The Open Championship 2024 Preview
Tip Overview
The Open Championship 2024 Preview - July 18th-21st
We head to Royal Troon in Scotland for the 152nd edition of the Open Championship, and the final Major Men's golf tournament of the season. This will be the 10th time that Troon has hosted an Open, the last time The Open was held at Royal Troon was in 2016 when Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson went head to head in a blistering Sunday showdown which will forever be remembered as one of the most exciting final round battles in Major Golfing history.
Royal Troon’s Old Course was founded in 1878, originally with only 5 holes before being expanded to 18 holes 10 years later and then re-designed by five-time Champion Golfer James Braid ahead of its first Open Championship in 1923. Martin Ebert has performed another update to the Old Course ready for this year's Open, with 195 yards being added to the course, taking Troon from 7,190 yards to 7,385. The course will remain a par 71, and 9 new tee boxes have been added to accommodate the sizable increase in length.
The par 5 6th will be the most talked about hole on the golf course this year after they added two new bunkers and stretched the back tee to 623 yards, creating the longest hole in Open Championship history. The other notable hole is the par 3 8th, known around the world as ‘Postage Stamp’; it is the shortest hole on The Open rota, measuring 123 yards from the Championship tees. Although this week, it could play as short as 99 yards if the R&A opt to use a forward tee and front pin position.
Royal Troon will feature some of the narrowest fairways and smallest greens of any course on the Open rota, so I believe precision is the name of the game to play this course efficiently, where the line is more important than distance off the tee, so hitting fairways and greens without constantly leaving yourself scrambling will be vital. In truth, Royal Troon is very similar to Royal Liverpool, and there, the key to victory was the same. Of course links golf is always weather dependent too, it needs to be windy and rough otherwise i believe these golfers could easily eat this course up.
Tom Kim EW 45/1 Paddy Power ⅕ 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Tom Kim showed real courage last year at The Open after damaging ankle ligaments after the first round, especially after shooting 74 he was staring at a missed cut in the face. However, he showed grit and determination to limp around and shoot a 68 in his second round to comfortably make the weekend and eventually finish T2 behind runaway winner Brian Harman.
Kim has shown his love and form for links golf plenty in the past, especially at the Scottish Open, where he burst onto the scene in 2022 with a third-place finish. He followed that up with a sixth last year and a T15 just last week, shooting a final round 64.
Tom’s had a bit of an up-and-down season this year on the PGA Tour, with 7 top 25s in 21 events played. 30th, 26th and 26th again from his three major starts this season is also solid if unspectacular, but a playoff loss to Scottie Scheffler last month at the Travelers Championship also shows form.
He is 59th in Strokes Gained: Total, 73rd in Strokes Gained: approach to the Green, and 13th in overall Driving Accuracy. Kim only ranks 93rd in putting, though, so if he improves on that, I believe the 22-year-old will have a big say in this year's Open Championship.
Aaron Rai EW 60/1 Bet365 ⅕ 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
Aaron Rai is arguably one of the most in form Golfers in the world heading to Royal Troon this week. In his last 3 starts, the Englishman has had a T2 at the Rocket Mortgage, a T7 at the John Deere Classic and T4 at last week's Scottish Open. Rai is also 50th in this year's FedEx rankings with 10 top 25 finishes in 20 events played.
Impressively, on the PGA Tour this season Rai is ranked 4th in Strokes Gained : Total, 7th in Strokes Gained : Approach to the Green, 54th in Putting ,1st in Driving Accuracy and 3rd in Greens in Regulation %. He’s also 10th in Scrambling this season which will help if he's slightly off with his approach play.
Rai has been knocking on the door lately and all of these stats suggest to me he's going to be close again this week and we could easily see him lift his first Major title.
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Brian Harman EW 66/1 Bet365 ⅕ 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
Brian Harman heads to Royal Troon as the defending Open Champion following his dominant 6 shot victory at Royal Liverpool last year to become the 2023 Champion Golfer of the Year.
The World number 13 has had another very solid season on the PGA Tour with 10 top 25s in 18 starts including a T2 at the Players Championship in March. Fresh from finishing tied 21st at the Genesis Scottish Open last week, he also has a T26 at the PGA Championship and a T21 at the US Open this season so he’ll certainly be coming here hoping to continue his newly found love affair with links golf.
Like I said in my preview, I believe this course is very similar to Royal Liverpool, the course Harman was victorious on last year. Based on that, you can't look past his very solid stats on the PGA Tour this season, 19th in Strokes Gained : Total, 37th in Strokes Gained : Approach to the Green, 30th in Strokes Gained : Putting and finally 26th in Driving Accuracy. If Harman brings all of those vital parts together this week at Royal Troon then he’ll without doubt be in with a chance to defend his title on Sunday.
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Alex Noren EW 80/1 William Hill ⅕ 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
The Open Championship is the Major which Alex Noren has had the most success at in his career. The Swede has finishes of T9 in 2012, T6 in 2017, T11 in 2019 and he finished T23 last year.
He has 3 top 10s and 11 top 25s in 17 events played this season, and although being slightly out of form lately with missed cuts at the Canadian Open, Rocket Mortgage Classic and the US Open he did finish T10 last week at the Scottish Open, shooting a final round 65.
Noren is 16th in Strokes Gained : Total , 12th in Strokes Gained : Around the Green and 16th in Strokes Gained : Tee to Green.
More importantly, though, Noren knows his way around a links course, and I believe there is plenty of value in his price, so he certainly can't be ignored.
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Former professional dart player. I enjoy writing about darts, golf and football. 2012 PDC World Youth Champion. Norwich City Supporter.