Saturday was certainly moving day at The Open Championship. The early tee times made some noise as Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Patrick Cantlay shot up the leaderboard in the morning, but were all topped by Jon Rahm, who closed with a birdie to shoot an 8-under 63.
Brian Harman was barely into his day when Rahm put his score on the board and the leader certainly had some nerves to start his round. Harman bogeyed two of his opening four holes and it looked like he was in for a long day. However, he quickly turned things around at the par-5 5th and eventually got to 12-under. Harman's lead remains five, but he'll tee up with a new playing partner on Sunday as Cameron Young charged into second place with a 66. Rahm and Viktor Hovland will tee off in the penultimate group from six and seven shots back, respectively. They'll all need some help from the leader, but weather conditions look to be conducive to low scoring, which could help them put pressure on Harman if he plays a bit more conservatively.
We will have a tough call into the final round, but I'll be rooting for just a little bit of drama at the very least.
Strokes Gained Explanation
Strokes Gained gives bettors, DFS players and fans way more detail on how a golfer has truly played by measuring each shot in relation to the rest of the field.
Using the millions of data points it collects, the Tour calculates how many shots on average it takes a player to get the ball in the hole from every distance and situation.
If a player beats those averages, he’s gaining strokes on the field. Every situation in golf is different. Strokes Gained measures how players perform relative to the situation.
In this piece, we’ll touch on a variety of Strokes Gained metrics:
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green
- Strokes Gained: Putting
- Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (which is Off-the-Tee + Approach)
- Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (which is Ball-Striking + Around-the-Green)
In general, SG: Ball Striking and SG: Tee-to-Green are the most stable long term, while putting is more prone to volatility. You can often find live-betting advantages by identifying golfers who are hitting the ball well, but aren’t getting putts to drop.
Likewise, players with high SG: Putting numbers may regress moving forward.
2023 Open Championship Round 4 Best Bets: 3 Golfers to Buy
This is how I will lay things out for the final round at The Open. Harman should win this tournament and there is some value in betting on him as you can find a number as low as -185 at PointsBet, which implies a 64% win probability. Our friends over at DataGolf give Harman a 71% win probability, which is a really solid edge from a betting perspective. I get it and if you want some skin in the game, that's the best edge you're likely to find going into the final round, but it's not something I'll be playing Sunday. I'll instead hold tight with some nice buys we made into Saturday and hope they prevail if Harman falters.
Saturday was the second straight round in which Young led the field by more than a shot in SG: Tee-to-Green and was also the class of the field on approach. He continues to gain strokes on the field in every metric tee-to-green and if it weren't for the run Harman has been on, Young would be the talk of the tournament. Young has established himself as a fantastic links player and we picked him up at the right time with a solid +2800. He's my favorite to have a chance to put pressure on Harman as the intensity ramps up in the final round of the last major of the season.
I'm not taking any more stands in the outright market, but will find a couple of ways to get exposure on Max Homa. He's had a couple of nice weeks and is really motivated to find a top finish in a major as he's admittedly struggled in these events thus far in his career. Homa started slow Saturday and mentioned being a bit rattled early alongside the pro-Rory McIlroy crowd. He said he had a talk with himself to block it all out and focus on the task at hand, which paid off as he closed with a 2-under back nine and finished the day 1-under par. Homa is two shots from a top-10 finish and I expect he'll be motivated to finish strong, despite being out of contention. I'll be looking at Homa in matchups, DFS and the +300 for a top 10 on BetMGM, where all ties are paid in full.
