Golf betting tips for The Open: Expert picks for golf's Open Championship
Two nice winners at the US Open followed on from a 28/1 shot in the US PGA, so what do our team of experts have in store for the 149th Open Championship?
Harris English to finish in the top 10
Former Sky Sports Golf editor Dave Tindall is a regular contributor to betting.betfair.com and various other publications. Read his outright preview for Betfair by clicking here.
After some fairly awful attempts at getting a winner in this column, I managed to land one last time by picking HARRIS ENGLISH at 6/1 to finish in the top 10 at the US Open. The American came with a late run to take third spot, one place better than he managed in the 2020 edition.
Having added a win next time out at the Travelers Championship (his latest start) and climbed to 12th in the world, he obviously won't be those sort of odds again. Except he will. English is exactly the same odds to repeat the feat. The price is due to suspicion over his ability to play links golf but his Open record shows a 15th and four cuts made out of five. Now playing the best golf of his career, the 31-year-old is value once more to give us another winner in the top-10 finish market.
Phil Mickelson to be the top left-hander
Tom Jacobs is the creator and host of golf podcast Lost Fore Words, which features interviews with coaches and players, plus weekly previews of the biggest events in golf.
There could of course be some recency bias in this selection given PHIL MICKELSON’s heroics at the PGA Championship, but I also think there is logic. Robert MacIntyre heads the market for obvious reasons, but finds himself paired with the popular American duo of Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele, which will no doubt attract some big crowds. Despite playing very well in majors so far in his career, it has generally been in low-key affairs outside of his Open debut and that additional attention this week on top of extra pressure may tell.
MacIntyre played well enough in Scotland last week but missed some vital putts and with an increased demand on a solid short game, and more fairways , he can be opposed.
Second favourite Garrick Higgo has had a thrilling start to his career, winning seven times across five tours before his 22nd birthday, but majors are a different beast. T64 at the PGA Championship and a missed cut at the US Open are his only efforts so far and with little links experience, including just two rounds in Scotland last week, he could have a tough time, especially as the rough should be avoided here.
That leaves Brian Harman, who’s made just one cut in five visits to the Open, which came at a low-scoring Hoylake, and the amateur Yuxin Lin who has yet to make a major cut in three attempts and shot 80-74 at Carnoustie. Sam Bairstow should also be involved but firms appear to have missed off the amateur, who therefore can't be included in settling of bets and shouldn't be a factor anyway.
Mickelson however was runner-up here to Darren Clarke in 2011 and made the cut in 2003 so is among the few that have played two renewals at Sandwich, and also finished second and third at Troon, a course which seems to correlate nicely to this. If the conditions do get tough, he may be the one of this group who relishes the challenge and looks overpriced.
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Stewart Cink to finish in the top 20
Matt Cooper is a long-time Sporting Life contributor who previews the women's majors for the website and provides tips for multiple tours for betting.betfair.com and others. Read his take on the best British challengers by clicking here.
It’s a strange business winning an Open no-one but family members wants you to win. Which is not to say that no-one likes STEWART CINK. On the contrary, ahead of his 2009 Open victory, in the early days of Twitter, he and wife Lisa were kind of like Golf Twitter’s golden couple – funny, engaging, and obviously loving life. But when he downed Tom Watson’s bid for outrageous glory it must have been a weird feeling and almost certainly explains why he subsequently lost form.
Life also got in the way and it was only last September that he finally won again. However he backed up that success with a second victory for the season at Harbour Town and, a week before, had ventured, in the wake of a good performance at Augusta, that he could contend in a major again. He hasn’t missed a cut since and I like that, even when struggling elsewhere, he has trundled along nicely in the Open. His last four start even include three top-30s, two of them top-20s. He’s clearly in a great place right now, playing wonderful golf, his tee to green stats were excellent last time out, and I like his chances of making the top 20.
Mackenzie Hughes to be the top Canadian
Ben Coley is Sporting Life's deputy editor and long-serving golf columnist and tipster. Read his outright preview here.
MACKENZIE HUGHES is one of the more interesting debutants on offer at prices which perhaps wrongly assume this will be a bit too much. A fabulous putter who contended for the US Open and finished 14th last time out, both times hitting good approaches, I think he could really take to this and top Canadian is a great way to play him.
Corey Conners is a worthy favourite but while a second-round 65 in Scotland catches the eye, ultimately he's been poor in his last three events. A better ball-striker than Hughes he may well be, but that long game has gone missing and his short-game simply isn't good enough to make up the difference.
Hughes nearly won a windy Honda Classic last March and has since underlined that a tough test is ideal. His sole PGA Tour victory came by the coast and of the four, completed by Adam Hadwin and Richard T. Lee, he might be best equipped for an Open Championship.
With Hadwin out of form and Lee's Korean Tour efforts not stacking up all that well, Hughes may only have Conners to beat and 11/4 about him doing so is by far the best bet in the sub-markets.
Tyrrell Hatton to finish in the top 20
Jason Daniels is a pundit on golf podcast Lost Fore Words who previews European Tour events for Sporting Life.
The career of TYRRELL HATTON took off in 2016 when finishing fifth in the Irish Open, seventh at Wentworth, runner-up to Alex Noren at Castle Stuart, sixth in the Open, winning the first of two Alfred Dunhill Links titles and finally being beaten only by Matt Fitzpatrick at the season-ending DP World Championship.
Six wins later include when holding off Marc Leishman on a windy day at Bay Hill, when achieving a childhood dream at Wentworth in the BMW PGA Championship, and then cantering home in Abu Dhabi in January, all events showing a determination when in front and top-grade play in difficult conditions.
Even from off the pace, the 29-year-old impresses with his improving positions by round — 35/22/13/5 at Troon and 3/18/23/6 through Portrush for his pair of Open top-10s — and did the same again last week in the Scottish Open when all his stats ranked best on Sunday. That was a great warm-up back over here, a month after a staying-on runner-up finish at Congaree and a forgivable missed cut at the US Open.
There aren't many that will exclude Hatton from a future major winner's club and while some, including our own Ben Coley, expect him to go close to joining it this very week, the 6/4 for a top-20 finish looks much the safest option, especially given many of those that surround him haven't taken the opportunity of a British warm-up.
Lucas Glover to finish in the top 40
Martin Mathews writes a regular PGA Tour tipping column on his own website, provides in-play event previews for Sporting Life, and is a regular Paddy Power contributor.
Around the same time that the vast majority of England were holding their heads in their hands on Sunday evening as the latest instalment of penalty shootout heartache unfolded it may have escaped some people’s attention that about 4,000 miles away in Illinois LUCAS GLOVER was finally bringing home his first PGA Tour trophy in over 10 years.
A barren period that had seen Glover go through near-misses, slumps, putting woes and off-course personal issues, finally came to an end largely due to an upturn in fortune on the greens, something which he had shown signs of over recent weeks before it all came together during a fabulous back-nine.
The former US Open Champion will now jet across the Atlantic in relaxed, confident spirits to an Open Championship venue where he was right in the hunt at the halfway stage in 2011 before ultimately finishing 12th, and a similar sort of week cannot be ruled out. Ultimately though in an event that has seen the last two John Deere winners Dylan Frittelli and Michael Kim ride the wave of their successes to a solid top-40 finish I’ll play it safe and simply take Glover to do the same at what strikes me as a good price.
Tyrrell Hatton to win the Open Championship
Steve Rawlings is a golf betting trader who writes pre-tournament previews and in-running blogs for betting.betfair.com.
TYRRELL HATTON missed his first four cuts in the Open Championship but his form figures since read 5-MC-51-6 and he's prolific enough to chance at the price given he's won four of his last 32 starts, including big events like the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the BMW PGA Championship, and the Abu Dhabi Championship in January - the event Shane Lowry won in 2019 before lifting the Claret Jug.
The world number 10 finished the Scottish Open nicely with a six-under-par 65 and he's a two-time winner of the Alfred Dunhill Links.
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