The Open Championship: Betting specials preview
Ben Coley has selections at 250/1 and 350/1 in his look at the specials markets ahead of The Open Championship at Carnoustie.
Recommended bets:
2pts Boonma or Janewattananond to be top Thai at evens (weight stakes accordingly)
2pt treble Lahiri (top Indian), Olesen (top Dane) and Grillo (top South American) at 2.89/1
1pt e.w. Kelly Kraft to be top American at 200/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
1pt Matthew Southgate to be top Englishman at 25/1
0.5pt Oliver Wilson to be top Englishman at 350/1
1pt e.w. Bernhard Langer to lead after R1 at 250/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6)
Top nationalities
Many of the best punting opportunities prior to a major championship can be found in the sub-markets, where bookmakers face the same issue that we do: there are players in this field who've never graced our television screens and assessing them is not straightforward.
One example of how this can reveal itself in plainly wrong prices is in Unibet's top Thai market. They quoted 7/1 about youngster Danthai Boonma versus a best of 100/30 elsewhere, and it's not an input error - the firm make Kiradech Aphibarnrat 2/5, vastly shorter than a best of 5/6 and the general 8/11 quoted by their competitors.
As it happens, before Unibet had priced up I felt that dutching him and the other Thai, Jazz Janewattananond, in opposition to Aphibarnrat was the way to go. Combined, they equate to an even-money chance generally. Someone has to be wrong, anyway.
I hope some readers can get the 7/1 but I can't in good faith put it in our tipping record, as the vast majority of you won't be able to take it. Instead, I'll stick to the original plan and advise dutching Boonma and Janewattananond providing you can do so at around evens.
Boonma arrives with form figures of 6-2 and his Asian Tour victory at the World Classic Championship came in two-under, evidence that he may find a demanding Open course to his liking. The 22-year-old has a bright future and this comes at a good point in his development.
Similar comments apply to Janewattananond, who won his second Asian Tour title at the start of July and, also 22, continues to climb the ranks. Like Boonma he'll make his Open debut but an accurate game can ensure it's a positive one.
Aphibarnrat clearly has a class edge on everything we know but his performances of late have been poor, with nothing better than 42nd in three starts since the US Open. He certainly seems to have dipped a level from the turn of the year and opposing him with two bright talents who arrive bang in-form makes plenty of appeal.
Anirban Lahiri (top Indian), Thorbjorn Olesen (top Dane) and Emiliano Grillo (top South American) all rate banker material and can be backed at close to 3/1 combined.
Lahiri has played in five Open Championships, experience which gives him an edge over compatriot and debutant Shubhankar Sharma, and the former has been playing beautifully on the PGA Tour of late.
Three cuts made in those five appearances is perfectly solid and the 31-year-old is in much better form than Sharma, whose two wins on the European Tour have come under incredibly low-scoring conditions.
Sharma has gone off the boil after an exhausting start to the year and there's a suspicion that he'll be found out at Carnoustie.
Olesen is a former Dunhill Links winner with an Open top-10 to his name and teenage amateur Nicolai Hojgaard will likely struggle; Olesen is prohibitively priced at 1/4 but that still probably underestimates him and helps boost the odds of the treble.
Finally, Grillo has played the best golf of his career this season, his only missed cut coming at the US Open, and has a big edge over Fabrizio Zanotti and Jhonattan Vegas.
The latter missed the cut on his Open debut last year and has done nothing since January, while Zanotti also failed to make an impact on his first Open try at Birkdale, has missed his last two cuts and is well short of Grillo's class.
Some may consider adding Bernhard Langer as top senior to make a 5/1 chance and he does look solid, but the German has four others to beat, all of them Open champions, and a best of 4/6 probably does justice to his prospects.
Finally for this section, a word on the top American and top English markets.
Outright fancy Phil Mickelson is 28/1 in a place and it baffles me that various firms give him an equal chance to Bubba Watson.
Mickelson has won the Open and twice been second; Watson has played in nine renewals without bettering 23rd place. That he's won three times this season is of relatively limited relevance under these completely different conditions.
I'll steer clear of backing Mickelson again given the risks attached and with Cink having shortened rapidly, it's Kelly Kraft who catches the eye.
Kraft won the US Amateur Championship at a baked-out Erin Hills in 2011 and qualified for this with second place two starts ago at the Greenbrier, where he opened 64-63 but had no answer to Kevin Na's Sunday charge.
Having been born and raised in Texas, Kraft won't mind the wind and various players from that neck of the woods have gone well in the Open, including 1999 runner-up, Leonard.
Just last year, a Texan won the Open while Texas resident Austin Connelly was among the surprise packages, and if you rewind to 2015, when several amateurs finished up with the pace at Carnoustie, you'll see that Ollie Schniederjans was born in Dallas and Jordan Niebrugge attended college in Oklahoma, where it always blows.
The hope is that Kraft's early education in the sport gives him the tools required for an Open Championship, and there's evidence from top-10 finishes at the Honda Classic (won previously by Padraig Harrington) and by the coast at Pebble Beach that he is indeed equipped for the challenge.
With that performance at Erin Hills potentially relevant, too, and plenty of the higher-ranked Americans there to be taken on, 200/1 looks generous enough. The alternative would be to back him in the top debutant market but at 35/1 that makes less appeal as there's plenty of speculation here.
As for top English, I am quite keen to take on Justin Rose, whose Open record is poor, and while Tommy Fleetwood is solid and capable of contending, the fact is he does need to leave behind an even worse return in this major.
With those two taking out the best part of 50 per cent of the book, there are plenty of appealing options and none more so than Matthew Southgate at 25/1.
A member at Carnoustie, Southgate will be licking his lips at the prospect of a fourth Open start and his form so far is excellent - last year, he was the highest-placed English player having finished sixth and in 2016, 12th place overall meant he was second.
With a links pedigree which stretches right back to his amateur career, intimate knowledge of the course and a big-time mentality which means he seems to improve the greater the challenge, I'm keen to side with Southgate in some way and this market looks best.
Chris Wood has made five Open cuts in six and contended in Paris lately, but he's just a shade shorter than hoped and similar comments apply to Eddie Pepperell, who finished second on Sunday, won in Qatar earlier this season and made the cut on his Open debut (briefly threatening to contend) three years ago.
Pepperell is tempting but I'd prefer to really roll the dice and chance Oliver Wilson at 350/1 in places and 200/1 generally.
Famously, Wilson won the Dunhill Links in 2014, one of the biggest shocks in European Tour history. He did so largely thanks to an outstanding start at Carnoustie, where his opening 64 was a course record until last summer, and it wasn't his first big performance in the event.
Ranked 786th in the world at the time, Wilson has since fallen much further down the rankings but as well as qualifying for this close to home at Hollinwell, he's made four cuts in a row on the Challenge Tour - the first time he's done that in five years.
It's not much, but it is something and at a firm, fiery Carnoustie, where some strange things will happen, backing a winner of the Dunhill Links in a market with just 22 runners at such a big price is a worthwhile venture.
First-round leader
Always a favourite market of mine, finding the first-round leader can ensure that a profitable week is in the bag before the weekend and there are reasons to expect that this year's day one star will come from the morning wave.
First and foremost, as is always the case, the greens will be at their best in the morning and that explains why if you look back over the last decade or so of Open golf, there's a bias towards early starters - as there tends to be in most events.
Last year, two of the three players tied for the lead teed off early and in 2015 (Dustin Johnson), 2014 (Rory McIlroy), 2013 (Zach Johnson) and 2012 (Adam Scott), the same was true.
Back in 2011, English amateur Tom Lewis managed to tie for the lead having teed off at 1432 BST but that was an exception to the rule and a year earlier, at St Andrews, McIlroy completed his 63 at lunchtime.
Another reason to expect the morning players to fare best is that what little wind is forecast is expected to increase steadily throughout the day so the early starters should have no excuse when it comes to conditions.
The aforementioned Southgate is out in the second group at 0646 but that also means cooler temperatures and with many of those I like the look of out in the afternoon, the shortlist boils down to Stewart Cink, Phil Mickelson, Tony Finau, Matt Kuchar and Bernhard Langer and it's the latter who gets my vote.
Langer sat second after round one here in 1999, then led the Senior British Open here from start to finish in 2010 before again playing well at the course a couple of years ago.
He's the reigning Senior British Open champion and has won three renewals this decade, so the firm and fast nature of Carnoustie will hold no fears and while disappointed to close with a round of 74 in the Senior Players last week, it's perfectly possible that he bounces back and posts a number here.
It should be said that recent Open leaders have been elite players - Spieth, Mickelson, DJ, Rory, Zach Johnson, Scott - but in 2011 an old links specialist with course form, Thomas Bjorn, shared the lead. Two years earlier, Miguel Angel Jimenez was first and Tom Watson second. At the price, it's worth speculating that Langer might provide yet another reminder that at the Open, just about anything goes.
Posted at 1720 BST on 16/07/18.