The 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon
Overview
Dates: July 18, 2024 to July 21, 2024
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland
Course: Royal Troon
Course Par: 71
Course Length: 7385
Prize Purse: $17000000
We head to Ayrshire in Scotland, the home of Royal Troon for the 152nd Open Championship.
Formgolfer.com has been previewing PGA Tour events for three years, delivering returns of 38% or better in each season. 2024 is shaping up to be our best ever, with eight outright winners in the bag already, including two of the three majors so far, four winners at 40/1 plus and 72% overall profit on stakes invested in the season to date. We head into The Open in top form having picked Robert MacIntyre for the Scottish Open.
We assess each event by analysing huge volumes of historic data points and crunching the numbers to determine which players’ chances of winning are greater than the betting markets suggest. Nothing new in that approach, perhaps, but we believe our results show that we do it better than anybody else out there.
Preview
The course
Troon plays as a par 71, weighing in at a shade under 7,400 yards, having been extended slightly in recent years. A traditional out-and-back links, the front nine tends to play downwind and offers more birdie opportunities, while the back nine can be a case of hanging on for grim life. Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson made it look easy when The Open was last here in 2016, putting an astonishing eleven shots between themselves and the rest of the field, but despite the winning score being 20 under, only 17 players broke par that week and most of those not by much.
Despite rightly being viewed as one of the tougher tests on the Open rota, albeit also one of the fairest, Troon may just play a little easier than usual this year. It’s been one of the wettest British summers in living memory, so the course is unlikely to be running as hard and fast as can sometimes be the case for the Open, but the rough will no doubt be fairly juicy and penal. At the time of writing, the wind is not expected to get up much beyond a moderate breeze all week, although regular showers are expected. So it may not be the brutal test of endurance that Opens can be when Mother Nature really decides to get involved. The draw may well be less of a factor than usual, which can only be viewed as a positive from a punting perspective, particularly since we are writing this preview before the draw has been published.
The ideal candidate
So, what are we looking for when shortlisting the field into likely contenders?
The Open is a unique test among the majors and it’s notable that it’s thrown up more surprising results, resulting in the highest average world ranking of its winners in recent times. The winner almost always comes from the top 50 in the world rankings, but it may pay to look a little further down the list than you might do for the US majors. And of course, we need to bear in mind that the world rankings don’t tell the whole story given that the LIV Tour players are rarely picking up ranking points these days, but have certainly proven they can still contend in the majors.
Links experience and recent form are clearly important; a recent top 10 finish in particular being very high on our list of priorities based on statistical trends. Most winners of the Open have had plenty of previous goes before succeeding and older players should be given more attention here than would normally be the case (Collin Morikawa being a notable exception, having won The Open as a youngster on his first attempt).
The key metrics we’d normally be looking to for The Open are driving accuracy, given the severe penalties arising from finding the thick rough or pot bunkers, and scrambling pars from the run-offs and sand traps that surround the greens. That said, with the course likely to play a little softer than would often be the case for an Open, we’re inclined to think that both the fairways and greens will be easier to hold, so we’ll be giving plenty of consideration to strokes gained and proximity on approach as well. Driving distance is less likely to be a determining factor. Stenson succeeded here by relentlessly finding the short grass with a fairway wood from the tee, so we’re favouring precision over brute force in our analysis.
The analysis and the trends are all very well, but the only question that matters when it comes to determining our betting strategy is what that tells us about which players have been under-rated in the markets. Read on to find out our conclusions.
Outrights
| Player | Points | Type | UK Odds | Places | Outright US Odds |
| Xander Schauffele | 5 | Each Way | 14/1 | 8 | +1400 |
| Brian Harman | 2.5 | Each Way | 60/1 | 10 | +7500 |
| Aaron Rai | 2 | Each Way | 66/1 | 10 | +6000 |
| Sepp Straka | 2 | Each Way | 100/1 | 10 | +12000 |
| Corey Connors | 2 | Each Way | 80/1 | 10 | +8000 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 2.5 | Each Way | 55/1 | 8 | +5500 |
Having finally got rid of the ‘best current player without a major’ tag in the US PGA earlier this season, Xander Schauffele (5pts each way, 14/1, 8 places) looks the most appealing option from the front of the market and should be played accordingly. With four top 10s from his last five outings, impressive scrambling and approach stats and five top 30s from his six appearances in the Open, his profile ticks almost all the boxes. Accuracy from the tee would be a marginal concern, but he has the strategic nous to plot his way around this golf course and it’d be a big surprise if he didn’t feature on the first page of the leaderboard come Sunday evening.
A strong defence of his title can be expected from Brian Harman (2.5pts each way, 60/1, 10 places). Although a huge price than when he won last year, his win was actually his fourth top 30 finish in The Open and like last year his prep has included a decent showing in the Scottish Open, so he’s clearly developing an affinity with links golf. This is perhaps unsurprising given that he’s among the most accurate drivers on tour, while his approach play is particularly strong from longer range, which is likely to be important through the back 9 in particular. The layers seem to have somewhat written off last year’s win as a fluke, but it was a comfortable win and there is plenty of mileage in his price to think he’s worth backing to prove it wasn’t a one-off.
Aaron Rai (2pts each way, 66/1, 10 places) is the very definition of trending at the moment. His T4 finish in the Scottish Open secured his place in the field and was his third consecutive top 10 and fifth consecutive top 20. Encouragingly he seems to have found something on the greens, while his long game remains as solid as it’s always been. He’s been competing in top company as he settles in on the PGA Tour and is an extremely appealing option within his price bracket. Although a little light on Open experience, having had only two previous outings, his top 20 finish at Royal St. Georges two years ago is a good sign that he has what it takes to be very competitive here.
Sepp Straka (2pts each way, 100/1, 10 places) has been a friend of FormGolfer and we’ve always felt that his peak form is good enough to contend even in the very best fields, yet this is not recognised in the markets. No more was this evident in last year’s Open where he secured a T2 finish despite having been given very little chance in the run-up to the event. Supremely accurate off the tee and solid on approach, he comes here in decent form despite having narrowly missed the cut in the Scottish Open, with two recent top 10 finishes on his CV. Once again his price does not reflect his prospects of another good week.
Corey Conners (2pts each way, 80/1, 10 places) has been working his way back to top form in recent months, including top 10s in the Canadian and US Opens and a very creditable showing in the Scottish. He has put in some of the very best performances of his career in majors and has a game well-suited to the toughest of course set-ups. He has two top 30s from his four Open appearances to date and may now be ready to put that experience to good use at Troon. It’s well known that his weakness is on and around the greens and that will likely always be a concern through his career, but this is precisely why we are getting an inflated price. With the course hopefully playing a little softer, there may be less of a premium on scrambling and his imperious long game ought to give him enough opportunities that even an average week with the putter can get him into contention.
Hideki Matsuyama (2.5pts each way, 55/1, 8 places) has been plagued with injuries in recent years, but a relatively clear run in that regard has seen him surge back to form in 2024, including his 66/1 win in the Genesis Invitational (to the delight of FormGolfer followers). Like Straka, he narrowly missed the cut in the Scottish, but is likely to be better suited to the stiffer demands of Troon. We had him onside for his top 10 finish in the US Open and with four top 20s on his Open record, he’s shown himself to be very comfortable navigating the British links.
Plenty of those at the top of the market (notably Scheffler, McIlroy, Morikawa and Aberg) have obvious chances, but for one reason or another we found it impossible to find any value in the prices on offer. Tommy Fleetwood was firmly on our radar and we were very keen to have him on the staking plan, but his obvious links pedigree has resulted in his price being somewhat compressed for a guy who has found it difficult to get over the line in recent years. At huge prices, we would give a sporting chance to either Keegan Bradley or Ben Griffin outperforming their odds, although we felt it might be a bit much to expect either of them to get high enough up the leaderboard to secure us a payout.
Good luck however you choose to play it and here’s hoping we can pick up our third major win of the season!