A dress rehearsal for the Open Championship?
Perhaps it will help with the jet lag but historically, there hasn’t been much correlation between performance in the Scottish Open and the Open Championship proper as the Scottish Open has often been reduced to pitch-and-putt golf with low scoring and soft conditions. It all depends on the setup as usual but it should be a ball striker’s week.
Lots of strength at the top, as expected.
Favorites:
Jon Rahm - A threat to win every time out and a bigger threat to hang a back-door Top 10.
Xander Schauffele - Do yourself a favor and concentrate on the T5 and T10 markets if you like him this week.
Colin Morikawa - He is very much hit or miss so the win market is the way to go. Just look away when he putts.
Rory McIlroy - Still not back to being prime Rory. I think the days when he used to rattle off 3-4 wins within 2 months and win majors in bunches might not be returning. Almost never a good price.
Justin Thomas - See Morikawa. I’m surprised he hasn’t broken a couple of putters this season.
Other contenders to watch
Scottie Scheffler - See Xander Schauffele. Some guys are just allergic to winning. T10 market might be worth hitting though.
Tommie Fleetwood - Probably not the guy you want this week, not a great ball striker and inconsistent. Any idea why the books are so high on him?
Will Zalatoris - In a slump lately, another ball striking phenom who can’t putt
Garrick Higgo - Good ballstriker and loves easy courses so the price could be right. Let’s see what the setup is like.
Corey Conners - See Morikawa, Thomas, and Zalatoris. You get a bigger price with him though.
As I have stated before, the easier the course gets the more the leaderboard gets equalized. If the course average is -2 or so, some dude named Benjamin Hebert could shoot -24 and win.