The 2021 Scottish Open starts this afternoon @ 5.30pm (AEST) and is easily the best field in the tournaments’ long and storied history with majority of the world’s Top 20 golfers making the journey to tame the Renaissance Club course and/or fine tune their game for next week’s Open Championship at Royal St Georges. 

We dabbled for a few moments with the notion that this week might be a slow week, what with a major coming up and not a lot of winning happening over the last fortnight, but then we started drinking. 

After a few rounds we remember that it was in fact Thursday afternoon, the greatest time of the week, which in turn caused us to very rapidly dismiss our idiotic and pessimistic idea of not betting much for a much better idea.  

Bets. Lots of bets!!

The Course

If last week’s Irish Open was decidedly un-linksy, then this week at the Renaissance Club is halfway between that and traditional links golf. 

The pot bunkers are here and anyone going in them won’t be coming out with aggression, nor will players be able to play with an eye to the green from off the fairway like they could last week. 

Fairways are undulating which will constantly test the players but overall there are probably only half a dozen holes here that are really those coastal links type holes. 

Greens are still huge though and there are a host of collection areas/false fronts to deal with so expect to see a lot of players putting from a long long way off the green still. 

Despite this being a Par 71 there are still four (4) Par 5’s which is the reason the winner here will still clear -16/-17 even if the wind kicks up. Players that come out even with the card on the five (5) Par 3’s each day will find themselves at the pointy end of the leaderboard because these holes have teeth. 

This course is not long, hitting fairways is everything then obviously making those putts. 

The Forecast

Conditions on course are reporting a relatively dry track with good run out and slick greens (think more 2020 than 2019). 

In terms of the outlook the wind doesn’t look too bad just around that 10-13km mark but it is from the west most of the afternoons which is the prevailing and more difficult wind that this course gets that was not present I the last two years. 

Little bit of rain forecast Friday afternoon/Saturday but nothing prohibitive in terms of wave draws, the conditions look amazing first of this afternoon but that’s balanced by the marginally favourable PM/AM draw so its pick who you want this week. 

The Card

Burnt Cheeseburger won this event at -22 in 2019 which if you remember was the year Rory was complaining the course played too easy. Last year ol’ double-gloves Aaron Rai came off a runner up in Ireland to win here at -11 in wet and windy conditions. 

But also last year, Lee Westwood fired a -9 62 in the opening round before the rain arrived. 

This course is gettable in good, benign conditions and with this field, expect the winner to clear -20. 

What is harder to predict is the cutline especially with the different motivations of players whether they are here to win this or just to tune up for The Open. 

With this in mind we’re missing the top of the board and instead taking three guys at odds who all have great links form, solid course form and good recent form and hoping one of them can kick here at great odds. 

McDowell should have shot a course record opener last week he missed at least 6 inside 5ft on his opening nine. If he cleans up his putter and straightens up his driver, those irons look amazing right now so he will feel in play to sneak into The Open late like he did in 2019. 

Hill is here because if he wins on his hoe deck and we’re off him for the first time in forever there will be a flood on man tears at Club 20. It is a tall order but he is finally blown out in the betting board with all the US talent coming over, and he knows the course very well. 

He also gets a pretty ‘up and coming marquee’ grouping with Burns and Higgo which I think will motivate him even more. 

Westwood is made for links golf. Keeps it in the fairway and dials in, if he putts then look out. Taking all three guys each-way (1/4 top 5) in the Outright and First Round Leader markets. 

Outright Bets

• Lee Westwood @ 76

• Callum Hill @ 151

• Graeme McDowell @ 300

First Round Leader Bets

• Lee Westwood @ 51

• Callum Hill @ 101

• Graeme McDowell @ 151

Wouldn’t be much of a Scottish Open without a hail-mary Top 40 Multi. Higgo was unlucky to miss here, ditto Sam Burns but they were left out due to deflated odds. 

We’e taken all 6 leg, 7 leg and the 8-legger here but as always take what you feel good about / comfortable with, especially considering we are coming very bloody close to playing with our own money again after a few rough weeks. 

Top 40 Multi

• Callum Hill @ 2.60

• Jason Scrivener @ 2.00

• Lee Westwood @ 2.00

• Guido Migliozzi @ 2.00

• Min Woo Lee @ 3.40

• Graeme McDowell @ 5.00

• Matt Wallace @ 2.00

• Andrew Johnson @ 2.00

That’s 49 bets for the Scottish Open so why not make it an even 50 and take the ‘Rahm/McIlroy to finish 1-2 in any order’ @ 56 on Sportsbet. Why not indeed. 

PGA Tour – John Deere Classic

With the woefully weak field and generally bad tournament at TPC Deere Run we didn’t even bother with any PGA Tour prep this week but being the degenerates that we are here at Club 20 we also didn’t want to not bet it. 

If only there was a place where powerful data could help inform our sports bets, a place that was all free and easy to use!! 

Club 20 faithful know that such a place exists and thankfully this week the Stats Insider model has some green smiley faces staring back at us in the Tournament Futures section. 

Just four (4) bets, one Top 10 and three Top 20 plays – enough to keepus interested and likely help build a little bank as we watch our money set on fire in Scotland by band luck and general hard-done-by-edness. 

Top 10

• Brian Harman

Top 20

• Hank Lebioda

• Bryce Garnett

• Jonny Vegas

Pull Up A Chair

Being just seen short sleeps away from the best Major of the year – The Open Championship @ Royal St Georges – now is a great time for you to join the golf/footy/sports betting conversations on Twitter: @Club20_.

It is easy for people to get stuck in their betting lanes, myself included, so if you like a guy who is not even on my radar, come and tell us about him, we promise we won’t give you (too much) sh*t when he misses the cut by 6 strokes! 

Enjoy the action this week in the home of Golf!