MLB Best Bets – Free (Wednesday 7/24)
Josh Gross
The PGA season’s final major is upon us as we head across the pond for The 152nd Open, set to be played at Royal Troon.
Royal Troon is the host with the most this week, playing that role for the 10th time at the event, and first since the 2016 edition.
During that 2016 Open Championship, we saw a duel for the ages break out between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson. They took advantage of the early-week weather advantage and never looked back. Stenson reached 20-under while Phil was three shots behind him. The next closest was J.B. Holmes way back at 6-under. Only 17 golfers ended in red numbers. The field averaged just a 15% birdie or better rate while swallowing bogey or worse on 22% of the holes.
Adding over 100 yards to the test this time around, this par 71 can now stretch to 7,385 yards from the tips. There are four very short par 4s while there are three lengthy par 4s and a couple of beefy par 5s. Overall, it results in a good blend of hole lengths that caters to all types of players. As Bryson put it Tuesday, “I don’t think it’s possible to overpower (Royal Troon). You’ve got to be very strategic out here.”
From a course-fit standpoint, I want to focus on some of the key attributes of the course or event in general. Then we can compare those splits with each golfers baseline stats to see who might like the unique challenge.
When honing in on the splits this week, I want to look at past performance on tough courses, links layouts, coastal courses, and finish up with performance in major championships. This blends the physical with the mental challenge that comes along with playing an Open Championship.
If we weigh all of those split stats, here are the names who show the biggest increase in performance over their baseline.
A few of these guys can mash it but overall my first thought here is seeing guys that know how to strategize and build a good game plan for a course. High-pressure putting comes to mind as well.
Head over to the Split Stats page to see who the top performers are in these split stat categories. A few others to consider include performance in the wind, GB&I or performance on courses with slow greens.
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
Scheffler is back in action this week after a short break and he slots right back in at the top of the board, as expected. One thing that stands out here is that big-game Brooks Koepka is missing from the top 10 on the odds list. That could be worth a further look.
Burns has a shockingly poor record in majors but did land a top 10 in his most recent, the U.S. Open. Combine that with a T10 at the Canadian Open and T15 at Memorial, he has top 15s in three of his last four starts.
Thompson can say the same. Both are playing pretty good golf. Over the last year, though, Burns has edged Thompson 17-7-2 when playing the same course on the same day. On that fact alone, this price should probably be flipped.
Then you add in Thompson’s comments from last week about his (lack of) experience on links, “I’ve played Bandon Dunes over in the States, but this is my first time in Scotland, and yeah, not a lot of experience.”
These two tee off within four groups of each other so their shouldn’t be much of a weather angle to either side so I will back the long-term results of Burns here.
Like so many stars of the game, the Open Championship wasn’t love at first sight. At least in terms of results, finishing T44 or worse in his first three visits. Since then, he’s bagged podium finishes in two of his last three tries at The Open.
The narrative around Rahm is that he hasn’t won since joining LIV but with top 5s in five of his nine starts, he’s not fallen off the map entirely.
Taking the long-term view, he ranks third in the field in top-five rate on courses with similar splits (29%). That’s not surprising since he was a part of the “Big 3” not too long ago. He’s priced nowhere near that Big 3 now, though.
I think he’s too talented to stay down for long and this looks like a great price and great costal venue to buy-low on the Spaniard.
Take everything I said about Spieth last week and apply it again, but this time we see 3x the time on his top-10 price and a weather forecast that should cater more to his creativity.
We’ve seen him post top 10s in five of his last eight starts at The Open, and he wasn’t always in top form heading into those big finishes.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the Discord to get those bet alerts.
