The Open: Round three betting tips & preview

Round three tee times
Ben Coley on Rory McIlroy

Recommended bets: The Open

1pt double Chris Wood and Soren Kjeldsen to win their two-balls at 17/10 - strong links players against vulnerable opponents

1pt Yikuen Chang to beat Henrik Stenson at 5/1 - tough week for Stenson and Chang looks overpriced

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Day three of the Open Championship promises to be the calmest yet, but links specialists should still be favoured as we look for opportunities on the first two-ball coupon of the week.

I watched Thongchai Jaidee for a while yesterday and the normally affable Thai looked as miserable as sin as he plodded along to a narrow cut made.

In contrast, Chris Wood had an experience to remember as he walked the final hole with Mark O’Meara, the 1998 Open champion at Birkdale appearing for the final time in the event.

Wood celebrated the occasion by holing his second shot for eagle when in danger of missing the cut and that could spark a big weekend, the like of which he produced at Hoylake a couple of years ago, or in both the Open Championships of 2008 and 2009.

A noted wind and links player, Wood’s love for the Open can be traced back to his top-five finish here as an amateur and, as he’s hitting more fairways and greens than Jaidee, I expect him to win their two-ball.

Few players in the field have demonstrated greater control than Soren Kjeldsen and he can account for Laurie Canter.

The latter has been chipping away all year as he bids to keep hold of his European Tour card for next season and a solid weekend here could go a long way towards achieving that goal.

However, there’s a big class disparity here and 8/15 about Kjeldsen looks one of the better short-priced punts around.

At the other end of the scale, Yikeun Chang looks far too big a price to beat Henrik Stenson.

Chang might not be a familiar name to many but he’s a young player with a good college career in the States behind him, and a first professional title in the bag earlier this season.

And while Stenson has struck the ball really well, better than Chang, better conditions might bring the pair closer together than some firms expect. 

Key to this bet, though, is the fact that Stenson has had a seriously draining week. First, he had to return the Claret Jug on Monday, he’s been busy fulfilling media obligations since, and then his rented house was burgled during the first round.

Stenson’s understandable frustration was clear when he played a poor bunker shot on his way to a closing bogey yesterday and while he’d be capable of regathering himself were there any chance of victory, it could soon become clear with an early error or two that his prospects of a successful defence have gone from slim to none.

Chang by contrast has everything to play for – in fact, he can freewheel – and 5/1 in a head-to-head is just too big a price to let go. Clearly, he’s not likely to outscore a major champion but his prospects look much better than the prices suggest.

Where to watch on TV: Sky Sports Golf

Pre-tournament selections

It’s so far, so good for headline outright selection Jordan Spieth.

He’ll tee-off this afternoon with a two-shot lead and no bigger than 6/4 to win a third major championship. Friday was not as good as Thursday, but in horrible conditions he shot the best score possible. Well, perhaps one short of that given he missed a four-foot putt at 16, but there are no complaints here.

Nor is there an assumption that he’ll go on to win, but Spieth has a look about him this week which says he can rise to the challenge of leading the Open. I’m more than hopeful.

Should he falter, Hideki Matsuyama is close enough to take advantage despite making a mess of the 17th on Friday night, when it looked for a moment as though he was about to emerge as the clear threat to Spieth.

In other words, we go into the weekend in an exceptionally strong position.

Unfortunately, there’s a small loss to swallow from a top-nationalities trixie which really should have collected.

The logic behind Emiliano Grillo as top South American player was that his opponents were vastly inferior. In fact, in the preview I said Grillo simply needed to make the cut and had he done so, he’d have won this market comfortably.

Unfortunately, despite a late eagle, he lost out by two as Fabrizio Zanotti played a superb back-nine to turn things around.

We did bag the top French player at a nice price with Mike Lorenzo-Vera the only one through to the weekend, and it would’ve meant for a small profit until Anirban Lahiri bogeyed the final hole to tie with Shiv Kapur.

Posted at 0950 BST on 22/07/17.

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