2024 Scottish Open - Betting Preview

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Sitting adjacent to Muirfield on 300 acres along the famous golf-playing coastline off the Firth of Forth in North Berwick, Scotland is “The Renaissance Club”. Completed in 2008 by famed architect Tom Doak, it was designed from the swath of an ancient pine forest. With only four holes by the ocean, undulating terrain, thick rough off the fairway, and numerous wooded areas, the course is not a traditional links setup. But it does have links qualities with its seaside location, firm turf, and deep pot bunkers with riveted faces. And its greens encourage the use of the ground game.

It hasn’t always played as tough as a typical links course due to the effects of the wind which have had a major impact on scoring conditions through the first five editions played at The Renaissance Club. With light winds for most of last year’s event along with 2019 and 2021, the course played much easier at -0.69 per round. But when the coastal breezes kick up like in 2020 and 2022, scoring becomes much tougher as evidenced by it averaging +1.46 per round. With hardly any penalty for missing the fairway, the course favors length off the tee along with accurate long iron players who can flight their ball in the wind and avoid 3-putts on the huge, undulating greens.

Over the past decade, the club has become a mainstay in the Scottish golfing scene, having hosted four other Scottish Opens along with professional women’s and senior events. This tournament along with the concurrent ISCO Championship in Kentucky are the only co-sanctioned events between the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. Before this became a PGA Tour event two years ago, 22 of the past 24 champions were regular members of the DP World Tour. PGA players have typically viewed this tournament as a warm-up for The Open Championship. But over the past two years, PGA stalwarts, Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy (last year) broke through with victories.

The Field

With 18 of the top 30 players in the world making the trip to North Berwick, the field for this year’s Scottish Open will be one of its strongest ever. With it being a co-sanctioned event, the number of PGA Tour players and DP World Tour players is evenly split with 75 players in attendance from each. Motivation for many will be high as three spots in the Open Championship are up for grabs to the top three finishers who have not already qualified provided they finish in the top 10 at Renaissance.

With world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler choosing to prepare on his own for next week’s Open Championship, he joins Patrick Cantlay as the only eligible top-25 players not in attendance this week. Other top players not making the trek overseas include Tony Finau, Russell Henley, Keegan Bradley, Cameron Young, and Akshay Bhatia.

Rory McIlroy returns to defend his win from last year and makes his first appearance since faltering down the stretch at last month’s U.S. Open. Scotland native, Robert Macintyre, who was runner-up last year, returns home as a PGA Tour champion having won the Canadian Open a few weeks ago. Other past Scottish Open champions teeing it up this week include world No. 3 Xander Schauffele, Min Woo Lee, Aaron Rai, and DP World Tour player and former LIV Golf member, Bernd Wiesberger.

From the DP World Tour side, the top players in the field this week aside from Wiesberger include the likes of Rasmus Hojgaard, Jordan Smith, Guido Migliozzi, Tom McKibbin, Keita Nakajima, and Thriston Lawrence. Many former DP World Tour players are now regulars on the PGA Tour including Macintyre, Ryan Fox, Alexander Bjork, and Matthieu Pavon.

Past Winners/Odds

Betting Thoughts

With upwards of 75 players from the DP World Tour who have played little to no rounds in PGA Tour events, the normal model was simplified this week. However, I think it will be quite accurate because full strokes gained data was input into each category, even for the DP World Tour players. Recent and longer-term history is included as usual, as well as a comprehensive Links course ranking based on data for every links-style course going back to 2014. Also included is DataGolf’s powerful top-10 finish prediction metric.

On top of that, there are just as many PGA Tour players making the trip across the pond to the mostly unfamiliar surroundings of a hybrid links Scottish course. There is a distinct advantage to being a European player at the Scottish Open as most have much more experience on these types of courses. With these factors in mind, there is a very specific group of players that I’m targeting this week for all types of wagers.

The first box I am looking to check is with players who have had past success on links-style courses or at The Renaissance Club in particular. When analyzing the Strokes Gained per round history (minimum 20 rounds) on these types of courses there is a clear top-six in the field led by Tom Kim at 1.89. The other five players include Jordan Spieth (1.88), Tommy Fleetwood (1.85), Collin Morikawa (1.79), Xander Schauffele (1.71), and Rory McIlroy (1.65). Since this is not a “true” links course and his putting has been erratic, I’m out on Spieth this week. I’m also out on Morikawa who lacks the length OTT and struggles with his lag putting on large greens.

My favorite play is Fleetwood who possesses the best course history at The Renaissance Club, having gained 34.2 total strokes on the field in his four trips here which includes three top-six finishes. He is one of the best “links-style” players in the world and enters this week in quality form with eight top-26 finishes in his last nine starts.

Digging into the strokes gained categories for the Renaissance Club, in gusty conditions last year, the Driving Accuracy rate was only 49%. Yet it ranked as the second easiest course in “Missed Fairway Penalty”. A big part of the reason for that is there just aren’t many hazards to trouble players off the tee. Greens were still hit in regulation 59% of the time. If the winds are a factor, everyone will struggle to hit these fairways which rank on the narrow side at only 31.5 yards wide on average.

Though atypical of links-style courses where shorter hitters can use rollouts on tee shots to make up for lost carry distance, Driving Distance appears to be a definite advantage at The Renaissance Club. Last year, the average driving distance was 295 yards which is well above the Tour average. And with the reputation of playing longer than its yardage, along with four par-4s over 475 yards, a driveable par-4, and three lengthy par-5s, distance off the tee brings many advantages. There are also a couple of longer carries off the tee into potentially gusty winds that favor the longer hitters as well.

While shorter hitters like Aaron Rai and Tommy Fleetwood can have success here, the past couple of leaderboards were filled with longer drivers of the ball including McIlroy, Schauffele, Kurt Kitayama, Thomas Detry, Dean Burmester, Nicolai Hojgaard, and his brother, Rasmus Hojgaard.

On approaching the green this week, players will have a variety of options. If winds remain on the calmer side, longer players off the tee will have the advantage of hitting higher lofted irons into the proper quadrants on the tiered greens. Whether winds are high or not, thanks to Doak creating a firm surface with no bunkers or water in front of the greens, all players will have the option to utilize the ground game to run their ball onto the greens.

When the weather cooperates, hitting these greens is not even a remote issue. Out of the 77 players to make the cut in 2021, only 13 of them had a GIR rate of under 70%. 15 players were above 80%! That being said, with the greens being so huge and undulating, proximity to the hole and positioning approach shots relative to the pin, and leaving an uphill putt is vital. The course definitely favors strong iron players as in that same year seven of the top-15 on the leaderboard had gained at least 4.6 strokes on approach.

Similar to off-the-tee, last year’s windy conditions allowed the Renaissance Club to play much tougher in every area as it ranked as the fourth toughest course to gain strokes on approach. With last year’s event being the only one with ShotLink, a whopping 48% of approach shots came from outside of 175 yards.

While scrambling and performance around the greens would seem to be important on most links courses, this is another stat at the Renaissance Club that is weather-dependent. In 2021, with calm winds and players hitting so many greens in regulation, it didn’t factor in much. Out of the top 20 that year, only four players gained more than two strokes around the green, with seven of them actually losing strokes. But if greens are firm and the winds increase as they did last year, the undulating nature of the green surfaces will repel shots into the pot bunkers and runoff areas, and that will produce chips off of tight lies.

The green complexes, in a word, can be described as adventurous. They are firm, large, and well-contoured with a variety of possible pin positions. Last year these greens ranked as the fifth most difficult on which to gain strokes. Putting inside 15 feet, especially in windy conditions, will be crucial.

Some players have commented that the breaks are very difficult to identify while others have said they look much more severe than they play. One thing is for sure, the speed will be much slower than typical PGA Tour courses and may cause some players to start slow while they adjust. With such large green surfaces, lag putting and three-putt avoidance will be huge this week as last year’s tournament saw one of the highest 3-putt rates on Tour at 4.91%.

Most Important Stats For Success at The Renaissance Club

*In order of importance

SG: Approach
SG: Putting
SG: Links/Wind Courses
Proximity: 175+ yds
SG: ARG/Scrambling
Three-putt AVD
Bogey AVD
Par 4: 450-500
Birdie or Better %
Driving Distance

Key Rabbit Hole Filters

Course Region: UK/Ireland
Course Type: Links
Scoring Conditions: Difficult
Field Strength: Strong
Field Size: Full Field
Greens Surface: Fescue
Green Size: Large
OTT Club Type: Driver Heavy
Missed Fairway Penalty: Low
Gain APP: Difficult
Gain ARG: Easy
Gain Putting: Difficult
3-Putt AVD: Difficult

Weather Forecast – North Berwick, Scotland

Genesis Scottish Open – Final Model

In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is built around the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is divided into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of these specific metrics and conditions can be found in “The Rabbit Hole“, with my final model exclusively published here and in the Discord for subscribers.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LlYc_MrvGuchvUXAriOOuaTYzkEUJhfiQZncj28uvMA/edit?usp=sharing