Best bets
2pts each-way Collin Morikawa @ 12/1
1pt each-way Patrick Cantlay @ 22/1
3pt win Scottie Scheffler @ 7/2
1pt each-way Justin Rose @ 100/1
1pt each-way Ludvig Aberg @ 18/1
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After a great weekend for British golf with Bob MacIntyre making an emotional US breakthrough in the Canadian Open with his dad on the bag and Laurie Canter finally crossing the line in front at the European Open in Hamburg – a welcome 28/1 winner for Fitzdares’ punters – it would be the icing on the cake if a European could land the Memorial as Norway’s Viktor Hovland did 12 months ago.
Hovland, Memorial debutant Ludvig Aberg and Justin Rose are probably Europe’s best chances in view of Rory McIlroy’s modest Memorial record but with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler now able to give golf his full attention again after that “misunderstanding” with the Louisville police and Xander Schauffele finally cracking the Major barrier, the odds favour the home side.
We’re at Jack’s Place, Muirfield Village, in Dublin, Ohio and the course Nicklaus named after his first Open triumph in 1966 – I was there as a caddy! – and the great man will be there to shake the hand of the winner as he comes off the final green on Sunday.
This is the seventh of the eight $20m Signature blockbusters created to stop PGA Tour stars being tempted to join the Saudi-backed LIV breakaways on a course forever associated with Europe’s first away-from-home Ryder Cup victory in 1987.
An elite field of just 73 lines up to take on as tough a warm-up for a Major – it’s the US Open at fabled Pinehurst No. 2 next week – as a golfer could ask for and if conditions are as demanding as they were when seven-under-par totals got Hovland and Denny McCarthy into last year’s playoff, it will come down to keeping the ball out of the heavy rough and mastering the small, quick greens on a par 72 measuring 7352 yards.
‘He’s on a tear with top-four finishes in two Majors and a fourth at Colonial…’
The greens and a dodgy putting stroke prevented Scheffler winning in last year. He was just one out of the playoff but lost eight shots to the average on the week with the flat stick. He was third again in 2021, two shots away from a playoff with Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa, so there is a more than adequate case for backing the favourite who, for most of the time, is in a class of his own and is putting half-decently again.
That second place at Colonial last time out with a court case for assault hanging over him and even the eighth at the PGA after being arrested underline even more than those four wins from five, including Masters and Players, what an exceptional golfing mind he has.
Even at a cramped 7/2 he simply has to be part of your staking plan but putting up a short-priced favourite is a lose-lose situation for any tipster. If it loses you get laughed at, if it wins “any fool can tip a favourite”. So I’ll have Scheffler in my team while majoring on his Ryder Cup teammates Morikawa and Cantlay.
A turn-around in putting technique has seen Morikawa come back to life after a miserable few months and he fits the criterion of combined current and course form. He won the Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village in 2020 and missed a short putt in the 2021 Memorial that gifted the title to Cantlay. Currently he’s on a tear with top-four finishes in two Majors and a fourth at Colonial last time out.
Cantlay hasn’t won for almost two years just like his great friend Schauffele before Xander scooped the PGA Championship. That breakthrough will spur Cantlay to get his act together after a thin time. A third at Heritage and fourth at Riviera are his only top-tens of the year but he absolutely adores Muirfield Village, a course he says suits his game to a T. As the record book proves that with victories in 2019 and 2021, a T3 in 2022 and fourth in 2018, this could be the right time to catch a falling star.
Hovland was having an even more torrid year than Morikawa until his third to Schauffele at Valhalla. That mini-slump came as shock as he looked like the best golfer in the world around FedEx Cup time last August but defending a title successfully seems to bring the best out of him as he has done so before. And he has a Muirfield Village second to Morikawa from the 2020 Workday to add to his course credentials.
Aberg’s golf this year has been so impressive that missing the cut at the PGA last time out was totally unexpected. As a newbie to the tour, he keeps producing great golf without previous experience of a course, so don’t be put off as it’s not hard to see the Swede relishing the test of Muirfield Village.
Justin Thomas, another who has struggled through the spring, is back on an upward curve and may go close as could Tom Kim, impressive last week, and Si Woo Kim, fourth here last year and 13th in 2022.
Best outsider is Justin Rose who was swinging it beautifully at Colonial following his sixth place at the PGA and is a great fan of Jack’s Place where he reigned as champion nine years ago and has been sixth and 13th since. Ryder Cup partner Bobby Mac’s breakthrough win in Canada at the weekend will spur him on too. He and in-form Tommy Fleetwood could be Britain’s best hopes.
It would be lovely to have a US tournament not interrupted by thunder and fingers crossed for four rain-free days and plenty of sunshine golf too.
Best bets
2pts win Jon Rahm @ 15/2
1pt each-way Talor Gooch @ 16/1
1pt each-way Dean Burmester @ 20/1
Just as City of Troy rose like Lazarus to confound his critics by capturing the 2024 Derby so Jon Rahm can remind the golfing fraternity that he is a true thoroughbred by regaining the winning touch in the LIV Golf Houston starting on Friday.
The timing would be perfect because a 21st professional title courtesy of his maiden LIV Golf triumph would seriously boost his confidence ahead of next week’s US Open – a Championship he won in 2021 before seizing a second Major at the 2023 Masters.
‘Just as City Of Troy rose like Lazarus to confound his critics, so can Jon Rahm’
Rahm’s failure to win since joining LIV Golf last November camouflages his consistency. He has four top five finishes and with form figures of 3-8-5-8-4-3-10 he is the only player in the first half of the circuit’s 14-tournament 2024 schedule not to slip out of the top ten. Rahm is 72 under par with 18 sub-70s in 21 rounds including a lowest score of 62 and a highest of 71.
True, the 29-year-old Arizona-based Spaniard flopped when 45th at The Masters in April then vented his frustration in last month’s US PGA Championship by dropping drivers and spiking an iron on his way to missing the halfway cut in a Major for the first time since 2019.
Rahm, however, will relish the challenge of the Rees Jones-David Toms designed 7403 yards (par 72) Tournament Course at the Golf Club of Houston with its slick multi-tiered greens, strategic bunkering and smattering of water hazards. At 15-2 with Fitzdares he is generously priced compared to the 12-1 generally on offer in a 156-man field headed by Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy in Pinehurst next week.
The PGA Tour’s Houston Open, hosted between 2006 and 2019 by the Golf Club of Houston, was regularly played the week prior to The Masters with the course set-up to replicate Augusta National. This week will be different although many in the field are familiar with the layout – Rahm finished tied 10th in 2017 – with Paul Casey (2009), Anthony Kim (2010), Phil Mickelson (2011), Matt Jones (2014) and Ian Poulter (2018) all soaring to success in Space City.
Patrick Reed is guaranteed strong support in the city where he lives as he seeks an inaugural LIV win although Talor Gooch, 32, from neighbouring state Oklahoma, has stronger claims. Gooch won three 2023 LIV events – in Australia, Singapore and Spain – and not only was he fourth in LIV’s latest event in Singapore he was also fourth in the last Houston Open to be played at this venue in 2019.
South Africa’s Dean Burmester, who enjoyed back-to-back wins in South Africa in late 2023, won LIV Miami in April and has retained his form with third and 14th place finishes in Adelaide and Singapore not to mention 12th place in the US PGA at Valhalla. He is brimming in belief, especially after qualifying on Monday for the US Open. England’s Richard Bland, following his three shot success in the Senior PGA Championship, and Zimbabwe’s Kieran Vincent, who gained his first Sunshine Tour win two weeks ago, are also high on confidence.
Five of the last eight US Opens have been won by LIV golfers – Dustin Johnson (2016), Brooks Koepka (2017-18), Bryson DeChambeau (2020) and Rahm – and of them Johnson has the best Houston course form with two top four finishes. Victory would spark early birthday celebrations as he turns 40 on June 22.
Charles Howell III and Cameron Tringale are also worthy of a second look with enormous experience of the Tournament Course where both notched three top ten finishes in the Houston Open. Howell, 44, who won LIV Golf Mayakoba last year, looks overpriced at 60-1 with Fitzdares.
Words kindly provided by Mitchell Platts.
Best bets
2pts each-way Madelene Sagstrom @ 33/1
1.5pts each-way Lynn Grant @ 25/1
1pt each-way Niklas Norgaard @ 22/1
1pt each-way Alexander Bjork @ 18/1
1pt win Sebastian Soderberg @ 14/1
The gents are leading 2-1 in Scandinavia’s annual battle of the sexes – 78 men, 78 women playing the same course and for the same prize money – but I’m betting the females have the last word at the Vasatorp club near Helsingborg this weekend. As they usually do off the golf course!
The story so far: 2021 Jonathan Caldwell’s first DP World Tour victory at Valida, Alice Hewson in third is top woman; 2022 Linn Grant’s 24-under at Halmstad is in a different parish to the men and wins by nine to become the first female winner on the men’s circuit: 2023 Dale Whitnell opens his DPWT account at Ullna, defending champion Grant only 41st, best-placed female is big-hitting Dutchwoman Anne Van Dam in third.
The Swedes want the world to see what great golf courses they have, and now it’s the turn of long-established Vasatorp where Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman won back in the day. It’s 44 years since it hosted a DPWT tournament, though, so form clues are scarce. And they are giving the fair sex their biggest chance yet because the men will have 7295 yards to negotiate compared with 6342 from where the women drive off, a difference of almost a thousand yards.
‘I’m betting the females have the last word at Vasatorp club…’.
On the only occasion the tee differential was 1000 yards-plus not only did local heroine Grant win with a 1072-yard start at Halmstad. she beat the guys to a pulp. A distant co-runner-up was past Open champion Henrik Stenson, quite a scalp to claim. Had it been a boxing match, the ref would have stopped it to save further punishment. But note that Grant was playing a course measuring 5929 yards whereas Stenson & Co. had 7001 to deal with.
On the other two occasions, at Valida in the inaugural year and Ullna in 2023, when the victories went to Caldwell and Whitnell, the sexes were brought much closer together, respectively only 879 and 922 yards apart.
All this background is to explain why Grant and her Solheim Cup teammate Madelene Sagstrom are worth a bet to level the scores at 2-2. They are the class acts whose mettle will be thoroughly tested by Scanda stars Rasmus Hojgaard, Alexander Bjork, Sebastian Soderberg and Niklas Norgaard on a course not used on the main tour since ‘Great White Shark’ Norman won the 1980 Scandinavian Enterprise Open there.
Grant is a five-time Ladies European Tour winner who quickly broke through in tougher company on the LPGA circuit when landing the Dana Open last year. It’s been slimmer pickings since and she missed the cut at last week’s US Open on a course that beat up most of the big names, not least superstar Nelly Korda.
Missing a gruelling weekend there could work in Grant’s favour now. Certainly she’ll be fresher than Sagstrom who struggled through to the bitter end in the States but the latter has one persuasive piece of recent form when he beat all but one rival out of sight in the Founders Cup. Unfortunately anything Sagstrom could do, sensational newcomer Rose Zhang could do a tiny bit better but a drop in grade and playing in front of a warm and welcoming home crowd will surely see this three-time Solheim Cup player stepping up to the plate.
Powerhouse Anne van Dam, in the frame last year, and England’s Gabriella Cowley, who has a good Mixed record, provide ballast to the female challenge but shouldn’t finish in front of Alex Bjork, fresh from a good showing at Valhalla and ninth in last year’s Mixed in a 2023 campaign stuffed with high finishes.
Less successful this year when chancing his luck on the PGA Tour this year, he will feel the love of his fellow Swedes and should remind us of all his great showings in Europe last year in a cool, showery week when rain is the daily forecast.
Denmark’s Norgaard arrives on the back of two top-class performances, runner-up in Antwerp and fourth in Hamburg, and is bursting with confidence while Soderberg has long been knocking on the door. A top-three finisher in India, Japan and China on the DPWT’s Asian Swing, he went over to Kentucky for the PGA Championship and had a hole-in-one.
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