The Open Championship 2024 Betting Tips: Three special bets for Troon

Our golf tipster Jamie Worsley has already given us his Open Championship Preview but he's also spotted three interesting angles in the specials markets. So without further ado, here are Jamie's specials Open Championship Betting Tips.

Golf Odds

The Open Championship’s always eclectic field creates plenty of opportunity in the side markets, from which I’ve picked out three selections to give us some added interest at Royal Troon this week.

2.5 pts Marcel Siem Top German @ 13/5 

First up is the Top German market and I’m taking the recently-revitalised Marcel Siem to get the better of his three compatriots this week.

Siem looked to be a player on the decline before diverting his career back in a positive direction in 2021. A year in which he won on the Challenge Tour and then achieved the best Open Championship result of his career, finishing 15^th at Royal St George’s.

Back on the DP World Tour from late 2021, Siem won on the tour for the first time in nine years in India last year, but had his 2024 campaign derailed due to a hip injury. He initially struggled upon his return in May, though was back to his very best in Italy three weeks ago, hitting the ball well and looking expectedly strong on the greens to beat Tom McKibbin in a playoff and become a six-time DPWT winner.

He has plenty of positive links experience, with two of his three best major performances coming in this tournament; finishing 27^th on debut at St Andrews and he has made the cut in his last two, including that career-best 15^th in 2021.

Aside from Siem, this four-man market consists of PGA Tour winner, Stephan Jaeger, DPWT winner, Yannik Paul and last year’s Senior Open winner, Alex Cejka.

Jaeger is making his Open Championship debut this week and is currently struggling for consistency with his irons and putter; Paul has regressed a little this year after a good year on tour last year, and despite finishing 26^th in last week’s Scottish Open, he missed the cut on his Open debut in 2023; whilst Cejka hasn’t made the cut in this event since 2001.

Siem’s positive recent Open Championship performances, combined with that emphatic return to the DPWT winner’s circle in the last couple of years, makes him the clear choice for me in a market where merely making the cut may well be enough.

2 pts Dean Burmester Top African @ 18/5

Christiaan Bezuidenhout landed the Top African honours for us in the US Open in our last major, beating Dean Burmester into 2^nd. However, I’m taking the LIV golfer to reverse that result this time around in conditions that should suit him more than Pinehurst.

After winning back-to-back events on the DPWT at the end of last year, Burmester has continued that form into this year. He recorded a victory and two 3^rd-place finishes on LIV, before gaining his second-best major result in the PGA Championship, finishing 12^th, where he ranked 8^th tee-to-green.

He’s since finished top-25 on his last three LIV starts and made the cut in the US Open. Back playing a form of golf that he’s shown a liking for, this big-hitting ball-striking type can go well this week.

Burmester has made the cut in each of his Open Championship starts to date, finishing 40^th on debut in 2021 and then 11^th in 2022 – his best major finish. With several top-10s in the Scottish Open and Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, he’s no stranger to performing well on the links and with the likely wet conditions no doubt suiting him, he can add another strong performance to the collection here.

There are eight South African golfers in attendance this week and despite some positive links form from many, it’s hard to see the winner in this market not coming from that leading trio of Louis Oosthuizen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Burmester.

That being said, Bezuidenhout withdrew in Scotland last week and with his Open Championship form inferior to Burmester’s, I’ve reduced this to a straight battle with 2010 Open winner, Louis Oosthuizen.

Louis himself finished last year with a couple of wins on the DPWT and similarly to Burmester, has carried that form over into this year, recording three runner-up finishes and was 4^th at Valderrama last week.

Having said that, Oosthuizen can be somewhat of an unreliable sort, largely due to injury troubles, and barring a 23^rd-place finish in this event last year, he’s done little in the majors since joining LIV, for all this would be his favourite.

This unreliability gives Burmester the edge and rated as the third-favourite in this market, he looked good value to come out on top of his compatriots in the 152^nd Open Championship.

1 pt Eric Cole each-way (1/4, 3 Places) Top Debutant @ 22/1 

My final selection comes in the Top Debutant market, which I believe is a little more competitive than the betting suggests. It is a market that is heavily impacted by the brilliant Ludvig Aberg and whilst he’s obviously capable of going well on debut, he wouldn’t be the first high-class talent to be found out by this unique brand of golf.

What his clear favouritism does, is create some appealing value elsewhere and after rediscovering form in recent starts, I’m taking last year’s PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, Eric Cole, to make an encouraging Open Championship debut.

Cole started this year in similar fashion to how he performed in 2023, finishing inside the top-25 in six of his first nine starts. He did suffer a slump in form following a 21^st-place finish in the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, missing six of his next 12 cuts and recording just two top-40s, but has bounced back over the last few weeks, recording top-10s in the Rocket Mortgage Classic and John Deere Classic, before a solid 46^th in last week’s Scottish Open.

This return to form has been the result of him rediscovering a level of approach play that he showed for much of last year, and combined with his good all-round short game, gives him a skillset that should transfer well to the links.

Indeed, Cole immediately took to golf in this part of the world last year, shooting rounds of 67-69-64 to sit 5^th entering the final round of his Scottish Open debut. Though a disastrous final-round 79 sent him tumbling down the leaderboard into 60^th place.

He again showed a suitability for this style of golf last week, firing three under par rounds on his way to that 46^th-place finish. In addition, as a runner-up in the Cognizant Classic at PGA National and finishing 3^rd in the RSM Classic, he has some very strong US-based comp form for this particular major championship.

This is a packed market and I did look at several others, including Akshay Bhatia and this year’s Cognizant Classic winner, Austin Eckroat. However, Cole’s superior around-the-greens skills edged it over those two and should help him make a taking Open Championship debut at Royal Troon this week.

*You can get all the up to date and live The Open Championship 2024 Odds over on betfred.com

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