It’s a golf betting extravaganza at Club 20 this afternoon with over 60 bets in play as excitement reaches fever pitch ahead of the 2021 Open Championship at Royal St George’s. 

3-Balls, Top 40 Multi’s, Tournament H2H’s, First Round Leaders – you name it, we’ve bet on it as common sense and sensible research make way for overexcitement and general silliness as grown men revert to giddy schoolboys for the start of what is easily the best week of golf viewing/betting all season. 

Windy, brutal links golf is, by any objective measure, more fun to watch than Warney bowling to Englishmen (or John Howard bowling to no one for that matter) and that is exactly what we have got to look forward to for four days with 25-30km winds forecast for all four days of The Open Championship. 

I am jumping up and down just thinking about it now. 

It has been building for days, why just last night I got that face from my lovely wife, you know the one where you are really excited but once you tell her why (because golf is on tomorrow) she gives you that ‘faaaaaark you’re a loser’ face back? 

At least I have the good grace to lie and act like I care about the dumb sh*t she is excited about, but then again, we are the more considerate, thoughtful sex so I guess its our cross to bear right?

Despite the collective best efforts of our significant others, the front bar at Club 20 is absolutely jumping and its not even 11am. 

As I type we’re 4 hours and 17 minutes away from start time - lawns have been mowed, fridges have been stocked, houses have been cleaned and kids have been told in no uncertain terms that ABC kids does not exist until Monday, that The Open channel on Fox stays on all afternoon and that if they see Dad crying at the TV they are obliged to get him a drink from said fridge and tell him they love him. 

Hmm. Maybe the missus had a point!

The Course

The course at Royal St George’s is basically a field on the side of a cliff looking out over the North Sea/English Channel. 

In fact it is probably closer to Dunkirk than London as the crow flies, so you can imagine any slight zephyr will be firmly felt (but we will get to that later). 

A Par 70 clocking just over 7,200 yards, the major defence of this course is wind but there are also a lot of places to drive it OB off the tee which adds to the difficulty considerably. 

Even if you are straight, there is very little flatness in the fairways so despite the recent rain, expect to see good drives taking horror hops out of position 1a and into 4d. 

Massive pot bunkers will cause no end of problems, and it won’t be like last week in Scotland where players were getting good lies out of the rough – this place is a cow paddock that has a golf course on it, and if you are not on the short stuff you will struggle to find it let alone advance it near the green. 

One of the two Par 5’s is a must birdie (7th) and the other is a brute where Birdie is a great score. 

The Par 4 12th will potentially be driveable for some players with the right wind but all in all this course is one where playing to Par is exceedingly difficult if the wind is up. 

And oh boy, is it up! 

Weather

No matter which site you look at (you’ll want to look as close to Sandwich Bay, UK as you can) there will be 25-30km/hr winds all day Thursday with gusts getting up near 40km really early and also late in the afternoon around 5-6pm. 

That wind is forecast for all four days, which makes the winning score much more likely to be around that -4/-5 mark than the -14/-15 we might get in benign conditions. 

At The Open all players go off the one tee box (1st) all day, so it pays to look for little pockets where the wind may drop enough to give the players on course at the time a discernible advantage on the field. 

Having had a good look this morning, there does seem enough of an advantage for the guys going off between say 10-11am to prioritise them, because the wind does start to drop off around 10am, with the best of it forecast for 12-3pm (at this stage). 

Long story short, having most of your golfers play majority of their holes between 11-3 looks advantageous because either side of those times looks noticeably more brutal.

The Bets

We’re in everything this week, hell if there was a ‘Best Commentator’ market we’d probably have had a dip there too. 

The cutline will be over par. Probably +3. Accuracy, not distance off the tee here is huge, guys don’t need birdies to climb the leaderboard, they just need to be putting it on the fairway to give themselves the best chance at putting it somewhere that is not death for an up-and-down par. Birdies are bonuses this week. 

Overall the strategy is to bet on majority of guys who have the above skillset plus who are in that 9-11:30am tee off zone which should not only maximise our potential returns but also our viewing experience because that’s about 5:30-6pm our time (Australian eastern) that most of our guys start. 

Firstly, with the wind like it is and the prospect of 12 hours of largely prime time coverage, we’re not betting Outright’s until tomorrow morning, guys will make huge moves posting a 69 on any given round and the studs are just as susceptible to a triple as anyone so we’re waiting. 

First Round Leader

• Brooks Koepka @ 29.00

• Jordan Spieth @ 29.00

• Scottish Scheffler @ 51.00

• Lee Westwood @ 51.00

• Victor Perez @ 101.00

• Gary Woodland @ 101.00

These are all each-way (1/4 T5) bets, all guys in the time window we like, majority of their round should be played in that more favourable 18-20km/hr wind. 

Round 1 3-Ball Multi

• Christiaan Bezuidenhout @ 2.30

• Gary Woodland @ 1.91

• Michael Lorenzo-Vera @ 2.00

• Daniel Berger @ 2.30

• Will Zalatoris @ 3.60

• Aaron Rai @ 1.73

Because we’re betting on so many things, we won’t be taking all combos here (or anywhere in fact). Taking just the six legger @ 125-1 and all five-leg combos so that’s seven (7) bets in total for the 3-Balls. 

Tournament H2H Multi

Pretty simple strategy, taking guys who are better wind players and/or have better tee draws because majority of the odds in these markets have not factored that in.  

Exception is probably Brooks, but the price is too compelling, especially for Mr Major against a kid who drops his big bottom lip as quick as Bryson on an anthill. 

• Brooks Koepka to beat John Rahm @ 2.50

• Harris English to beat Webb Simpson @ 1.88

• Jordan Spieth to beat Xander Schauffle @ 2.02

• Lee Westwood to beat Scottie Scheffler @ 2.50

• Brandon Grace to beat Daniel Berger @ 2.12

This five-leg multi is paying 51-1, and we’re also taking the five four-leg combos as well so five (5) bets in total here. 

If you like Tournament H2H’s, go and have a play on the Stats Insider website, their H2H Matchup Predictor tool is really fun and a great way to settle those decisions that are hurting your head.  

Top 40 Mega Multi

One of these will hit one day, and what better tournament to have it happen than The Open  - hell if this hits we’ll all be watching the 2021 event live!

We’re taking all seven (36) and eight (9) leg combinations as well as the nine legger, which is 46 bets in total for these Top 40 multi’s so make sure you are reducing your stake to whatever point lets you have a good time yet not break your bank. 

If you want to stick in the hail mary zone and remove the seven-leg combos, go for it. 

The nine leg multi will pay just shy of 1500-1.

• Scottie Scheffler @ 1.83

• Brandan Grace @ 1.83

• Christiaan Bezuidenhout @ 2.00

• Harris English @ 2.00

• Will Zalatoris @ 2.10

• Sergio Garcia @ 2.10

• Martin Kaymer @ 2.50

• Gary Woodland @ 2.88

• Aaron Rai @ 3.50

The Great Slow-Moving Train Crash

For the next four days we get to watch the best golfers in the world get chopped up by a tough coastal links course protected by a lot of wind and we will do so with a sick smile on our face as we see grown men crumble on global television. 

It really is one of the great weekends of sport on the whole calendar year so whilst I sincerely hope we come away with mega bucks, just getting to sit and watch this tournament will be a welcome enjoyable distraction for many here in Australia. 

The action kicks off from 3:30pm (Australian eastern) on a dedicated Fox Sports Channel. 

Good luck and may the golfing gods be kind to us all!