Best bets
4pts win Rory McIlroy @ 13/2
2pts each-way Scottie Scheffler @ 15/2
1.5pts each-way Tommy Fleetwood @ 18/1
1pt each-way Adam Scott @ 66/1
1pt each-way Cameron Smith @ 14/1
0.5pt each-way Byeong-hun An @ 150/1
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If the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool – better known as Hoylake – is anywhere near as thrilling as the denouement of Sunday’s Scottish Open with Rory McIlroy‘s birdies at the last two holes breaking the pride of Scotland Bob MacIntyre’s heart, it will be an absolute humdinger.
That was a terrific field McIlroy beat but now punters have to factor in the mighty Masters champion Jon Rahm, 2021 Open hero Collin Morikawa and the LIV all-stars, reigning Open champion Cameron Smith, USPGA kingpin Brooks Koepka and last year’s leading money-winner on the rebel circuit Dustin Johnson, all missing last week.
What a feast of golf we have in store on this historic Merseyside links that brings the best out of the best. The only two Opens staged there this century were emphatically won by the world number ones of the time, Tiger Woods, in 2006, and McIlroy, in 2014. Before them, legendary Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen and Peter Thomson. No Jack Nicklaus though, he finished runner-up to the much-loved Argentinian Roberto de Vicenzo in 1967.
It’s a much-changed Hoylake to the one Rory and Tiger lit up with scores of 17 and 18 under par. There’s a new scary short hole, the uphill 17th, at just 136 yards replacing a par four and Hoylake’s answer to the Postage Stamp at Troon. With its brutal bunkers it is sure to create much drama. So too the 620-yard risk-and-reward 15th and the 609-yard 18th, 60 yards longer off the tee now with intimidating out-of-bounds on the right.
At 7313 yards long with a par of 71, it’s a links that should sort the men out from the boys. Back in the day I thought it was the easiest course on the Open roster – well, I would say that as it’s the only one where I beat my handicap (and I’ve played them all) – but I am not so sure now. There was a 20mph westerly blowing at the start of the week and, like every links, it needs a fair wind to be a true challenge.
The secret to conquering it is to stay out of the steeply revetted bunkers, 81 of them this year, particularly those on the fairways, as they are nothing like the easy-peasy ones you get in the States and are highly likely to cost you a shot. You also have to keep the ball on the cut-and-prepared and avoid the insidious internal penalty areas.
In fast-running conditions in 2006 Tiger Woods quickly realised the folly of using his driver, using the big dog only once in 72 holes and cunningly “ironing” his way to victory. After a wet winter in 2014 the rough was much longer and Rory’s towering irons were able to sit down by the flags rather than run through. He didn’t play Hoylake at its hardest, yet once again 65 was the low round of the week, the highest “low” record of any of the Open venues. Nobody beats up Hoylake.
If the sequence of world No. 1s winning on The Wirral is to continue then we need to get our money on the current top dog, Scottie Scheffler. Tee to green the laid-back American is miles better than everyone else and, learning his golf in Texas, he knows all about keeping the ball below the wind. If only he didn’t have an Achilles heel, the putter.
Rory got him by five last week but third place for Scheffler extended a remarkable run of consistency – it was his seventh consecutive top five and 19th straight finish of 12th or better. You have to go back to October 23, 2022 to find anything worse. And there are victories in the Players Championship and Phoenix Open in there too.
But is it significant that in 2022 none of his four victories came after the Masters and this year it’s the shaping up the same way?
McIlroy is attempting to emulate Phil Mickelson who ten years ago went back-to-back by doubling up the Scottish Open with The Open itself and the omens could not be better. Europeans cleaned up at the weekend with Rory in Scotland and new Swedish stars Vincent Norrman in Kentucky and Linn Grant on the LPGA Tour in Ohio. Only two Americans in the top ten behind McIlroy at the Renaissance Club too.
And Rory’s understandably buzzing after snatching victory from defeat with under-the-cosh birdies at 17 and 18 in Scotland, the clinching one after what he said was probably the greatest 2-iron shot of his career. Runner-up at the US Open to an inspired Wyndham Clark (not to be underrated as he’s loved links golf since his amateur days and has posted two decent Scottish Open finishes), he almost matches Scheffler for consistency as he’s had six straight top-tens. But it’s the fact that, under pressure, he showed he could still do it in top company that makes me believe he might bring nine years of Majors heartache to an end and win his second Hoylake Open. He certainly owes punters who have kept the faith.
“Rory’s understandably buzzing after snatching victory from defeat with under-the-cosh birdies at 17 and 18 in Scotland…”
Masters champion Rahm, four times a winner by the second week of April, comes in under the radar after three weeks away from the game. A missed cut at the Travelers followed a series of un-Rahm-like efforts and he arrives refreshed and ready. Only one Open top-ten in six attempts and six undistinguished Majors (27-48-12-34-50-10) out of the past seven make the Spaniard opposable. He’s not exactly short of a few bob and maybe, for the time being, having a young family to play with beats hitting a little white ball around a big field … who knows?
I’m backing Britain big time, not only McIlroy but Tommy Fleetwood has to be seriously considered even if he has to still to find the key to winning at the top level. Hailing from Southport 30 miles up the coast, he’s a local hero with a big following, a golfer who relishes links golf, the big occasion and is in peak form.
Runner-up to Shane Lowry (good chance if the putter behaves) in the rain-lashed 2019 Open at Royal Portrush and fourth at St Andrews last year, he has just posted a top-five at the US Open after being pipped in a playoff for the Canadian Open – and his T6 in Scotland would have been a T3 but for a last-hole disaster. I’d love to make him the main selection but he doesn’t win, does he?
Four of LIV’s finest must be considered: defending champ Smith and three top-line Americans Koepka, DJ and Patrick Reed. That quartet have won nine Majors between them. Koepka wins Majors in clusters and is eager for a Claret Jug to stack alongside the giant Wanamaker Trophy he took home after his third PGA Championship triumph, Johnson did well at Hoylake last time (12th but was on course for a top five until fading on the Sunday) and Reed gives every sign of needing four-round golf as he is finishing like a train in these LIV 54-holers but keeps running out of holes. LIV had a great Masters with Koepka, Mickelson and Reed in the top four, while Smith has been top-ten in the last two Majors.
If wayward driving doesn’t cost them expensive visits to Hoylake’s beastly bunkers, Smith and Reed could have big weeks. And if Smith doesn’t fire, there are two other Australians who could, Adam Scott and Marc Leishman who shared fifth spot here in 2014.
Eagle-eyed punters will have noted Leishman was just a shot behind Smith at LIV London two weekends ago while Scott (also eighth to Tiger at Hoylake in 2006) has shown plenty of encouraging signs, particularly with the putter which has been his bete noire in recent years. He led the field in greens hit and ball-striking the last time he came this way and still believes at 43 he has an Open in him to atone for the hash he made of it in 2012.
There are many more you could make a case for: Tyrrell Hatton plays fabulous golf most weeks but beats himself too often, Bob MacIntyre, sixth and eighth in past Opens, played the game of his life on Sunday – 64 in those conditions was sensational – but can he rise to it again after the deflation of defeat? And Jordan Spieth, winner in 2016 and runner-up in 2021, would have been a pick but for concerns about his wrist and missed cuts on his two latest outings.
Clark and Matt Fitzpatrick, the last two US Open champions, were short-listed, along with the revived Rickie Fowler (runner-up to Rory in 2014), Memorial winner Viktor Hovland, young Tom Kim, Patrick Cantlay, the Hojgaard twins from Denmark and Hideki Matsuyama but there isn’t room for everybody.
For a big outsider at three-figure odds, why not throw a pound or two on Ben An, who tied for third with the mighty Scheffler in Scotland.
The South Korean’s shot-making was out of the top drawer in the tough conditions – it’s going to be wet and windy again all week – and he does have course form, 26th to McIlroy in 2014, the year before he ran away with the European Tour’s flagship tournament, the BMW PGA at Wentworth, as a virtual unknown.
After that he got himself a PGA Tour card and everybody expected him to be a star but it never happened and, eight years later, he’s still searching for his next meaningful victory. But the game is still there.
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