RADIO
As the road to the year's final Major Championship winds down, the PGA Tour makes its second annual pilgrimage to the home of golf (or at least 20 miles south of it across the Firth of Fourth). Scotland's national Open has been played at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick for the last four years, and in that short time, we've seen everything from 22-under shootouts to wind-swept slogfests won at U.S. Open-esque totals.
Aside from the variable scoring conditions, our favorite PGA Tour regulars will be tested in many different ways in North Berwick this week. Links golf is far removed from the point-and-shoot target golf we've seen in Detroit and Deer Run in recent weeks. Instead, players will be graded on variety, imagination, and creativity around this naturally imperfect terrain.
However, the same attributes that make links golf such a compelling viewing product also make it an unforgiving proposition from a handicapping perspective. Weather and wind will play as vital a role in the eventual outcome as we'll see all year, and many promising names have been snuffed out on the back of an unfortunate draw on the tee sheet. For better or worse, this is the task we must embrace over the next two weeks. This is one for the artists among us. Here's everything you need to know about the 2023 Scottish Open!
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The Golf Course
The Renaissance Club - 7,237-yard Par 70
At just over 31 yards wide on average, the fairways at Renaissance Club are already quite narrow for a typical links course, and with the firm and fast turf conditions combined with a high propensity for wind, the fairways effectively play much much narrower than that figure indicates. In fact, only Oak Hill has given players a tougher test of driving accuracy to PGA Tour pros in the twelve months since last year's Scottish Open.
The good news for players is that Renaissance also rates out as the second easiest course on Tour in terms of average penalty per missed fairway. In general, the 3” fescue rough is nowhere near lush enough to provide a significant hindrance, and although there are certainly a few traditional links-style hazards to be avoided on and around these fairways (pot bunkers, tall native grass, etc), they are nowhere near numerous enough to put a significant amount of doubt in the mind of a touring professional.
This combination of difficult-to-hit fairways and general forgiveness to wayward tee shots leads me to weigh driving distance far above accuracy this week. Only 2 of the Top 9 on last year’s leaderboard got there by hitting >50% of their fairways, and with seven Par 4’s measuring over 450 yards, plus three reachable Par 5’s, length off the tee will play a much bigger factor when attempting to score on Renaissance’s lengthier sectors.
In terms of iron play, Renaissance Club will serve up a fairly mixed bag to players this week when compared to the wedge fests we’ve seen over the last three weeks. Last year, 20% of approach shots came from inside 125 yards, 17% came from 125-150, 15% from 150-175, 20% from 175-200, and 27% came from over 200. If anything, I’ll have a small weight on long-iron proximities, but most of my weighed approach metrics will be more general in nature (SG: APP, Birdie Chances Created, etc).
However, don’t let this lack of specialization deter you away from weighing iron play this week. Winners of this event over the last four years have gained 8.9, 3.6, 3.5, and 5.0 shots on approach, and three of the four past champions (Min Woo notwithstanding), had shown a sustained hot streak coming into the event with their approach play. Of the three tee-to-green metrics, I’m still weighing iron play far above driving and short game.
The greens at Renaissance Club are unlike anything we’ve seen in the 2023 PGA Tour season. At over 7,000 square feet on average, they rank as the 8th largest complexes on the schedule, and as is tradition on British Links courses, they’re made up of the same native fescue we see in the fairways and rough. Running at a 10 on the Stimpmeter, I’d expect these greens to be among the slowest we’ll see all year, and given the sheer size of them, I’m weighing lag putting stats quite heavily (approach putt performance and three-putt performance being the two main ones).
We should also note that Renaissance Club ranked as the 4th most difficult course on Tour to putt inside of 5 feet last year, and the 7th most difficult from 5-15 feet. The combination of blustery winds and unfamiliar surfaces has the potential to wreak havoc on players that aren’t coming in with a ton of confidence on the greens. With the threat of 20 mph winds and a steady diet of 50+ foot putts on the menu, I would like players with both the touch from long range and an aptitude from inside 10 feet. Special emphasis on positive splits on similarly slow greens.
Of course, with greens this large, you’d typically expect around the green play to be severely de-emphasized. However, I believe short-game acumen is far and away the most correlative stat to what the Scottish weather decides to do. We’ve seen Jon Rahm hit nearly 90% of his greens around a benign Renaissance Club two years ago, but we’ve also seen the field average hover below 60% the very next year when winds kick up.
I tend to group last year as more of an outlier than a predictor of this week's event, but the possibility for chaos always exists in links golf. I certainly wouldn’t put all my eggs in the basket of players incapable of scrambling for par should the conditions call for it.
Scouting the Routing
For those looking to dabble in the live market this week, it will be imperative to contextualize a player’s position on the leaderboard alongside where he is on the golf course and which holes he still has left to play.
Unfortunately, the only hole-by-hole data we have on record for the Renaissance Club comes from the most difficult rendition of this tournament to date. With a scoring average of 71.89, the 2022 Scottish Open ended up as the third most difficult course of the season (behind just Augusta National and Southern Hills), and a whopping ten holes on property finished with a bogey or worse rate over 20%.
I do not anticipate the same level of difficulty this week, however, as sustained winds aren’t currently projected to climb past 20 mph, and recent rains in the area have softened the golf course up ever so slightly. I’d set the line on the winning score somewhere in the (-14) ballpark, but like so many links tournaments before it, so much of this week's course conditions depends on how nasty the weather can get off of the Scottish coastline.
In the live market, I do believe that judging the course conditions will play as big of a role as scouting the course’s routing. If the wind stays down and players are able to attack a soft, undefended Renaissance, past scores from 2019 and 2021 have proved birdies can be widely accessible around a benign North Berwick. However, if winds kick up more severely than expected, there will be no safer place for your guy to be than in the clubhouse watching the carnage alongside the rest of us in our armchairs.
Despite the fact that we only have one outlier year to draw data from, it is clear that one side of the routing this week is more gettable than the other. The first seven holes of the back-nine (10-16), provide by far the easiest stretch of golf in front of these players this week. Starting and ending with reachable Par 5’s on either side (-0.27 cumulative scoring average), and five holes in between that all ranked in the bottom half of difficulty last year, this stretch provides the longest sustained route to rack up birdies.
Be wary of players who get off to quick starts on the inner half, however, as once players walk off 16, they’ll have just two holes in their next 11 that would qualify as legitimate birdie opportunities. Holes 17, 18, 1, and 2 played to a cumulative average of (+1.27) last year, and holes 6-9 played to a cumulative average of (+0.98).
Again, it would be difficult for this year's rendition to match the startling figures we saw last year, but I do see front-nine starters as the clearest buy-low opportunities we’ll have in the live market. With four of the five toughest holes on the outward half, an even-par score through nine isn’t nearly the disaster it may seem when compared to the hot starters going off on ten.
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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod
2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 UnitsTotal Winnings: +311.229 Units
Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36
H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE
— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022
The Betting Card
Patrick Cantlay (16-1)
Here we go again. Cantlay has broken the heart of many of us on Golf Twitter in 2023, yet he continues to put up underlying numbers that scream of an imminent breakthrough. Over his last 36 rounds, Patrick Cantlay ranks second on Tour in both Total Driving and SG: Tee-to-Green, and he comes into this year's Scottish Open on the back of the best iron week he’s had in 14 months (+7.0 SG: APP at Travelers).
Pat was one of just 7 players here last year to finish inside the Top 25 from the bad side of the weather wave, and followed that up with the best Open Championship result of his career: a T8 at St. Andrews. Over those two weeks, only Cameron Smith gained more shots on Scotland’s signature fescue greens, and although his overall links record isn’t as extensive as many of the Europeans in this field, Cantlay has long been one of the PGA Tour’s premier wind players (2nd in SG: Total in Windy Conditions since the start of 2019).
There isn’t a lot to distrust about the game of the Californian right now, and despite his inability to find the winners circle in 2023, his weekly consistency has him solidly entrenched as a Top 5 player in the world. It’s only a matter of time before he converts one of these late Sunday tee times into a win, and at 16-1, I’m more than willing to toss a few more chips into the middle.
Tyrrell Hatton (22-1)
Another player we’ve been penciling in for a win for some time now, Tyrrell Hatton gets another golden shot this week as one of the preeminent links players in world golf. Tyrrell has recorded 3 Top 11 finishes at the Open since 2016, he’s finished no worse than 24th in 3 appearances at the Renaissance Club, and might well be the most successful player in the recent history of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship:
- 2017: Win
- 2018: T3
- 2019: T15
- 2021: T2
- 2022: T7
Now Hatton returns to Scotland’s comfortable surroundings on the back of the best-sustained stateside form we’ve seen in his career. He’s already logged six finishes of sixth or better on the PGA Tour this year and hasn’t lost strokes off the tee or on the greens since the Masters in April.
From the driver, to the short game, irons, and putter, there has been nothing to nitpick about Hatton’s statistical profile over the last six months. He’s one of just 3 players to rank inside the Top 30 in all four SG Categories, and I could easily make a case he’s currently a top 10 player in the world even without a win in the calendar year.
Whether you’ve been on the Hatton train with us, or have been looking for a spot to hop on, the links of North Berwick are as good a spot as any for the Englishman’s long-awaited win.
Shane Lowry (45-1)
With the Irish Open moving to September this year, the schedule has opened up for one of the field's most accomplished links players to make his way to Scotland’s National Open for the first time since 2016.
It will be difficult for Shane Lowry to ever top his career-defining victory at Royal Portrush in 2019, but even prior to that Open triumph, Lowry had built up an extensive CV on these sorts of links courses.
He finished 4th in the 2014 Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen, 9th at Royal Liverpool in the same year, he’s recorded three finishes of sixth or better at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, and to this day, Lowry is the only amateur in history to take down his home Open in Ireland.
Now in the present day, as Lowry is looking to break his nearly four-year winless drought on the PGA Tour, he returns to the British Isles in a PGA-sanctioned event for the first time. With four Top 20 finishes over his last five starts, rating out as the 7th-best player on APP, and 10th from T2G in the process, the ball-striking looks to be rounding into midseason form as he arrives back home.
Lowry also notably ranks third on the entire PGA Tour in Approach Putt performance, as well as 11th in 3-Putt Avoidance. He’s gained strokes putting in four of his last five starts, and if the flat stick can stay hot, Lowry presents an especially scary proposition at this type of venue. As much as I love the prospects of Fleetwood and Fitzpatrick in the 20s, a 45-1 on a player of Shane Lowry’s caliber is too juicy to pass up.
Max Homa (50-1)
If you happened to catch Max Homa’s pre-tournament press conference in Detroit, you’d have found it hard to believe you were watching a man coming off of two bitterly disappointing missed cuts. Homa iterated and reiterated the confidence he felt in his swing coming into the Rocket Mortgage, and for the first time in nearly four months, golf fans got a taste of the Max Homa we saw light up the PGA Tour to start the 2023 campaign.
Homa gained over seven shots ball-striking in four rounds around Detroit Golf Club - his best performance since the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and fired four rounds in the 60s for the first time since a runner-up finish at Riviera this past February. Of course, Detroit GC isn’t exactly the most daunting test on the schedule, but when we’re dealing with a player of Homa’s caliber, signs like this should not go unnoticed.
Couple this recent flash of life with a T16 finish on debut here last year and a track record of extremely reliable wind play (3rd in Total Ball-Striking in windy conditions since 2019), and I’ve got all the ammo I need to tout Homa this far down the board. Even through his midseason lull, Max remained one of the most reliable putters in the game (10th in SG: Putting; 17th in Approach Putt Performance). If the ball-striking is truly back to peak form, you can be assured we won’t be getting many more chances to grab a piece of the Californian at 50-1.
Justin Rose (55-1)
Although a younger contingent of Brits all carry big aspirations to Scotland this week, be careful not to sleep on England’s elder statesman, as Justin Rose comes into his seventh Scottish Open appearance on the back of some resurgent form around the world.
After a missed cut at the U.S. Open broke a string of five consecutive T25 finishes in the United States, Rose returned to Britain to finish 4th in the Betfred British Masters - recording his second-best Approach week of the season in the process. In this star-studded field, Rose rates out as a Top 5 iron player with a Top 10 short game over the last six months, and his track record on links courses speaks for itself:
- Winner of the 2014 Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen
- T4 in the 2017 Irish Open at Portstewart
- Top 25s in five of his last seven Open Championship starts, including a runner-up finish in the 2018 Open at Carnoustie
Already a winner at another wind-swept, coastal venue in Pebble Beach earlier this year, Rose has only continued to grow his case as one of the comeback players of the year in World Golf. There aren’t a lot of holes to pick in the veteran’s profile, and as much as I love the prospects of some of England’s younger hopefuls, you’d be hard-pressed to argue any of them carry a 2-3x better chance to outgun Rose this week.
Best of luck guys, and Happy Hunting!
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