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2022 British Open Golf Betting Tips: Outrights, Top-10 Picks and Longshots

Justin Van Zuiden Wed 7/13 6:57am PT
Will Zalatoris, a favorite betting pick of our experts to win the 2022 British Open.
(Image Credit: Imagn)

Justin “STLCardinals84” Van Zuiden is a lead DFS and golf betting analyst for RotoGrinders and ScoresAndOdds. In this week’s preview, he will offer his favorite Open Championship outright bets, top-10 picks and longshots!

Welcome back to the weekly golf betting roundup article! 

We have the final major of the season with The Open Championship this week! Hosting the tournament will be The Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. This will be the 150th edition of this tournament, with St. Andrews hosting for the 30th time.

As for the course, this isn’t the most difficult Open Championship venue, but it will still provide a fair test. The fairways are wide and the greens are large, so distance is an advantage off the tee. There are a lot of sub-400 yard par four holes here, so wedge play is also paramount.

The greens are tricky despite being large, and it will be important to be on the correct side of the green with your approach shots. As always, this major championship will provide an all around test for the 156 golfers in the field.

Let’s try to find some winning bets!

2022 British Open Betting Picks

Outright Picks

Who is the top golfer this week? Who should be the favorite to win? These are really tough questions to answer. Xander Schauffele has become the new Scottie Scheffler and wins every time he tees it up now. Rory McIlroy has finished inside the top ten in each of the first three majors of the year. Jordan Spieth is a wizard at links golf and played well last week. You can really make a case for five or six different players. For my money, I’ll side with McIlroy, as it just feels like that next major win is coming. He has seven straight top 20 finishes on the resume in 2022, and the statistical profile is excellent all around. He has finished inside the top ten in every major this year. When he plays his best golf, he’s still capable of dominating an event. I hope that version of Rory shows up this week, and I like that we can still get him at 10-to-1 odds on BetMGM.

I posted on record in January that Will Zalatoris would win a major this year. His results in the first three? Sixth, second, and second. Well, that’s a nice gut punch. Still, it’s awesome to see him contending at virtually every big time event at such a young age. His game is well suited to difficult courses, and his putting struggles could be somewhat masked by the “odd” nature of this course. His tee to green ability should keep him firmly in the mix, and this is my last chance for my prediction to come true. I have to stick with him. Oh, and over the last 36 rounds, he ranks third in this field in tee to green play and first in approach play. That will do. Let’s hope he can finally get that “W”!

Top 10 Finish Picks

If the course is in Europe, we can always bet Tommy Fleetwood. He has a very strong track record on these courses, and he got the momentum rolling with a very solid top five finish last week. He shot four sub-70 rounds in difficult conditions, and there is no reason he should be priced as low as he is on every site. He ranks above field average in every statistical metric, and his short game has been firing on all cylinders. I like him as a top ten bet at solid odds here.

Homa showed that he is getting more comfortable on links courses with a solid 16th place finish last week, and he even posted a social media clip of him playing another 18 holes on a different course in the evening DURING last week’s tournament. He’s clearly serious about contending at this event. He has four top tens and twelve top 25 finishes in 19 events this season. That’s very solid. Over the last 36 measured rounds, he ranks eighth in this field in approach play and ball striking — yet we’re getting discounted betting odds here. I’ll take it.

Long Shots and Other Bets

While it is unlikely we see a true dark horse winner in such a strong field event, the strength of the field also means that we get plenty of big names at longer odds than usual. There are plenty of talented golfers in the 75-to-1 range, and I don’t mind sprinkling some bets on them. Corey Conners, Gary Woodland, and Thomas Pieters are my favorite options in this range. All have ball striking and birdie making ability with plenty of major championship experience.

I have been having a lot of success with these individual matchup bets, so let’s keep that going with another one this week. Tommy Fleetwood scored a top five finish last week while Justin Thomas missed the cut, so that was a stress free win. Cameron Smith continues to ascend to the top of the golf world, while Brooks Koepka has largely gone missing over the last two years. Koepka has battled injury, ineffectiveness, and a myriad of personal ailments in that time frame. He still gets by with his reputation as a major championship specialist, but that hasn’t been the case this year. He has not finished inside the top 50 in any of the 2022 majors to date. This feels like one of the easiest bets on the board.

Good luck this week everyone! Let’s win some money!

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