PGA The Open Championship Royal Liverpool

Royal Liverpool Golf Club is an important club in England, dating back to 1869. It played a crucial role in spreading the game of golf throughout Great Britain and beyond, transforming it from a local interest to a global phenomenon.

The club's course, known as "Hoylake," hosted a "Grand tournament" in 1885, which later became the prestigious Amateur Championship by the R&A. Some of England's greatest amateur golfers, like John Ball and Harold Hilton, won at Hoylake in the late 1800s.

Royal Liverpool's reputation continued to grow, and in 1921, it hosted the first-ever team match between the best amateur golfers from the United States and Great Britain & Ireland, leading to the establishment of the Walker Cup the following year.

This week, Royal Liverpool is hosting The Open Championship for the ninth time in the last 100 years (13th overall). Over the years, many famous golfers have won the Claret Jug at this club, including Walter Hagen in 1924, Bobby Jones in 1930 during his Grand Slam year, Peter Thomson in 1956, Tiger Woods in 2006, and Rory McIlroy in 2014.

Throughout its history, the golf club has made selective updates to its course to keep up with the times. Only one green, the 4th hole, remains from the original course in 1869. Over the years, many architects, like Harry Colt, Fred Hawtree, Martin Hawtree, Donald Steel, and others, have shaped the course.

Recently, Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert made contributions to the club, including building a new par-3 hole, the 17th, which is expected to be a standout feature with its small elevated green next to the River Dee.

Playing on this course requires a combination of power, precision, courage, and cleverness. The terrain varies from flat former horse-racing land to wavy dunes where the River Dee meets the Irish Sea. In 2006, Tiger Woods won the Open on dry, yellow turf, hardly ever taking his driver out of the bag. In 2014, Rory McIlroy won on a wetter course with a strategic approach and massive power, sealing the victory with a late-Sunday eagle on the 16th hole.

This year, the weather conditions have changed from early-summer drought to mid-summer rains, making the course more playable, but still challenging. The course has been modified to make pot bunkers more treacherous, increasing the risk for players who miss their targets.

The forecast predicts cool breezes coming from the west off the Dee, which will make the start of the round tougher but assist the players on the back-nine par 5s.


The model breakdown for this course is as follows
Driving Distance 28%
Putting 15%
Driving Accuracy 19%
Around The Green 15%
Approach 23%

The emphasis is on the last 24 rounds the golfer has played. These are the best values, not necessarily the best golfers this week. As always, I play these bets to win 1 unit. It limits your risk, which is what we want to do on longshot futures types of bets.

We are taking on a bit more risk than usual this week, but we do have the potential for a nice payday if we can hit the winner and a top 5 or top 10 bet.

The difficulty with majors since the LIV tour came into existence is modeling the players not regularly playing on the PGA tour. I am adding Brooks Koepka to the bets because he profiles well for this course and is a machine in majors. Cam Smith needs consideration, but his price is too short for me. The most challenging call was whether to take Scheffler or Rory. They both fit this course well and are both playing great golf. Obviously, you can play them both, but it will limit the number of win bets you can make.

To Win

Top 5

Top 10

Here are the top 20 golfers from my model this week in order from best to worst.

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Rory McIlroy
3. Rickie Fowler
4. Wyndham Clark
5. Tommy Fleetwood
6. Jon Rahm
7. Xander Schauffele
8. Tyrrell Hatton
9. Patrick Cantlay
10. Adam Scott
11. Viktor Hovland
12. Adam Schenk
13. Keegan Bradley
14. Corey Conners
15. Jordan Speith
16. Dustin Johnson
17. Denny McCarthy
18. Collin Morikawa
19. Russell Henley
20. Michael Kim