2023 Open Championship Betting Preview

The Open Championship is known for its iconic courses and wacky weather. 

When setting up the golf courses for The Open, the R&A does not artificially toughen the tracks, like we see with some of the other majors. Instead, they let Mother Nature dictate whether it will be a 3-under winner or a 20-under winner. That is the range of winning scores we’ve seen at the event over the last 10 years. 

Going back to the weather, this event draws some big tee-time splits largely due to the structure of the tee times. They don’t have “waves” like we see most weeks on the PGA Tour but instead they run threesomes off the first tee which means a large gap between the earliest and latest tee times. 

As of Tuesday morning, this looks like some of the tamest pre-cut weather that we could see for an Open Championship. It looks fairly consistent with winds forecasted at 8 to 12 MPH with gusts not quite flirting with 20 MPH. 

With the weather talk behind us, let’s start the process of breaking down the event which always starts with looking at the layout to find a course fit. 

Course Fit

The first stop each week is Alex Blickle’s course fit article: 

We both run similar models (with slight differences) that looks at past events to grade the stats that provide the most predictive power. When looking at past Open Championships we both found very little signal with driving stats. 

St. Andrews is a bit of an outlier in that regard, but most host courses for The Open lend themselves to being positional, less-than-driver tracks. You can check out the split stats to see who performs well on other less-than-driver courses. 

With little or no weight on driving, the other categories have to see a bump in importance. Alex and I both agree that approach and around-the-green are the two areas that show the highest predictive power at these Open Championship courses. We should expect that to continue this week at Royal Liverpool. 

When I grade out the recent, lead-in stats, here are the top 10 names when focusing on approach and around-the-green play: Tommy Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Viktor Hovland, Tony Finau, Harris English, Brooks Koepka, Si Woo Kim and Jordan Spieth. 

Outright Odds

Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:

It’s a two-man race at the top of the odds board but whopping 13 names at 30-1 or lower odds. They aren’t giving us any favors near the top of the board, so for pre-tournament shopping I like the idea of starting with any longshots you like and add some pre-tournament favorites at reduced, in-tourney live odds. 

Odds Shopping

Speaking of shopping, using our prop shop tool is vital when it comes to saving time and money betting golf. Let me point out one example of the difference it can make. 

Denny McCarthy Top 40 Finish

Best available: +130 (FanDuel Sportsbook)
Worst available: -110

The difference between a +130 line and -110 is massive so over the long run you are going to cripple your bankroll if you jump into bets blind instead of using the prop shop tool to find the best book for the bet. 

As for the McCarthy bet in particular, what do I like about him this week? Well, this one is simple. He has top-10s in three of his last four starts with a T20 in the other. He’s playing the best golf of his life, currently 17th in the field in weighted baseline performance. 

His only weakness is driving (distance) and that gets somewhat muted at a course like Royal Liverpool. He doesn’t have any Open Championship experience but it’s hard to pass this number up when he’s finished outside of the top 40 just twice in his last 10 starts. 

Check out the PGA bet tracker for more plays from Alex and me. 

Alex and Justin will share some of their thoughts on Pro vs. Pro with their real-life expertise always providing a unique angle to capping the event, relative to the rest of the data-crunching industry. 

With huge prize pools for the season’s final major, it’s a great time to check out the PGA product at FTNBets and FTNDaily. The golf world never stops as the playoffs are just around the corner and that is followed by an exciting, revamped fall schedule. It’s a good time to join, use promo code CULP for 20% off.