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The fourth Golf major for 2019 is the British Open at Royal Portrush, located at the beautiful small seaside town of Portrush in Northern Ireland. The course is a classic links style course that will play as a Par 71, 7337 yard test of medium width fairways with smallish bentgrass greens. The course is a fairly easy scoring if the wind doesn’t blow. But this is the British Isles and it does blow on the coast and can be unpredictable in its strength and direction. The rough this week is penal composed of grass, heather and briar. Also of note that in the current rotation of courses by the R&A, Royal Portrush does have the fewest bunkers on this course. Check out this little gem from Brooks Koepka’s caddie about this week’s course.

A fantastic field of 156 golfers are here in Northern Island, where the top 70 and ties will move on after 2 rounds. There is no MDF rule after the 3rd round. Out of the top 100 golfers in the world, 85 are here. We do also have golfers who qualified from various events throughout the world and will be unfamiliar to most DFS players. Just like the other majors this year, these players can be ignored for your line-up builds. The cream rises to the top for the majors, and links golf is no exception. 

I caught up with DFS player ‘Procession’ to preview the event and one of the topics we discussed is the weather forecast. At this stage the forecast is typical Irish summer weather. A bit of everything. Rain, sunshine and “moderate breeze”. Check out our preview here in our DFR podcast:

For those who want the latest in weather before lockout (which is at the earlier time of 15:35pm EST), you can check out https://www.windfinder.com/forecast/portrush for the latest weather conditions.

The course does have some limited tournament history, hosting the Irish Open back in 2012 and is the home course for Graeme McDowell. A renovation of holes and tee boxes commenced in 2017 for play for this particular event.

According to rotogrinders.com this weeks key statistics include:

Key Statistics (In Order of Importance)

1) Strokes Gained Approach

2) Scrambling

3) Bogey Avoidance

4) Strokes Gained Off the Tee

5) Strokes Gained Putting

For this major, the home of DFS golf in Draftkings have their world famous $3M Fantasy Golf Millionaire. For a $20 entry fee, the winner of this contest will win $1 million in prize money. There are various other contests for various price points. A personal favourite of mine is the $0.50 Mini-Max where 1st prize is $5,000!

At Draftstars the main feature is a $15,000+ contest for a $15 entry fee and for the 1st time a “3-Ball” contest is available where 1st prize is a Golden Ticket to the Live AFL final in a months time.

Let’s have a look at who are my targets for this week’s Major!

Rory McIlroy ($11,600 DK, $23,290 DS) - Narratives everywhere for McIlroy this week. Home country, course record holder when he was a pup, tournament history of 2nd, 4th, 5th and winner in 2014 in the past 5 years. Favourite with the bookies and has most of the statistics required. 1st in the field for SG: Tee to Green, 8th in the field for Bogey avoidance and 3rd in the field for Birdies or Better %. Elite player at home in a tournament he excels. Now how much will he be owned? Well that is the question you probably need to consider.  

Justin Thomas ($9,100 DK, $17,890 DS) - Thomas is building and I have been bullish since his injury lay-off. The form is now back after a great performance at the Scottish Open where he finished T9. What is holding me back on saying you should lock Thomas in is that he's missed the cut in his previous two opens. 3rd in the field for SG: Approach and 2nd in Greens in Regulation and 1st in the field for Birdies or Better %.

Patrick Cantlay ($9,000 DK, $17,080 DS) - Not sure on Thomas? Then for a little discount you can have Cantlay who has been very very good. Cantlay's victory last month at the Memorial highlights a recent run of seven straight starts in which he's finished no worse than 24th. He finished T-12 last year at Carnoustie in his only Open start. 3rd ranked for SG:Tee to Green, 7th Putting Average, 2nd in scrambling and 2nd in Bogey Avoidance. Going to be pretty popular. 

Matt Kuchar ($8,700 DK, $16,180 DS) - Kuchar remains in the midst of the best season of his career, with two wins and two runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour. He has finished outside the top 20 just once in his last eight worldwide starts, which was a missed cut at the Memorial. At the open he nearly tasted victory with a 2nd place at Birkdale back in 2017. 5th in Driver accuracy and 1st in the field for bogey avoidance.  

Bernd Wiesberger ($7,100 DK $15,180 DS) - The form golfer of the field. Winner of the Scottish open last week in a playoff. 2nd in the Irish Open only to Jon Rahm. T16 at the BMW in Germany and a win at the Made in Denmark back in May. How this will translate to Championship golf? Well at this salary it's worth the punt on DK. DS however have caught wind of Wiesberger and has his “true” salary for the event. For the Euro tour, Wiesberger is 6th for Greens in regulation.

Bubba Watson ($7,200 DK $12,260 DS) Probably the easiest fade this week is Watson who if the wind blows, will have trouble shaping the ball off the tee. He does have the talent to muscle this course if the conditions allow it. He is also at the cheap “plug him in” salary, but with the unpredictable weather forecasted, I will be leaving Watson alone. He does however rank 2nd in the field for SG: Off the tee. 

The Daily Fantasy Rankings "Dragon" has scoured the Australian sports betting markets and found some great value picks for this event. Check out his picks for the day below and click on the links to follow his betting plays!

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