Open Championship golf betting preview & R2 tips from Ben Coley at Royal Birkdale
Ben Coley assesses the state of play after one round of the Open Championship, and provides a three-ball bet for Friday's action.
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Typically, day two of three-ball punting provides an obvious positive, and a negative which goes hand-in-hand with it.
The positive is that we’ve seen 18 holes of golf and we therefore have a good marker as to how every player in the field is performing. We can even get an impression as to how accurately their score reflects their play.
The downside of this is that so do the layers, and it's often hard to argue with their revised assessment. Generally, they will trim the three-ball winners, the amount depending on the circumstances, and this means any day-one bankers who oblige can’t be backed on day two.
Except that isn’t the case with one three-ball in particular and Robert Streb has to be a smashing bet at odds-against to beat Alexander Bjork and Joe Dean.
Streb was a fairly warm order on Thursday and he did the job comfortably. The American had three shots in hand of Dean and six in hand of Bjork.
After that display of dominance, I thought he’d be a 4/6 shot and he probably should be. Streb already holds a class edge on all known form and it’s only a fortnight since he almost won his second PGA Tour title in the Greenbrier.
Next on ability grounds is Bjork, a young Swede who has enjoyed an extremely impressive rookie season on the European Tour. But he struggled on Thursday, his first round in the Open, and I see no reasonable grounds to expect discernible improvement.
Dean, meanwhile, has to respond to doubling the final hole and it looks as though he was reliant on the putter all day, hitting just eight greens.
Regardless of how he went about building his score, the fact is he’s ranked outside the world’s top 900 and is more accustomed to competing on the third-tier EuroPro Tour, where he’s looked good this season but is yet to win.
Streb finished 18th in this tournament two years ago, played well to shoot 69 on day one, and is far too big a price to outscore his opponents again. Chances are he will do so even with something in the region of 73 and that makes anything evens or bigger a bet.
Pre-tournament selections
It's early days, but Thursday went well for those following our pre-tournament staking plan bar the odd exception.
Firstly, Andrew Johnston was considered the best three-ball bet and comfortably landed the odds. For what it's worth he too should be considered for the double on Friday, but I can resist the current odds-on quotes given that we were on at odds-against in the first round.
Other day one selections didn't go quite so well, but all were speculative and there was a bit of excitement late in the evening.
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Earlier, a small-stakes bet on Luca Ciancetti in his three-ball never looked like winning, but we got a really good run from Rafa Cabrera Bello in the first-round leader market at a big price.
He was one behind with two to play, the first of which was the par-five 17th - the easiest hole on the course by some distance. A 4-4 finish would've earned us a dead-heat at 70/1; a 5-5 finish meant frustration.
The headline outright selection, Jordan Spieth, is into around the 5/1 mark after a brilliant first-round 65. He exuded focus on the course, and confidence when speaking to the media afterwards.
There are still 54 holes to play, but Spieth is the man to beat, as expected. We also have Hideki Matsuyama three back and none of Marc Leishman, Branden Grace and Brian Harman can be ruled out. All shot 70 or better to keep in the tournament.
Arguably the best position comes via a speculative play on Ernie Els to be the top former Open winner at 28/1.
Els leads this sub-section of the field after a 68, with Henrik Stenson the big threat and of course favourite at just one behind.
What's really encouraging is that so many of the rest struggled, including the only real dangers on paper: Padraig Harrington, Zach Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Stewart Cink and Rory McIlroy, although the latter fought back incredibly well to shoot 71 and keep his head above water.
Still, with the vast majority of the older winners likely to be heading home on Friday night, that means Els should be just about guaranteed a place if he can avoid disaster and make the weekend. From there we might even have 28/1 about the leader in a two-horse race.
Posted at 2020 BST on 20/07/17.