With the Open Championship less than a week away, Niall Lyons breaks down what the top trends are for Open success and who will have a chance this year.
The Scottish Open will no doubt prove a fascinating insight into what is to follow next week in Liverpool and it's worth noting that seven of the last 11 Open Champions kicked off their Open preparations by a jaunt to Scotland. That statistic probably isn't strong enough to follow just yet but there are a handful of others worthy of serious consideration.
2023 Open Championship Tips
With the majors we tend to concentrate on the world's top 30 and that is no different at the Open. Only two players this century have won the Open outside the world's top 100 and the average world ranking of the winners in that stage is 13 despite the huge number of Ben Curtis who was ranked 396th before winning at St George's.
Therefore the world rankings, which are somewhat under the microscope with the LIV players, are still a great place to start. As pointed out in many of my trends articles recently, the previous major result is a huge pointer towards future performance and the only exception to that rule I would suggest would be someone like Wyndham Clark (55/1) who clearly had an abundance of talent and a win earlier in the season prior to his major victory.
Betfred
- Huge range of regular promotions
- 24/7 live chat service
- PickYourPunt builder for custom bets
In terms of the Open Championship, I'll look back to 2011 which takes in a couple of cycles of the Open course rota. 10 of the last 11 winners had played in four previous Opens which suggests experience around these layouts in differing conditions is a big feather in the cap.
Nine of the last 11 winners had posted an Open top 10 prior to their win and this isn't surprising as very few will come to these shores and master this Championship without previously having shown some artistry on these examinations.
10 of the last 11 winners had at least four top-10 finishes that season before winning the Open whilst nine of the 11 had already won that season. These are strong enough trends to eliminate a fair handful in the top 30 in the world. Zalatoris doesn't go due to injury.
Four fit the bill in the top 30 in the world so let's start with Cameron Smith (16/1). Only one of the last 11 winners in this Championship were winning it for the second time so it's not an easy task to win it again, never mind defending it. For the moment Koepka is the only LIV golfer to win a major since moving tours and despite many solid efforts from that crew I remain unconvinced that anyone other than Brooks may oblige for the moment.
McIlroy Odds to win the Open
McIlroy (15/2) has the hurdle of becoming a multiple winner of this event, as well as trying to defend his ''Liverpool' title as this was the scene of his one triumph in this event. It is difficult to separate Rahm (12/1) and Fowler (22/1) but the vote for the trends goes to Fowler as his hunger burns brighter due to him being a non major winner.
The overwhelming majority of major winners in the past ten years have been first-timers and that swings it in the American's favour. Fowler has only once been out of the top 20 in his last 11 events and has a bank of Open form to draw upon. In 11 tries here he has a runner-up finish back in 2014, two further top six finishes and has only missed the cut once. Coming in with some of the hottest form in the world, it looks like this could be the time that Fowler breaks his major duck.
2023 Open Odds
| Golfer | Best Odds | Worst Price |
|---|---|---|
| Rory McIlory | 15/2 | 7/1 |
| Scottie Scheffler | 9/1 | 8/1 |
| John Rahm | 12/1 | 9/1 |
| Cameron Smith | 16/1 | 14/1 |
| Brooks Koepka | 18/1 | 12/1 |
