2019 Open Championship Course and Event Preview

The Open (BRITISH) Open Championship 2019 Preview

Course: Royal Portrush Golf Club, Dunluce Links, Portrush, Northern Island

Fast Facts

• Par 71, 7344 yards
• Designer: Harry Colt in 1932 (Martin Ebert 2017 Renovation)
• First time in Northern Island since the Open was held at Royal Portrush in 1951
• Hosted the 2012 Irish Open (pre-renovation, played at Par 72, won by Jamie Donaldson)
• Fairways: Bentgrass/Fescue
• Rough: Bentgrass/Fescue
• Greens: 50% Bent, 30% Fescue, 20% Annual Meadow Grass; very undulated/many raised greens
• Average Green Size: Links style (MASSIVE)
• Very few bunkers for a links/European Course: 64 scattered throughout
• Coastal/Links Style
• Field: 156 players
• Corollary Courses (via conditions/US Opens): St. Andrews (Old Course), Carnoustie, Royal Birkdale, Royal Troon

It feels weird to be mid-July and already have the last major upon us, but I’ve enjoyed the schedule change thus far and am excited to conclude golf’s major season with The Open (actually the British) Open. This is my favorite tournament of the year to dive into because each and every course in the Open Championship rotation, call it 10-12 courses, is so unique and although there will be the narratives ALL week about “Links” players and “Links Specialists,” while the courses have that attribute in common, each one presents a strong test and the tournament can be flipped on a dime. For example, take it back to 2012 where Adam Scott was 4 up on the field with 4 to play on Sunday… only to bogey all 4 and lose it to the Big Easy (Ernie Els) by 1 shot. Perhaps the 2^nd most talked about narrative of the week after “links” players is how affecting the wind can be by day/hour/minute? If one of your core guys in DFS or your outright bets gets caught in the wrong wave they could be firing a 76 while others in the afternoon birdie their way to a 68. WAIT TO SET YOUR LINEUPS AND MAKE YOUR BETS AS LATE AS POSSIBLE.

Royal Portrush was designed by Harry Colt in the early 1930s and has held the Open Championship one time, back in 1951 (won by Max Faulkner) and is a course, as described by some in the R&A this past week as rewarding if you give yourself birdie opportunities but absolutely brutal if you miss the fairways/greens. Importantly, I mentioned above in the fast facts that this has hosted the Irish Open somewhat recently (2012) but it will play quite different as it has undergone the following changes: 1) Around 200 yards have been added to make the course over 7,300 yards, 2) A Par 5 was taken out (#7), #9 is now a Par 4, 3) The last 2 holes of the course were totally scrapped and redone to make a more dramatic finishing stretch, so while I will post the scorecard and historical scoring from the 2012 tournament, it should be taken with a grain of salt due to several changes. Further, there was miscellaneous bunkering added throughout the course to penalize wayward tee shots as well as those that carry too far… should be awesome to watch. As mentioned earlier, since this near the tip of Northern Ireland and in the UK in general, anything can happen with the weather as rain/hail/sun/more rain all can happen in 10 minutes and wind gusts can go from 5 MPH to 35 MPH in a matter of seconds.

Above is the famous 5^th hole at Royal Portrush named “White Rocks”

Below I have posted the official scorecard for Royal Portrush with scoring average at the 2012 Irish Open, Birdie-or-Better (BoB%) rate from the 2012 Irish Open, and some hole by hole notes.

As we look above from notes I’ve gathered from interviews and other course reviews we can draw some conclusions about how to be successful at this course. First, the Par 5 BoB rate was about 29% in 2012 with an average score of about 4.25. There is now one less Par 5 but seeing as they all fall in the 500-600 range, the longer players can certainly reach them in 2 and on a course where mistakes are at every turn, making the most of your 12 opportunities on the Par 5s will be imperative to success. Next, the Par 3 average score in 2012 was 3.60, which shows just how demanding these elevated and undulated greens will play, with a special emphasis on “Calamity Corner” which above was Hole 14 in 2012. With 3 of the 4 Par 3s ranging between 175-200 and 6 Par 4s between 400-450, the 175+ iron range seems like the logical place to target. Most major championship courses are long and the elite long iron players like Henrik Stenson, Tiger Woods, Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Paul Casey, and Rory McIlroy all rise to the top (top guys via FantasyNational.com).

For what it’s worth, below is a list of players who competed in the 2012 Irish Open and are in the field this coming week at Royal Portrush.

Not sure how much we can truly take from it as it was a different course, different par, and many years ago, but interesting to see RCB up there, a well known solid Links player, and McDowell, who we can keep piling on the narrative street as we all know how badly he wanted to qualify for this as it was his home course growing up. Yes, Rory of course did well here and yes, as people will talk about all week, he shot a 61 here when he was 16. Good for him.

The famous 16^th hole at Royal Portrush, “Calamity Corner

Correlating Stats and Courses

In the fast facts section, I listed a couple of links style courses that are in the Open Championship rotation and it’s hard to give really specific “corollary” because while all have a few crossover similarities, each has its own style and presents opportunity, and trouble, in its own way. Based on player interviews by Henrik Stenson, Zach Johnson, and others, the types of run-offs, grass, and challenging par 3s give a similar test to St. Andrews (Old Course). This brings up some interesting names as 9 of the Top 10 at St. Andrews in 2015 are competing here this week and one in particular is sure to garner massive ownership on DraftKings in Louis Oosthuizen. Louis finished tied for the lead in 2015 and ended up coming in 3^rd in a playoff and in 2010 he won The Open Championship. If you believe in similar course narratives, roll with Louis. He torched the field in 2010, finishing at -16, while runner up, Lee Westwood, finished at -9. As I run a custom model on FantasyNational using the above courses as well as a few American courses that are deemed “Links Style” and other courses that have been used in both the US and British Opens we get a Top 25 that looks like this (note that the maximum rounds anyone has is 36 with most in the 16-24 round range):

1. Rory McIlroy
2. Sergio Garcia
3. Jordan Spieth
4. Adam Scott
5. Henrik Stenson
6. Dustin Johnson
7. Justin Rose
8. Jason Day
9. Jim Furyk
10. Xander Schauffele
11. Brooks Koepka
12. Zach Johnson
13. Marc Leishman
14. Francesco Molinari
15. Tony Finau
16. Chris Wood
17. Matt Kuchar
18. Branden Grace
19. Louis Oosthuizen
20. Shane Lowry
21. Phil Mickelson
22. Patrick Cantlay
23. Chez Reavie
24. Patrick Reed
25. Graeme McDowell

As we look above it’s actually a pretty logical list in my opinion: We have several guys who play a lot on the Euro Tour in general like Moliniai, Sergio, Grace, Louis, Lowry, McDowell, and Stenson as well as some all-around elite talent who can play just about anywhere like Rory, DJ, Kuchar, Rose, and Brooks. Lastly, below we’ll look at a table of “Links Specialists” via Futureoffantasy.com and “Windy AF” specialists from FantasyNational.com. I never think wind should be “THE” deciding factor in betting/DFS; however, these courses can swing +/- 5 shots in some cases so knowing guys who can handle it (i.e. NOT BUBBA WATSON) is extremely important this week.

Key Stats/Form Needed to Compete

Key Stats – Last 8, 12, 24, and 50 Rounds (courtesy of FantasyNational.com)

In order of importance:

• SG: T2G/SG: BS
• SG: APP (emphasis on 175+)
• SG: OTT (emphasis on Fairways Gained)
• Scrambling
• BoB Gained
• SG: Par 5s
• Bogey Avoidance
• 3 Putt Avoidance

Above are the stats that I, at least as this moment, will be focusing on for the 2019 Open Championship. However, for what has now become a staple of major previews is looking at Steve Bamford’s US Open preview (golfbettingsystem.co.uk), again, an EXTREMELY sharp bettor, whom has identified some interesting stats and trends. There aren’t as many trends this time around as we normally find prior to the Masters or the US Open, but it can be noted that the last 8 winners all had a Top 10 or better in a previous Open Championship prior to their win. Further, 13 of the last 19 winners had won a tournament in the same season before their Open win. As mentioned at the top of the article, I think the long iron approaches will be key this week as 3 of the 4 Par 3s fall in that range, all 3 Par 5s are reachable by most of the field, and there are 4 Par 4s from 450-500 that require accuracy over distance tee shots. Since missing the fairway can be so penal and, in most majors,, SG: OTT is a deciding factor, I decided to weight that one of the most heavy and put some further emphasis on fairways. Per Steve Bamford, Driving Accuracy outweighed Driving Distance in the 2012 Irish Open and I expect that to be consistent for this year’s Open as well.  Second, when there is wind/rain blowing, very common in Europe, the GIR% will naturally be lower and the ability to get up and down becomes more and more paramount. Lastly, bogey avoidance is important in any major as saving par becomes much more significant over racking up birdies and 3 putt avoidance can be included as a tertiary stat due to the implied LARGE links style greens. Below are my initial stat ranks based on my criteria via FNGC over 4 key time periods:

This table should look similar to the US Open preview and as remind for some context, the color coding goes as follows: the green highlights represent those who appear in the Top 25 stat rankings in all 4 time periods of 12, 24, 50, and 100 rounds, the light blue are for those who appear in 3 of 4 periods, yellow for 2 of 4, and orange for 1 of 4. You will see a ton of green for the players we would expect: those whom have been dominant for many years or who the last 2-3 years have torn up the TOUR, such as Rory, DJ, Tiger, Rose, Schauffele, Kuchar, Hideki, etc. others like Rahm, Rickie, Fleetwood, or Justin Thomas, etc. maybe have had a bit of a down year or just barely missed out on being in the Top 25. As we scan the list it’s both interesting to see guys who have more long term over short term form or vice versa, such as Justin Thomas or Francesco Molinari, as the former still has not recovered his putting stroke and Molinari who had such an epic run last year during the summer but has perhaps slightly cooled off in the last few months. The following players do not have a Top 25 in any time period: Jordan Spieth, Louis Oosthuizen, Ian Poulter, Marc Leishman, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Brandt Snedeker, Tyrrell Hatton, and Zach Johnson. A few of these, such as Hatton, may make sense since he plays predominantly on the Euro Tour but it’s interesting to note that guys like Snedeker, Leishman, and ZJ are all having very down years and are no where near the form of let’s say ZJ’s win in 2015 or Leishman coming runner up in 2015. In the case of Louis, his iron game has been lackluster for most of the year to go along with very volatile OTT and Putting splits. ZJ hasn’t been his normal consistent self this year, only posting 1 Top 16 finish in 2019 as his year started off with very poor OTT game and his T2G and putting has been more volatile than normal. Players in the above table I find most intriguing with regards to just their stats, among other things, are Erik Van Rooyen, Kevin Streelman, Jon Rahm, and Bryson Dechambeau. I wouldn’t be shocked to see 1 or multiple near the top come Sunday…

Final Thoughts

It’s definitely odd to see golf’s major season coming to a close in less than 10 days but we’ve had some pretty epic runs this season with Tiger capturing his 15^th after an 11 year drought, Brooks dominating AGAIN and going back to back at the PGA, and good guy Gary Woodland capturing what I would call an unexpected 1^st major last month at the US Open. The Open Championship is great because it truly is the most unknown since it’s played in different conditions than most PGA TOUR players see all year and the unexpected is heightened with random weather, different styles of play, and punishing holes that can bring the whole field back into play in a matter of moments. When approaching this event from a betting or DFS perspective my thoughts would be the following: WAIT to make finalized bets/lineups on Wednesday afternoon at the latest, target guys who are elite fairway specialists (as I was reading reports on how brutal the rough is supposed to be), take both sides of the weather draw, target long iron players, take some shots on Euro players who are used to this style of play (in no particular order: Ryan Fox, Justin Harding, Joost Luiten, Hao Tong Li, Eddie Pepperell to name a few) whom the betting/DFS community might not know as well. I’m ultra-excited for this event, I’m excited to get up at 3 or 4 AM and see Tiger shoot 63 en route to #16 and I’m excited for the unpredictable nature of the BRITISH Open. Enjoy folks.

Tiger #16.