Photo: royal-liverpool-golf.com
The final major of the year has arrived! We return to Royal Liverpool for the first time since 2014 for The Open Championship. There is a palpable buzz around this event every year, but it seems slightly heightened this year. This could be due to Royal Liverpool’s ability to produce world class winners. The last two winners from The Open Championship’s that have taken place at Royal Liverpool are Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods.
It is a loaded field this year with many of the top players coming in top form. Length of links courses on a scorecard are hardly relevant and tend to be almost entirely weather dependent. Looking back to Rory and Tiger’s victories here the course played rather firm, allowing the players to hit mostly irons off the tee and play some really creative shots. This week we look for more of the same and the top players to show out at Royal Liverpool. With it being a major week, we will be making four picks instead of our usual three. We will still be picking players from across the odds board, but not going as far down as normal, as there will not be a surprise winner this week.
Scottie Scheffler
It is truly hard to quantify how much better tee to green Scottie Scheffler has been than every other player in the world this year. He has not finished outside of the top 5 at an event since The RBC Heritage. He is coming off of a T3 at The Scottish Open last week. The fact that he is not the favorite in this event revolves entirely around the Rory hype coming off his win last week, in addition to the fact that he won the last Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in 2014. Scottie is going to give himself a chance to win this event. He will be in the Top 5 strokes gained tee to green. The floor on Scottie is so insanely high that you just know he is going to be in contention. He truly feels due to win a big time event. We think Scottie is going to grab the win this year at Royal Liverpool.
Denny McCarthy
If you blanked out his name and looked at Denny McCarthy’s results this season, you might guess that it would be the results of a high profile big name player, like a Tony Finau, Hideki, or Xander. Well that is because Denny McCarthy now IS a high profile big name player and it is time we realize that. The dude is a top 20 machine and has an elite skill in his putting. He is 3 standard deviations better at putting than your average tour player according to data golf, which provides a floor that a lot of other players do not have. This lets him not have an elite ball striking week and still hang around in events. When he does have an elite ball striking week, he turns many of his opportunities into birdies allowing him to contend. He is coming off T6 and T7 finishes and when you combine his skillset with his form, it looks like he is in line for a great week. Look for Denny to grab a Top five finish this week at The Open Championship.
Jordan Smith
Jordan Smith is a quality DP World Tour player who currently sits inside of the top 90 in the OWGR. He has already played in two majors this year, The PGA Championship and The U.S Open. While he missed the cut at The PGA, he finished T20 at The U.S Open. He is coming into The Open Championship in strong form, having made the cut in his last five events including a T12 result last week in The Scottish Open. His greatest strength is his play off the tee, in which he is both longer and more accurate than average. All you need from him is an above average putting week and you are looking at someone who has a real chance to make some noise this week. Look for Jordan Smith to grab a top 10 finish this week at The Open Championship.
Ben Griffin
It has been a tale of two seasons for Ben Griffin. He came out of the gates hot, only missing two cuts in his first sixteen events. Since then, his fortunes have flipped, and he has more missed cuts than made cuts from that point forward in the season. This has caused him to tumble his way down the odds boards at events such as this. The main reason for that has been a squirrely driver that he couldn’t seem to straighten out. He has showed some signs of improving this area in his game and regaining his early season form in the last month. He is coming in off of two straight made cuts including a T25 at The Scottish Open. We have already seen him play well and place highly in designated events this year, and he seems to be returning to that form. We like Ben Griffin to grab a top 20 finish this week at The Open Championship.
