The 151st Open Championship returns to Royal Liverpool Golf Club for the 13th time, continuing a tradition that began in 1897. It was a frequent Open host until 1967 then was forgotten about for nearly 40 years before entering the Open rotation again in 2006. Royal Liverpool has consistently identified and rewarded the truly elite as some of the most illustrious golfers in the history of the game have raised the Claret Jug on its hallowed grounds including Walter Hagen (1924), Bobby Jones (1930), Tiger Woods (2006), and Rory McIlroy (2014).
Royal Liverpool Golf Club is not located in Liverpool but 10 miles northwest on the Wirral Peninsula on England’s northwest coast between two rivers in the village of Hoylake, the nickname which is commonly given to the course. It’s a true links layout that sits atop sandy loam deposited ages ago by the River Dee whose shoreline forms the western edge of the course. As is typical of links courses, there are sand dunes, which at Hoylake mostly lie in the southwest portion of the property. But compared to other links tracks, the majority of the course is dune-less and one of the flattest links courses found anywhere. In fact, it’s as flat as a horse race track which it once was in the mid-nineteenth century.
An excellent layout with a variety of hole types and superb routing, Royal Liverpool features landmines at every turn. While its hazards are not flashy, they are tenacious. The consequences of even small misses are amplified if shots find the “out-of-bounds” that line six fairways, or the riveted bunkers, or the knee-deep fescue and thorny gorse that lurk along the perimeter.
Every shot is carried out over wide-open swaths of land with firm turf and complicated even further by shifting winds. Said famed British writer Bernard Darwin more than 100 years ago, “There is none of your smug smoothness and trimness about Hoylake; it is rather hard and bare and bumpy and needs a man to conquer it.” Journalist Pat Ward-Thomas was even more blunt describing the Hoylake experience as an “an exercise in fear.”
To win the Open this week will take a strategic and creative performance – when to take chances and be aggressive versus knowing when to lay back – along with calculating distance and angles and roll-out both on the fairways and leading to the greens. The equation entails calculating the effects of distance, angles, bunkers, wind, turf, and bounce.
All aspects of a player’s game will be tested at Hoylake. Along with tactical aptitude, accuracy off the tee and avoiding the numerous hazards will be paramount for success this week. Players who don’t keep the ball in the fairway have little chance to score. Royal Liverpool will also test efficiency with mid-to-long irons in potentially fierce crosswinds, short-game skills from a variety of recovery locations, and lag putting on slower greens. It’s one of the more fair links courses and favors the elite ball-strikers. As Phil Mickelson said back in 2014, “Well-struck shots are rewarded and poorly struck shots are penalized.”
The Field
Overall, this looks to be the strongest field of the year with every single player in the top-50 of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) in attendance with the exception of the injured 13th-ranked, Will Zalatoris. As was the case for the other three majors, eligible LIV players who qualified their way into the Open will bring some added spice into the mix, which includes the 7th-ranked player in the world and 2022 Open Championship winner, Cameron Smith. Along with Smith, 15 other LIV players will be in action this week including Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau. The DP World Tour’s best will also once again have a strong presence at the table with Min Woo Lee, Ryan Fox, Adrian Meronk, Lucas Herbert, and Yannick Paul being the biggest names to watch.
As far as the headliners at Hoylake, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is looking to add a second major trophy to his collection. Amazingly, he has seven consecutive top-5s and has not finished outside the top-12 in 19 straight starts going all the way back to October. He has two wins this season including THE PLAYERS Championship. Masters winner, John Rahm, is looking to become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2005 to win the green jacket and the Claret Jug in the same year. Rahm has four wins on the PGA Tour this season. He will be well rested having not played in three weeks since the Travelers Championship. And of course, the 2014 winner here at Hoylake, Rory McIlroy is coming off a win at the Scottish Open and looks to win his first major since the PGA Championship in that same year.
2023 Open Championship – Betting Narratives and Strategies
Every year, the Open Championship is very challenging to properly model due to so many DP World Tour players in the field who simply lack the necessary sample size of data. Similar to the Scottish Open last week, another problem with running the normal model this week is that the Open is played on a links course and typically in more difficult weather conditions. Links golf is a completely different animal from parkland-style golf. So the model this week places a heavy emphasis on the primary Strokes Gained stats, along with recent and long-term form, past history in majors, and on links courses, and incorporates DataGolf’s “Top 10%” ratings.
After his 3rd place finish in his links warmup last week at the Scottish Open, Scottie Scheffler week is finally upon us. Having been unsuccessful at an outright bet on him earlier in the year, and then to see him continue this amazing run of SEVEN consecutive top-5 finishes and 19 straight top-12s, I’m all in on Scheffler this week. On Monday, I thought there was no chance that his +900 odds to win would get any better. And yet, amazingly, as I refreshed the odds board early on Tuesday morning (at 3:43 AM to be exact), there he was on Bovada at +1000. Having secured that, it allowed me some room to take a couple of other high-upside outrights in Xander Schauffele at +3000 and Jordan Spieth at +4500. It’s been a tough stretch on the outright bet scene with only three winners since the start of the year, but all it takes is one to bust that door down.
As is the case with any major championship, tee-to-green form, including Off the Tee, Approach, and Around the Green are the most important stats to weigh. With six of the driving holes having out-of-bounds in close proximity to the fairway along with an abundance of penalizing fairway bunkers near the landing zones, off-the-tee performance may decide who wins the 151st Open Championship.
So while gaining strokes with distance is possible, with fairways not being that wide (32-yard average in the landing zones), along with the variety of hazards and fescue rough coming into play from errant drives or excessive roll-out, it will be like trying to thread a needle on some holes. The downside to taking “less than driver” off the tee is that laying back places more stress on long irons and the short game. With winds calm on Tuesday morning, Collin Morikawa said, “Today with no wind I was hitting 3-iron, 3-wood, driver. I hit every club off the tee. It’s going to be a mix. It really is how much you want to take on the bunkers, how aggressive you want to be off the tee.”
For players not accustomed to links-style golf, they need to quickly adjust to the small pot bunkers that litter the fairways and almost function like vacuums that suck up balls as they run along the ground. Learning to get the ball to stop is something that comes with experience and why very few first-time links players have much initial success.
Royal Liverpool definitely asks different questions of players off-the-tee than they typically see each week on Tour. Both big and small misses will be penalized. Even compared to St. Andrews last year where players could swing freely with aggression on most holes, this year will be all about keeping the ball in play. Indiscriminate drivers who frequently spray the ball will not have a chance to see the weekend. Strategically sound drivers who have proven fairway accuracy and who have had success on other “less than driver” courses like TPC Sawgrass should be heavily targeted this week. Said Abraham Ancer when asked what the key to success was this week, “Avoid the bunkers and stay in the fairways. That’s it.” Driving accuracy off the tee will be the most important metric I am targeting this week.
As far as the approach game, with elevated green complexes that are surrounded by all sorts of bunkering in and around the greens, and that are smaller than normal for a links course, Royal Liverpool can be a real challenge on the second shot. With so many forced layups off the tee, around 50-65% of shots into the green will be from greater than 175 yards. Crosswinds will have a definite effect on many holes. Many of the greens have narrow entrances with bunkers on both sides forcing players who are using the ground game to advance the ball with accuracy as well. It also should be noted that special for this week’s Championship, edges of greens were removed in order to provide more pin positions. This creates even more runoff in almost every direction for players who are missing their target.
With many of Hoylake’s greens perched well above the surrounding areas, recovery shots will be difficult depending on the lie. Pot bunkers and hollows surround the flanks of most of the greens. The pot bunkers have near-vertical stack sod faces and the depth of some will be very penalizing. According to NBC analyst Brad Faxon the bottoms of the bunkers have been flattened, and with the sand being so soft, the ball gets depressed very easily into the rake grooves and also tends to roll near the lips creating near-impossible recovery shots when taking aim at the flag. Expertise out of the bunkers will be incredibly important.
As Jordan Spieth said earlier in the week, the biggest challenge around the greens is learning how to play out of the collection areas along with the need to hit higher bunker shots over the riveted faces. Club selection around the greens will also be key as players could use three different clubs for the same shot and will need to use creativity in playing the best option along with being committed to each shot.
While they have many subtle dips and humps and hidden burrows, these are some of the flattest greens at any Open venue. As is typical for links courses, green speeds are kept at a much slower pace to account for potentially windy conditions that could play havoc with the ball. Faxon said the greens are running at around 10.5 on the stimp-meter and are playing very smooth considering they are a combination of fescue and bentgrass. Lag putting and adjusting to slower speeds will be another important skill for players to have this week.
Most Important Stats For Success at Royal Liverpool Golf Club
*In order of importance
- Fairways Gained
- SG: Approach
- Scrambling
- SG: Links Courses
- SG: ARG/Sand Saves
- Proximity 175+
- Par 4 Scoring: 450+
- Total Driving
- Birdie or Better %
- SG: Putting/3-putt Avoidance
Weather Forecast – Hoylake, Wirral, England
The Open Championship – 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 the individual splits will be posted on my Twitter feed, with the final model exclusively published here for subscribers.
Outright Betting Selections
*Lines accurate at the time of publication.
Scottie Scheffler +1000 (currently +750)
Let me repeat it again – seven consecutive top-5 finishes and 19 straight top-12s. He’s on pace for the lowest scoring average (68.1) since Tiger Woods in 2009, the most strokes gained (+2.64) since Woods (2009), the most strokes gained tee to green (+2.81) since Woods in 2006, and the lowest bogey rate (10.1%) since Woods in 2000. The amazing thing is that he has accomplished these lofty numbers while struggling heavily with the putter. Slower greens this week should help him in this area. And while his links history is quite short with only 22 career rounds, he still ranks 8th best in this field gaining an average of 1.85 strokes per round.
Xander Schauffele +3000 (currently +2500)
I was somewhat surprised that Schauffele’s odds drifted as high as +3000. Whether you go back three months, or 12 months, or two years – he is a consistent top-5 player in the world. Not only is one of the best all-around players with every shot in his bag, but he consistently shows up in major events and especially here at the Open with four top-25s and a runner-up finish in 2018. Overall in majors, he has six straight top-15s and his 42nd at last week’s Scottish Open was his worst finish of the entire year.
Jordan Spieth +4500 (currently +3300)
When you dig deep into Spieth’s past history at the Open Championship, it is simply a stellar track record. He has the most total strokes at Open venues with a huge margin separating himself from Rory McIlroy who is second on the list. It includes five top-10s and an averaging finish position of 13th. He’s never come close to missing a cut in nine starts. Even when he wasn’t in great form (which he is not at the moment) he has still performed very well across the pond. His creativity, touch around the greens, and shot-making skills are what separate him on these types of links courses that demand such skills.
(0.53u) BetRivers)
Tony Finau +6000 (currently +5500)
Surprising to most, Finau is the second-best player in the world on links courses going back to 2014 gaining an average of 2.07 strokes per round. Similar to Spieth, he has the fifth-best SG average in Open Championships at 1.90 per round. In fact, Finau has never finished outside the top-28. While he has struggled over the past two months, he has the ability to turn it on when he gets across the pond.
(0.40u) PointsBet
Finishing Position Picks
Top 10
Top 20
Top 30 all FanDuel
- Jordan Spieth -105 (1.6u)
- Matt Fitzpatrick +105 (1u)
- Tony Finau +125 (1.2u)
- Justin Rose +110 (1u)
- Tom Kim +155 (1u)
Top 40 – all FanDuel
- Adam Scott +120 (1u)
- Max Homa -110 (1.1u)
- Robert Macintyre -110 (1u)
- Talor Gooch +115 (1u)
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Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images