2023 British Open Picks, Predictions: Outright Winner, Longshot Bets

We're set for the British Open this week at Royal Liverpool and our 2023 British Open picks, featuring our expert predictions to win the 2023 Open Championship and a few longshot bets for the outright winner for good measure.

Royal Liverpool is an interesting course for the 2023 British Open and our British Open picks and predictions, because we've gotten it in the Open Championship rotation twice since 2006. Tiger Woods won the title that opening year at 18-under par. Rory McIlroy was the champion in 2014 at 17-under. But we'll be looking elsewhere for our 2023 British Open picks and predictions, as you might expect.

2023 British Open Picks, Predictions to Win

If you haven't already, you can find me on Twitter: @TeeOffSports. There, I will provide a link to my pre-tournament model, a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs to create custom golf rankings.

That sheet is released every Monday, so be sure to check it out and construct your own numbers from my database of information.

Before we get to my British Open picks, here's what you need to know about this year and this course. You're going to get a venue that has out-of-bounds everywhere off-the-tee. It's one of the reasons we saw McIlroy and Woods both play extremely cautiously during their respective wins.

Wide-open conditions are a potential issue if winds do pick up, since there's no protection from the coast. That's essentially European golf in a vacuum, but the large green complexes land as another weighable commodity to highlight when running numbers.

You're going to need three-putt avoidance to bypass mistakes. Scrambling is essential for the sand dunes and thick tough that will loom at all turns. However, the one interesting quirk to the property is that the land is extremely flat. That slightly changes the dynamics for approach shots and chips from around the green.

None of that necessarily solves the problem for the lack of data that we have at our disposal, but Links golf is highly transferable between locations and can be weighed in a sense that looks at corollary tracks as an undertone to what golfers should expect for the week.

Let's talk about a few of those players that fit this narrative when talking about quality wind golfers or scramblers as we break down our 2023 British Open picks.

2023 British Open Picks, Predictions

Patrick Cantlay 28/1 (Down To 25/1)
Xander Schauffele 25/1

We're going to get into this a lot when it comes to this week's market being inconsistent. The higher hold percentages will make some of these discussion points moot — since the value is condensed in many spots and won't possess value on any inflation that may have been provided on the surface level of that answer.

But I felt like we got unstable pricing when comparing different golfers.

My model really liked Tommy Fleetwood. That's an industry consensus response that any of us could give for The Open, although it's not as if the Englishman has been winning tournaments to land in this 20/1 zone at most shops.

It isn't inconceivable that he does capture the title this week, but he's a name that's been priced out of consideration without a win to back it up.

And to be honest, all of that is even fine since you'll always have outlier answers. Many names got completely bypassed and shifted way too far down the board in odds who'll land under a similar explanation of Fleetwood's (lack of recent win equity). The only exception being the reverse movement from the Englishman.

We could have a separate discussion for just that point of the board, but the two I found most notable for me ended up being Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.

Cantlay experienced volatile movement around his price this week when he jumped into the 35/1 range at some locations before crashing back down into the 22/1 zone at other books.

The ability to price shop will always be the key answer since it'll allow a better ROI rate for those trying to make money betting sports.

Nonetheless, I have remained a massive proponent that any number that ever lands Cantlay 25/1+ is almost under automatic consideration because of how my model views his potential.

Xander, on the other hand, didn't necessarily have the same upside to the stats that we got from Cantlay, but this is a situation where both golfers seemed to be experiencing an overreaction in the market.

Sure, we're lacking the high-end results to shift this price back to the 16/1s we were seeing a month ago, but the concerns you had with them at those totals are not the same wager that we have in front of us currently when the price is 25/1+.

Tyrrell Hatton 33/1

Unfortunately, this 33/1 price has some flaws since Hatton moved after nearly winning the Scottish Open.

You can shop around and still find 28/1 totals in the market (a number that works with my math), but this is a spot of trying to back a golfer that's done nothing other than flirt with winning titles over the past few months.

Eight consecutive top-27 finishes should be considered Scheffler-like in a cheap way of trying to back that profile. Four of those results have landed in the top six.

I continue to aggressively push this notion when talking about the Englishman: it's only natural that he eventually gets himself over the hump at some point if the statistics are staying consistent.

Max Homa 60/1 

Look at how things have changed for Max Homa between the U.S. Open and Open Championship.

All those 30/1 prices in America at Los Angeles Country Club have been doubled in the market because of his lack of perceived win equity in a major. However, let's dive deeper into that comment before automatically ruling out his potential.

Beyond all else, I believe saying he has zero top-10 finishes in 16 career attempts is a flawed trend. That's an answer I highlighted for Wyndham Clark when he had zero top-75 results in six tries before his victory a month ago in Los Angeles.

I understand that the lack of potential shown does matter, but neither one of these two golfers are where they were a few seasons ago.

We see that with Homa producing five of seven made cuts in major events since last season, and I could argue that an Open Championship actually provides his highest ceiling because of the reduction in expectation off the tee and increase in strokes gained scrambling.

Jason Day 125/1 (Down to 110/1)

I don't know if Jason Day can win a major with the form he's bringing to the table, but I had him as the most mispriced player on the board when everything opened on Monday at 125/1.

For me, it comes down to my model believing Day was a 60/1 talent in this field. The recalculated tee-to-green numbers were alarmingly productive in my model because of his short-game success.

That was an area where he placed under only Cantlay when running all four critical strokes gained metrics.

I just thought anything over 100/1 was way too high for the potential he brings to the table. Day is a realistic option that can win the event if his health doesn’t act up, which isn't typically an answer I give for him, even though the narrative is that I'm on him weekly.

You just need to consider me more of the "boy who cried wolf" but now has a real story to tell.

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2023 British Open Odds

Odds via bet365