Open Championship Betting: How Genesis Scottish Open Should Offer Clues

With names such as Zach Johnson (80/1), Shane Lowry (80/1) and Brian Harman (125/1) getting etched onto the Claret Jug in recent years, The Open Championship is hardly the most predictive major of each year, let alone one of the more predictive events on the schedule.

And yet, we don’t have to look too far to uncover some massive clues toward which players might contend at Royal Troon this week.

Since becoming a PGA Tour-sanctioned event and therefore hosting more of the game’s top players annually, the Scottish Open has offered a terrific barometer for how a player might fare in the subsequent tourney – which only makes sense due to the parallel of playing on links courses and continuing some momentum from one to the other.

Let’s first look at last year:

Of the 10 players who finished inside the top-10 at last year’s Scottish Open, all 10 made the cut at Royal Liverpool one week later, with seven of them finishing inside the top-25. And while the winner hadn’t been inside the top-10 that previous week, Brian Harman might only serve to prove my admittedly arbitrary cutoff, as he did finish in a share of 12th place, while Rory McIlroy parlayed his Scottish win into a T-6 the next week.

Of course, any trend can fit a specific profile for one year. But what if we go back further? Glad you asked. Here’s how the 13 players who finished top-10 at the 2022 Scottish Open and also played in the following week’s Open Championship fared in that one:

Once again, they nearly all make the cut; once again, seven finish inside the top-25. This time, the winner came from that previous week’s top-10, as Cameron Smith was exactly T-10 at the Scottish before prevailing at St. Andrews and Xander Schauffele turned a win at the first into a T-15 at the second.

Even in the years when there’s less correlation, it still helps tell a little story. Here’s 2021:

After triumphing in a three-man playoff at the Scottish, Min Woo Lee failed to make the cut at Royal St. George’s, while Collin Morikawa threw us off the scent with a T-71 the previous week. While these numbers pale in comparison to the first two examples, I’ll point out that Matt Fitzpatrick, Ian Poulter and Xander Schauffele were all part of a massive group finishing in a share of 26th place, again just missing what is an arbitrary cutoff point. 

What should all of this tell us? Perhaps not that Robert MacIntyre will go back-to-back and win yet again after his Scottish Open victory, but others should be very much top of mind when considering wagers for this week.

The studs include Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg and Collin Morikawa (each of whom finished in a share of fourth place), while the likes of Sungjae Im, Aaron Rai, Victor Perez and Corey Conners (all top-10) offer definite possibilities.

If we want to extend just past that demarcation point, we’ll find Xander Schauffele and Tom Kim amongst the stars, with Matteo Manassero and Rasmus Hojgaard each giving us pause for consideration.

None of this is a foolproof plan, obviously. We can’t simply expect every single player on the Scottish Open leaderboard to pop up at The Open, as well.

However, as we’ve witnessed over the past three years, that first leaderboard of this fortnight is very likely giving some serious clues toward some players who will contend this week.