Course Preview
The Open travels to the Royal St. George’s for this year’s tournament. As is tradition, this will be a links-style course, with minimal tree obstruction, rolling & uneven fairways, tall fescue rough, and large pot bunkers. While we don’t have any recent data from Royal St. George’s, if the course plays similar to previous Open Championship hosts, we should expect putting to be slightly down-weighted, with an increased emphasis on golfers’ ability to scramble around the green and navigate the rolling fairways with strong approach play.
Favorite to trust
Rory McIlroy (1.15x)
It has hard to say someone is a “good course fit” when we have such limited prior data, but McIlroy does possess some traits that might suggest he is in a position to succeed at Royal St. George’s. His weakest trait over the past 6 months has been his putting (-0.25 strokes gained per round), but he’s been above average in his around the green, approach, and off the tee play.
It is unclear which of these traits should be must be elevated, but it seems likely that targeting ball-strikers should be a winning strategy this weekend. Rory is also getting good Vegas backing, at 21-to-1 to win, he’s got the best odds of anyone at his price point, trailed by 1.15x golfers like Hatton & Hovland at 29-to-1.
Challenger Who Could Win
Paul Casey (1.2x)
Casey is a perennial guy who projects well but just can’t seem to get over the hump. That being said, he does project well for the Open. Like Rory, Casey’s strengths lie in his approach play and scrambling ability around the green (both Top 10 in this week’s field over the last 6 months). And like Rory, Casey has good win odds relative to his multiplier. Casey and Shane Lowry (36-to-1) have the best win odds at the 1.2x and up multiplier. It is not factored into the model (although perhaps absorbed by Vegas odds), but Casey is also an England native so should have a heightened sense of how to approach this links-style course. Casey projects as a strong play and could be one of the mid-to-high multiplier players to challenge for the Claret Jug.
Sleeper to Take A Flyer On
Guido Migliozzi (1.45x) –
The multipliers for this week range from 1 to 1.55x (as opposed to the usual 1.65x), so Guido is one of the highest multipliers in the field. He has been impressive in his two PGA starts this year, finishing 4th at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, and 13th at the Travelers Championship which featured an exceptionally strong field for a non-major.
So safe to say, the rookie has been in strong form. He’s been far more active this year on the European tour, in which he’s logged three 2nd place finishes, two in his last three starts. There is a small PGA sample for the young Italian, but given his strong recent form, the high multiplier, and good odds to win relative to his multiplier, Migliozzi feels like one of the stronger high-multiplier options.
Projections
The Tour heads across the pond this weekend for the final major of the 2021 season. We’ve got a star-studded field in pursuit of the Claret Jug. As usual, the keys will be to find the right low-multiplier golfers who can challenge to be a part of the final pairing and not get too overexposed to all the safe (but low upside) golfers en lieu of sprinkles of mid-to-high multiplier golfers that have tournament-winning upside.
This article expresses the personal views of the writer and does not reflect the view(s) of SuperDraft in any way.
