British Open Live Betting: Options Following Round 1

If there’s a winning formula for this week’s Open Championship – based on what we’ve seen after Day 1 at Royal Portrush – it might be two parts precision and one part luck.

The recurring theme on Thursday was approach shots either catching the exact perfect spot to lead to a viable birdie attempt or missing by a mere foot or two and watching the ball bound to a place where saving par was the only hope.

They say it’s better to be lucky than good, but the truth is, it’s better to be lucky and good – and those who’ve checked both boxes so far find themselves on this leaderboard through 18 holes.

And that’s important. As my friend Justin Ray, stats guru from the Twenty-First Group, shared on social media early Thursday morning, each of the last 25 winners of The Open were within five shots of the lead after the first round.

That’s an astounding statistic.

To review: In the last quarter-century, there hasn’t been a single instance of some journeyman posting, say, 65 in the opener to grab FRL honors, while a big-name shot a perfectly-fine 71 and went on to win the tournament.

I can easily fathom nobody coming from a half-dozen back after 54 holes, but nobody making up that differential after just 18 holes to eventually win is fairly incredible.

What this means is that with the leaders – Matt Fitzpatrick, Haotong Li, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Harris English and Jacob Skov Olesen – at 4-under after shooting scores of 67, any player standing at 2-over or worse is either out of it or has to reverse a pretty massive historical trend to make it happen.

That includes Jason Day, Patrick Cantlay, Akshay Bhatia, J.J. Spaun, Bryson DeChambeau, Ludvig Aberg, Tommy Fleetwood, Hideki Matsuyama, Corey Conners, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Reed – many of whom were popular pre-tournament selections.

What it also means is that if we’re only seeking players who are currently on the first couple of pages of this leaderboard, then we’re also largely looking only at those with shortened odds, as opposed to targeting some players with big prices after Round 1, as we often do through one round of a tournament.

Alright, let’s get to some outright options entering Friday’s second round of The Open.

British Open Live Betting: Options Following Round 1

Scottie Scheffler: 3-under 68 (+240)

Look, I’m not a big fan of betting the pre-tournament favorite in most situations, but I downright hate the idea of betting the post-R1 favorite. Buuuut… Scottie isn’t like most Thursday evening faves, often players who posted a hot opener and climbed the board a little too quickly. At just about half the price as before he started, Scheffler actually makes some sense in a few different ways.

The first is that, simply, he’s the best golfer in the world and while his existential release during a press conference had some people questioning how much he really cares about golf, I interpreted his thoughts as high-level awareness that winning golf tournaments isn’t the most important thing in the world, which in turn should ironically free him up to potentially win more golf tournaments. The second is that he actually lost strokes off the tee in the first round, finding just three fairways. I won’t suggest that he’ll play better in each of the next three days than he did Thursday, but there’s unequivocally room for improvement. Of course, if you do decide to pick up Scheffler as a live outright, it’s probably a single-bullet play, as wagering on anyone else would essentially cancel out any possible ROI. 

Jon Rahm: 1-under 70 (+1200)

If backing post-round faves is my least-favorite type of bet, then this is easily one of my favorites. Allow me to explain: I really liked Rahm pre-tourney, but at +1200, I bypassed him in the outright market, because I thought there was more value further down the board. Well, I’d analogize this to poker, in that we just checked our way into seeing the flop and the cards are now in our favor, so it’s probably time to throw some chips on the table. Being able to watch Rahm’s round, see him just three shots off the pace and drift to a bigger number feels like a great reason to pick him up in the live market.

Xander Schauffele: Even-par 71 (+3500)

Four months ago, I interviewed Schauffele before the Arnold Palmer Invitational, when he was making his return from a two-month absence due to a rib injury. During our conversation, I hypothesized that it might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as he might have more gas in the tank later in the season than some of his elite-level peers. Xander smiled and said he’d been thinking the same thing.

Well, we’re now at that later part of the season about which we were referencing. That’s not to suggest that players such as Scheffler and Rahm are going to be too worn-out to win, but I feel like Schauffele might have a little more pep in his step over the next few months. That might manifest itself during the FedEx Cup playoffs or the Ryder Cup, but it also might be this week. At this price, I’m willing to take a chance that it is. 

Sungjae Im: Even-par 71 (+20000) and Adam Scott: 1-over 72 (+15000)

Even knowing that we shouldn’t back a player who’s too far down this leaderboard and aware that some of the game’s best players are up there near the top, it’s impossible to not peruse the prices and dream of hitting some triple-digit longshot in a few days. I’ll admit there aren’t too many options which get me interested, but I can at least make a case for both Im and Scott. Remember: As I often say, when betting outrights, we’re simply playing a guy’s upside, because anything besides a win is a losing ticket. Do these two have the firepower to make up some ground and claim a Claret Jug? I’m very skeptical, but the odds are at least a bit alluring.