THE OPEN: It’s that time of year again, as the world’s grandest golf tournament gets underway this week from Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland. This is only the third time that the Open has been held at this seaside links in County Antrim, the last occasion being 2019, when Shane Lowry became one of the more popular Champion Golfers in recent memory.
I must confess that I was taken aback when I realized that it has been six years since Lowry’s victory — it just seems so much more recent than that. And considering the 68-year wait that Portrush had to endure between its first two Open Championships, I’m sure this feels like a pretty quick turnaround for all involved. But it speaks to the success of the 2019 edition, which not only was won by beloved Irishman Lowry, but was also seen as a tremendous logistical and practical success, which had been the main thing that had kept the tournament away since 1951. The solution that Portrush and the R&A came up with — using the old 17th and 18th holes for hospitality and event space and constructing two new holes, which are now the 7th and 8th — proved to be the right move, as the new routing of the course felt perfectly natural last time and the venue is now championship-worthy, a real treat to behold for a new generation of players and fans.
There are actually two courses on property at Royal Portrush, and the Valley Course is apparently quite good, but it’s the Dunluce that is the world-renowned championship venue which will host this week’s action. Originally designed by the legendary Old Tom Morris in 1888 before being extensively reworked and given its modern form by Harry Colt in 1932, the Dunluce is a traditional seaside links that will play to a par 71 this week, tipping out at 7,381 yards. It begins with a tough little hole, dubbed Hughie the Heartbreaker — a narrow par-4 with out-of-bounds down both sides and a green that proved really difficult to find in 2019 (Rory McIlroy opened his tournament with an 8 that year). Other holes that will give the players problems include the 4th, a straightaway par-4 that played as the most difficult hole in 2019 (stroke average 4.201); the 8th, a tremendous risk/reward dogleg left that will see many bogeys and worse this week; and the par-3 16th, called Calamity Corner, a 236-yard beast that saw only 41% of players hit the green in regulation six years ago.
The Dunluce won’t just beat you over the head with impossible holes, however — there are ample scoring opportunities out there too, and if the players can consistently find fairways and avoid some of the strategically placed pot bunkers, there are low numbers to be had. Lowry fired a third-round 63 in 2019 and posted 15-under 269 for the week, and though he won by six shots, he showed that the course was there for the taking if you had the right stuff.
Who will have the right stuff this week? The top of BETDAQ’s Win Market looks just about like you would expect, with Scheffler (7.0), McIlroy (9.3), and Rahm (14.5) having separated themselves, and there seems to be some nice value a bit further down the board. But you know, something about links golf has a way of levelling the playing field from time to time, and it really wouldn’t surprise me at all if we saw a triple-digit longshot holding the Claret Jug at week’s end. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Jon Rahm (14.5)- While much of the talk entering the tournament is focused on the top two players in the world, the indomitable Scheffler and native son McIlroy, something tells me we should be paying more attention to Rahm. He’s in excellent form, having finished runner-up at LIV Andalucia last week, and he’s been in contention in all three majors this season, finishing T14 at the Masters, T8 at the PGA, and T7 at the U.S. Open. Despite him being relatively out of sight due to LIV’s limited viewership, this is still a guy who strikes the ball as well as anyone in the world and is at the absolute peak of his powers. Furthermore, he’s always been somewhat of a links specialist due to his ability to control ballflight and trajectory, which has led to some great results in this tournament, with his last five finishes reading 7-2-34-3-11. It’s only a matter of time before he wins one, and if he’s going to break through, why not in Ireland? After all, Rahm has had tremendous success on the Emerald Isle, winning the Irish Open in both 2017 and 2019. He spoke earlier this week about his love for the country, and how good things just seem to happen to him there. Well, I like that sort of energy. Rahm is my pick to win this week.
Sepp Straka (65.0)- Whenever you get a field of this caliber there are always mid-market guys with inflated prices, and this week my eyes immediately went to Straka, a top-tier player coming off a nice week in Scotland who is perfectly capable of winning this week. After all, he’s just five starts removed from a victory at the Truist Championship. and since then he’s logged a pair of top-10s, including a T7 at the Scottish Open last week. A native of Austria who has lived in America for several years and has played all over the world, Straka knows all about the intricacies of links golf and has fared quite well at this Championship, finishing runner-up at Royal Liverpool two years ago and T22 at Troon last year. He’s a tremendous ball-striker, ranking 7th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained tee to green, so he should give himself every opportunity to succeed at a tough-but-fair track like Portrush. If his putter cooperates Straka will be tough to beat this week, making him a terrific value at better than 60/1.
Tom McKibbin (150.0)- When you hear talk of the “local favorite” this week, most will think of McIlroy, the Northern Irishman whose exploits over the past 20 years have earned him legendary status and a lifetime of free pints in the pubs around Belfast. There’s another local kid looking to make it big, however — young Tom McKibbin, a 22-year old who learned the game at Holywood, McIlroy’s home track, is beginning to find his footing in the world of professional golf and is well-positioned to turn some heads this week. He resides just 15 minutes from Portrush and has been a member of the course for 10 years, so he’ll have as much local knowledge as anyone in the field, and his confidence should be sky-high after a career-best 4th-place finish at LIV Andalucia last week, which came just two weeks after a T5 at LIV Dallas. McKibbin has played several practice rounds with veteran Darren Clarke in preparation for this week, and he’s had some experience on the big stage before, making the cut in all three of his previous Major Championship appearances, including last year’s Open at Troon. He’s a dark horse here, for sure, but he has the ability and loads of course knowledge… with a little sprinkling of magic, who knows?
