Best bets
2pts each-way Emiliano Grillo @ 25/1
1.5pts each-way Lucas Glover @ 40/1
1.5pts each-way Tony Finau @ 11/1
0.5pt each-way Ludvig Aberg @ 28/1
0.5pt each-way Arron Rai @ 40/1
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Only punters who backed the draw in the rain-ruined Test or found 100/1 Open champion Brian Harman at Hoylake will have got much joy out of damp-squib Sunday but take nothing away from the little warrior from Georgia, a thoroughly deserved winner even if not the charismatic one craved by the media.
Sky did its best to make the last day exciting but it wasn’t. The gutsy left-hander who hadn’t won for six years had his day in the sun, even if there wasn’t any. Holing 58 out of 59 putts of 10ft and under was awesome. Talk about ‘drive for show, putt for dough’. So was finding only three of those nightmare bunkers during the course of 72 holes.
Victory almost certainly means we will be facing the unflappable Harman in the Ryder Cup in Rome and, coming after another outsider Wyndham Clark copping the US Open, the American team for September is going to be a fair bit different from what we expected.
The out-of-form Justin Thomas is just one who will be finding it that bit harder to keep his place and Match Play champion Sam Burns, who was a pretty automatic choice at the start of the year, is now at risk and needs to do something pretty quickly.
Meanwhile, Sepp Straka’s share of second place on Merseyside, following his spectacular John Deere Classic victory on his previous outing, has put the burly Austrian out front and centre for a Ryder Cup call from European captain Luke Donald.
He made more birdies than anybody at Hoylake so would be a perfect smash-and-grab foil for the fourballs where his frailty on shortish putts can be masked.
Straka is one of dozens returning to the States for this week’s 3M Open at Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota’s only PGA Tour stop of the year. Eleven of the world’s top 50 go to post on this 7431-yard par 71 where Tony Finau strolled home last year in a golden patch that carried over to the following week when he won in Detroit by an even wider margin.
That’s why the big fella from Utah is Fitzdares’ 11/1 favourite but he missed the cut at Hoylake and in seven starts since beating Jon Rahm in a gripping duel in Mexico back in April he seems to have lost the magic touch that took him 43 under par for those eight glorious rounds last year.
The fact that he and Thomas exited the Open early, Thomas after a career-worst first-round 82, could now work in their favour as it gives them two free days to sort out what needed to be done, in JT’s case quite a lot if you judge him solely on his opening round, but a follow-up 71 suggests he is already on the case.
Then again, you have to wonder whether those transatlantic travellers near the top of the 3M market – Straka T2, Emiliano Grillo T6, Cameron Young T8, Hideki Matsuyama T13 and Sungjae Im T20 who did play all four days in gruelling weather, particularly on Sunday – won’t have left some of their best stuff behind.
I wouldn’t want to back Young anyway as his putter is the weak link in the bag and the flat stick will play a larger part than usual in the outcome here. And Im was in such indifferent form before Hoylake I’d want more than 12/1 about the golfaholic Korean. Straka at 25/1 is more interesting but the two who looked like they were most enjoying the challenge were Grillo and Matsuyama who both have course form in Minnesota.
It’s usually difficult to get a smile out Grillo, a strong, silent type, but victory at Colonial after a seven-year drought has taken the tension out of the Argentinian’s swing and demeanour. And TPC Twin Cities has been good to him – a share of second place with Im last year and a T3 with Finau in 2020 when 500/1 shot Michael Thompson won.
Matsuyama’s case is a little harder to make but Sunday’s hard-won T13 was the Japanese legend’s fourth top-16 since April and he placed T7 at Twin Cities in 2019. The man he shared that spot with, Lucas Glover, took last week off after a sizzling little run of 12 consecutive rounds in the 60s was worth three top sixes to the one-time US Open champion.
Much of that is due to faith in copying Adam Scott with a new long-handle putter and a new stroke to go with it. That stunning 60s sequence could well keep rolling along this week when 16 under is a minimum requirement. Many of us thought Glover was a yesterday’s man but he’s enjoying a renaissance and his fresher mind – he took the Open off – could be the difference between victory and a near-miss.
Canadian Adam Hadwin has attractive course form – fourth in 2019, sixth in 2021 – in what is only the fifth running of the 3M but you are probably only betting for a place. He often flatters to deceive.
They are all raving about smart newcomer Ludvig Aberg and his fourth last time out confirmed he has special gifts. Watch him closely and also keep an eye on Gary Woodland, Eric Cole and steady plodders Arron Rai and JT Poston, the last-named one of only two Americans to finish in the Scottish Open top-ten.
Maybe a delay on Thursday when thunderstorms are forecast and the thermometer registers over 90F but the rest of a hot week should be nothing worse than cloudy.
Best bets
3pts each-way Bernhard Langer @ 10/1
3pts win Padraig Harrington @ 3/1
0.5pt each-way Thomas Bjorn @ 33/1
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Stand by for another Bernhard Langer miracle in wet and windy Wales this weekend as the legendary German bids for lucky 13 Senior Open titles at the grand old golfing age of 65.
It’s going to be 66 next month and Langer can give himself an early birthday present on the rugged links of Royal Porthcawl where two of three Senior Open wins have been gritted out, the first, over Colin Montgomerie by THIRTEEN shots in 2014 and the second by a mere three in 2017. In fact, as a senior he’s 100% there as the course has only hosted this championship twice.
Langer originally showed his liking for majestic Porthcawl, this week playing as a par 71 6901-yarder when runner-up in the 1982 Welsh Classic in his far-off European Tour days. And although warm favourite Padraig Harrington will take plenty of beating, the 10/1 for the ageless and super-fit Bernhard can be seen as one of the best-value each-way bets of the golfing year.
Fair enough, he’s not the dominant figure on the ‘roundbelly’ circuit he was a decade ago but he keeps on winning, twice more this year at an age when most golfers have put their feet up and the clubs in the garage. It’s less than a month since he won the biggest tournament on the Champions circuit, the US Senior Open, and it’s a weaker field this time with the outstanding Steve Stricker staying at home.
If the great German can successfully give away up to 15 years to his 143 rivals, that would bring his worldwide win total up to 123 and his haul since joining the over-50s to 47.
Wales is no country for old men this week with rain forecast daily and winds of up to 20mph on the weekend but, as the old cliche goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Nothing fazes the steely Langer who was 13 better than Harrington in the US equivalent at the start of the month and is itching to do another number on the favourite.
The Irishman is getting a start of 14 years and roughly the same number of yards from Langer but four rounds for 64th place in chiefly obnoxious weather at Hoylake could have taken the edge off Padraig. Don’t count on it though. Save on him at 3/1 and you might have it covered although Ernie Els, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Steve Alker, Retief Goosen, Darren Clarke and Thomas Bjorn could all have something to say about that.
Clarke and Bjorn, both excellent bad-weather golfers, definitely come into the conversation and a small each-way interest in Bjorn, still competitive enough to make several main-tour cuts at the start of the year (38th in Thailand best). He also posted a decent 15th at the Senior PGA on a rare playing visit to the States.
No American has won our Senior Open since Marco Dawson putted the lights out of Sunningdale eight years ago and with only Jerry Kelly, solid though he is, to worry about, that run of defeats looks set to be extended.
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