players on four under par including our pre-tournament pick Tony Finau, the defending champion Zach Johnson, Soren Kjeldsen and Andy Sullivan among a number of others.
It wasn’t a great day for the top four in the world. Dustin Johnson couldn’t get anything going and could only shoot level par, the same score that Jordan Spieth managed but that was two shots better than Jason Day who was very disappointing. Rory McIlroy had it really going on the front nine but had to settle for a two under 69 in the end.
As for our bets we had an easy winner with Andy Sullivan while Nicolas Colsaerts tied his three ball but we were out of luck with the two longshots as Shane Lowry and Hideki Matsuyama couldn’t get the job done. To complete an annoying day Rafa Cabrera-Bello was a shot outside the places in the first round leader market.
Friday 3 balls
With a shortage of end of round leader markets to go at it is all about the three balls for me on Friday where I’m going with just two. We should make it clear that the wind is expected to kick up approaching lunchtime and not relent and the rain is expected to be constant so conditions are going to be dramatically different to the ones we saw on Thursday.
In terms of the Andy Sullivan, James Hahn and Satoshi Kodaira group I don’t think that will make any difference. Sullivan won the group by a full seven and nine shots respectively and I don’t see the American or the Japanese player turning that around over these 18 holes especially in tough conditions.
Sullivan is used to playing in tricky conditions coming from Europe and a bit of wind and rain isn’t going to set him back too much. I’m absolutely amazed we can get any sort of price on him here but I’m more than happy to get stuck into that especially given his dominance on Thursday.
The second match I’m getting involved in will be out when the wind is expected to be at its strongest. It is the one between Alex Noren, Kevin Chappell and Steven Bowditch. We can take Bowditch out of the equation. He is playing rubbish in benign conditions let alone tough ones. I have this as a match between the other two.
Noren finished a shot ahead of Chappell in the opening round and I think the Swede is a good thing to extend that advantage on Friday. He comes in here having won at Castle Stuart last week where he rode some pretty tough conditions at times and is hitting the ball really nice. We know he’ll play well in these conditions but we don’t know how Chappell will cope.
Even if he does cope ok I’m not sure he will have the beating of Noren given that he couldn’t beat him when conditions probably favoured the American on Friday. At odds against Noren looks the obvious call in that group on Friday.
Tips
Back A.Sullivan to beat J.Hahn & S.Kodaira for a 5/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfair
WON – Back A.Noren to beat K.Chappell & S.Bowditch for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
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