Best bets
2pts each-way Lilia Vu @ 17/2
1pt each-way Linn Grant @ 16/1
1pt each-way Lydia Ko @ 33/1
1pt each-way Ruoning Yin @ 20/1
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If the female version of Olympic golf is half as nail-biting as the thriller produced by the world’s best men in Paris, we are set for an absolute humdinger with the great Nelly Korda out to make it a golden double by the world number ones.
Scottie Scheffler did his bit by hitting the bulls-eye in a Sunday shootout that saw four golfers holding the lead at different stages, quickly putting paid to the idea that Xander Schauffele’s two Majors might top him for Player of the Year by coming from four behind and shooting a phenomenal 62 at Le Golf National. The original 5/1 favourite was trading at 14/1 when he teed off on Sunday. I hope some of you were tempted.
Scottie broke 30 for the back nine to post an early 19-under target that should not have been enough. It was but not before we saw some almost unbearable drama.
Leader Jon Rahm, 20 under with eight to play and four ahead, crashed and failed to win a medal of any sort, Rory McIlroy waved goodbye to gold with a watery double-bogey at the 15th, defending champion Schauffele didn’t for a moment look the superstar who went round in a flawless 65 to win our Open a couple of weeks earlier, Hideki Matsuyama briefly had a share of the lead but couldn’t hang on, and Southport’s own Tommy Fleetwood, bless him, got level with Scheffler with a great birdie two at the short 16th, then gave it back immediately with a scruffy bogey at the next.
He was the only member of the quintet not to have won a Major. To get so close to the world No. 1 at his unstoppable best was quite a feat and the delightfully self-deprecating Englishman’s silver medal on a course where he’d been French Open champion and a Ryder Cup hero in 2018 was well merited.
‘What struck home was the cosmopolitan nature of the leaderboard.’
If the patriotic Rahm was heartbroken for himself, he was more so for his country. It will take him a while to get over dropping six shots in the last eight holes for a share of fifth place with McIlroy. Rory promised so much in a blistering rise up the leaderboard but, as at Valhalla when runner-up to Schauffele in the PGA Championship, the mind wandered with an unforced error and he couldn’t keep it up. That horrible word “choker” is being bandied about in the papers and on social media but is unnecessary: the players themselves suffered enough. Rahm, Schauffele and McIlroy, born winners all, will be back to tease us again.
The Spaniard won’t know it (or care) but he broke the hearts of Fitzdares’ punters too as he was the 10/1 headline selection and they were counting their money when he tore the field apart with a six-birdie blitz in the first ten holes.
One comment by him, echoed by Rory, really resonated: that the two most meaningful tournaments for them, the Olympics and the Ryder Cup, were the ones they played just for the love of the game. Nobody gets paid.
For Scheffler it was a mind-boggling seventh win of the year. Even Tiger in his all-conquering pomp never got past nine. And Scottie still has the FedEx Cup playoffs and Tour Championship to come.
What struck home was the cosmopolitan nature of the leaderboard. Scheffler was the only American in the top eight. Following him home was an Englishman, a Japanese, a Frenchman (Victor Perez fourth on home soil – bravo!), a Spaniard, a Northern Irishman, a Dane and a South Korean – bad luck Tom Kim, no wonder the tears flowed afterwards as a medal of any colour would have exempted him from two years of military service.
It is what the Olympics are about – bringing nations together in fierce but friendly competition. Now it’s the turn of the women, playing the same course, scaled down 800 yards shorter than the men at a 6374-yard par 72 but the flighty Albatross will still be a serious test. Remember it’s a Wednesday start-Saturday finish this week, so get your bets on early.
Of the 60 competitors, the USA and Korea provide three apiece, while great friends Charley Hull and Georgia Hall give GB two legitimate shouts, Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow represent Ireland, and Linn Grant goes into battle with Maja Stark in a strong Swedish challenge.
If you’re wondering why someone called Linn Grant can represent Sweden, she is the daughter of a Scottish golf pro from Inverness who emigrated to Sweden. He’s a seven-time winner on the Swedish seniors while his daughter has not only won six times on the European circuit but made her LPGA breakthough at the Dana last year. She’s a double DP World winner too, beating all the guys in the 2022 and 2024 Scandinavian Mixed tournament, and arrives in decent form.
Third last time out, Grant could place but more likely to upset a Korda encore is the sturdy Californian Lilia Vu, twice a Major winner last year whose four victories elevated her to world No. 1 for a time. A back injury stopped her gallop this campaign, forcing her to take a ten-week break but she now has all guns firing, a Meijer Classic winner first time back out, a respectable 26th in the Evian and a solid 12th on her latest start in the CP Open.
Vu drives it straight, putts beautifully and plays intelligently, a perfect formula for Le Golf National with its punitive rough and array of water hazards. Most importantly, she is a proven big-occasion performer. If she’s as hot as she was when a runaway six-shot winner of the British a year ago, Vu is going to be hard to beat.
What about the favourite? On her sensational early-year form when she racked up five victories in a row and made it six of her first seven, Korda would be a bargain at 9/2 but then fatigue set in, she missed three cuts in a row for the first time in her storied career and was bitten by dog in Seattle. Nelly was forced to withdraw from a tournament in Europe too and said last month she’s “gone through every emotion possible and it’s only July. The bad makes you appreciate the good.”
Well rested since finishing T26 at the Evian – “it’s important to recharge the batteries” – she could easily rediscover her dazzle and may well win but not carrying my money.
I’m desperately trying to make a case for the French No. 1 Celine Boutier on home ground – on Sunday Perez was carried into fourth place by a wildly enthusiastic crowd and it could be the same with Celine but she is not having a good year by her own elite standards.
Leona Maguire will guts it out but again there’s not enough good current form to recommend her and the same goes for Hull and Hall. It has not been a stellar year either for the legendary Lydia Ko but she loves the Olympics – she’s been second and third in Rio and Tokyo. Still in her twenties, the little New Zealander needs gold to go with her silver and bronze, so expect her raise her game for the occasion.
The great Jin-Young Ko used to be world No. 1 and won tournaments like shelling peas but she’s not quite the superstar she was and I’d sooner be on Ruoning Yin, the 23-year-old Chinese ace who is already a Major champion or Rose Zhang, the 21-year-old American who cleaned up on the amateur circuit and made a spectacular transition to the pro ranks by winning on her debut. She’s won again since and is a very exciting prospect.
Top Thais Atthaya Thitikul and Patty Tavatanakit are two more expected to contend but I’m taking a view on Vu in a hot week in the upper 20s with some hot golf to match.
Best bets
2pts each-way Billy Horschel @ 22/1
1.5pts each-way Si Woo Kim @ 22/1
1pt each-way Robert MacIntyre @ 40/1
0.5pt each-way Jordan Spieth @ 33/1
0.5pt each-way Aaron Rai @ 33/1
0.5pt each-way Shane Lowry @ 20/1
There’s strong European involvement in the Wyndham Championship, the last regular PGA Tour event before the FedEx Cup playoffs, with Bob MacIntyre, Shane Lowry, Victor Perez, Nicolai Hojgaard, Thomas Detry, Aaron Rai and the still-blooming Justin Rose all capable of success in a tournament lacking the big cats of the game.
Not one of the world’s top 14 is teeing it up at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, but even so there’s a competitive international field looking for fistfuls of birdies on the 7131-yard par created by the legendary Donald Ross in 1929 but updated in 2007 when 400 yards of length was added.
It’s a heavily tree-lined layout where positional play beats power every time, giving the likes of short hitters like Kevin Kisner and old Jim Herman one of their few realistic chances of bringing it home.
Fairways are narrow and tee shots need putting in the right place to get an favourable angle in so that flags can be attacked on small, undulating greens which may have lost some speed because of heavy midweek rain. The weather pundits tell us it will hot, wet and humid until sunny Sunday.
It’s the first time since the US Open that players are on Bermudagrass greens and the target is going to be 260 (20 under par) or better. That was the winning score the past two years when Lucas Glover and Tom Kim ruled the roost, Kim’s five-shot triumph as a rookie in 2022 being all the more remarkable after carding a quadruple-bogey eight on the opening hole of the tournament.
There’s no Kim this week – resting after finishing eighth at the Olympics – but another Korean, Sungjae Im, runner-up to Kim two years ago, heads Fitzdares’ betting at 14/1.
He doesn’t win as often as he should. A third Korean, Si Woo Kim, has to come into the conversation too as it was at Greensboro he scored his PGA Tour breakthrough in 2016. Si Woo was also T3 behind the unconsidered Herman in 2020 in a tournament that has a history of first-time winners.
The Korean won on a similarly short par 70 at Waialae at the start of last year and this is the type of course that best suits Si Woo’s game. Without hitting the high spots this campaign – sixth at Sawgrass his best – he’s been a model of consistency having missed only one cut in 20.
Last year’s Open champion Brian Harman is the highest-ranked golfer in the field at 15 but he’s not the American I’m hoping will win. That’s Billy Horschel, West Ham fan and Anglophile who came over to Wentworth in 2021 to nick the DP World Tour’s flagship PGA event, and after a sticky start to the year is now playing to that level again. We saw that just last month at Royal Troon when he shared second with Rose behind Schauffele at The Open.
The 37-year-old Floridian ended a long wait by winning at the Corales Puntacana, and he followed that with a top-ten at the USPGA, a solid 15th at Memorial and that cracking second at Troon. Not a big hitter, he’ll be in his element this week on the course where he finished runner-up in 2020 and fourth last year after leading going into Sunday.
‘Brian Harman is the highest-ranked golfer in the field at 15 but he’s not the American I’m hoping will win.’
As a winner on both sides of the Atlantic this year, it’s surprising to find top Scot Bob MacIntyre as big as 40/1. The left-hander from Oban has played Sedgefield before, making the cut there as a raw novice four years ago, but after going unbeaten in the Ryder Cup and beating a strong Scottish Open field, he’s a very different, far more sure of himself Bobby Mac these days. He makes tons of birdies with that silk-smooth putting stroke and missing out on Paris has given him extra time to prepare.
The 66/1 about Frenchman Victor Perez also looks big after his fourth place in Paris, just one shot out of the medals, but he won’t have the noisy home support to spur him on this time.
In 71st place on the PGA money list with only the top 70 going through to St Jude for the first leg of the FedEx playoffs, he’s right on the bubble. He, Brendon Todd (70th) and Davis Riley (72nd) all have a big incentive to shine at Sedgefield.
Jordan Spieth (63rd) doesn’t have that problem: his is the dodgy putting which has kept him from contending this year.
He almost won the Wyndham on first sighting in 2013 but lost out in a playoff to Patrick Reed. This is his first visit since 2020 and most of his game is in good order. T25 at The Open was hardly a disaster and I shall be having an interest but a small one!
Finally, a word on Rai. The man from Wolverhampton has been knocking on the door all year in the States. A breakthrough cannot be far away and it might just be here. Admittedly he had a poor week at Troon but a trio of tip-top efforts, runner-up at the Rocket Mortgage, seventh at John Deere and fourth at the Scottish Open, preceded The Open disappointment and this is the sort of course where his deadeye driving, not long but regular, and precise iron play will pay dividends.
It would come as no surprise if Detry, Nicolai Hojgaard and Lowry, seventh, ninth and 26th respectively at the Olympics, also figured as well in what could be a good week for Europe although the course may not fit Hojgaard’s eye.
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