I said in the Open thread last year that the Open week will be the one which throws up the most disagreement between DG and bookmakers, and it appears to have been the case this year as well.
It’s particularly strange this year as when you look at that top 20, there aren’t any of the classic “links masters who love the Open, but who come out awfully on the DG model” aside from possibly Molinari. By major standards, it was a really easy golf course played in very little wind.
Contrast that to the 2019 Open (DG’s worst ever week), and you can see that top 20 was full of that type of player.
Some discussion about historic odds…thought I’d post this here:
Here are the longest odds for the winner of all majors from 2012-2022. These odds are the ones listed as being posted before Round 1:
Mickelson 2021 PGA - 250/1
Walker 2016 PGA - 125/1
Z Johnson 2015 British - 80/1
Lowry 2019 British - 80/1
Woodland 2019 US Open - 60/1
Matsuyama 2021 Masters - 60/1
So 2 major winners had odds worse than 100/1 coming in. 6 worse than 50/1. This is out of 43 tournaments.
Compare this to the ten years before (2002 - 2011).
Ooosthuizen 2010 British - 200/1
Immelman 2008 Masters - 150/1
Glover 2009 U.S. Open - 150/1
Bradley 2011 PGA - 150/1
Clarke 2011 British - 150/1
Yang 2009 PGA - 125/1
Cink 2009 British - 125/1
Cabrera 2009 Masters - 125/1
Z Johnson 2007 Masters - 125/1
Schwartzel 2011 Masters - 100/1
Cabrera 2007 Masters - 100/1
Ogilvy 2006 US Open - 80/1
McDowell 2010 US Open - 66/1
In addition these five golfers didn’t have first round odds listed. Before 2015, not all golfers were given pre tournament odds and there was a FIELD bet option for those not listed. So these golfers have odds worse than 200/1:
Beem 2022 PGA
Curtis 2003 British
Micheel 2003 PGA
Hamilton 2004 British
Campbell 2005 US Open
18 of these golfers had worse than 50/1 odds, 16 worse than 100/1 (or weren’t listed). Out of 40 tournaments.
Comparing world rankings:
Avg. OWGR ranking for winners 2012-2022: 15
Avg. OWGR ranking for winners 2002-2011: 41
Winners from outside the Top 50 & Top 100:
From 2012 - 2022: 1 (Mickelson 2021 PGA)
From 2002 - 2011: 12 & 5
So something is going on. Long odds aren’t winning as often as they used to.
Investigating this, my first thought was “Tiger effect.” If you give Tiger a 25% or 30% chance of winning, this means the rest of the field will be distributed along longer odds. But not seeing much here. On average, from 2012-2022, there are ~ 17 golfers with better than 50/1 odds. From 2002-2011, this was ~ 15. A small factor, but not large enough to account for the differences we’ve seen.
This puts some data behind a common-discussed theory that Golf is so so much deeper now than ever before. In other words, a longshot would have less elite players to beat in the past versus today when they have a lot more elite players to surpass in order to win.
Damn tough week for everybody. Cam Young and DJ Bet Boosted sort of steadied the ship at the end. Also getting Cam Smith Outright at 52:1 ok Betfair helped a smidge.
Bumping the Open Championship thread back to the top for the upcoming 2023 version. Anyone have any early predictions or favorites for Royal Liverpool in July?
Koepka is definitely one of the favorites the way he has peaked at the other 2 Majors. I feel like Hatton, Lowry & Rose will be in the hunt on the Euro side, US favorites include Schauffele, Spieth, and then Smith & Fox from AUS/NZ. A few more tourney’s until we have all the data to process including the US & Scottish Opens. Thanks @Arthurcussen