Welcome to Open Championship week 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Good evening and welcome to the Breakfast Ball Buffet — your daily reminder that there's more to life than golf... but we don't really care about that. The Open Championship gets underway in just a few hours time, and here’s what we’re serving up ↓

• Welcome to Open Championship week 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

• BBB’s power rankings 📈

• Some Big Cat chatter 🐅

• Bryson’s gonna Bryson 👀

• Buffet bets 💰

Welcome to Open Championship week 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

We have plenty to go through regarding this week’s Open Championship, so let’s get right into it.

The beauty of golf is that we get to see different venues week after week. But, there’s just something about the Open Championship venues; the history, the links style, the rugged yet beautiful look. Perfection.

Royal Troon is known for it’s insane bunkering. All links courses have the pot bunker situation going, but Troon’s are absolutely cracked ↓

Troon is a tale of two nines. The entire front nine goes north, and the entire back nine goes south.

The back nine is WAY harder than the front; it has historically played roughly 3 strokes harder, which is the biggest disparity between nines at any major venue.

And if the wind is somehow blowing into the face on the back… good luck. In 1997, there was an 18-stroke spread between the lowest score on the front and the highest score on the back.

In 2016, Henrik Stenson somehow managed to shoot -20 around here — THIRTEEN shots better than 3rd place.

With that being said, it’s still not that hard relative to other major venues. I would expect a winning score in the -14 to -16 range this weekend based on history and the weather forecast.

In case you haven’t laid eyes Troon yet or needed some extra hype on Open Championship eve… ↓

BBB’s power rankings 📈

It's the final major of the year, which means we have a pretty full body of work from these players to judge from. Logic would suggest that means this should be the most accurate ranking of the bunch, but predicting golf tournaments is always a fool's errand. But, we’ve been pretttttty good at this so far this year, so let’s keep that going.

Honorable mentions: Tyrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Xander Schauffele

No. 5 - Ludvig Åberg’s been playing great golf since April, but he hasn’t broken 70 in a final round since March. But that won’t last, and when he gets it across the line, absolutely no one will be surprised.

No. 4 - Bryson Dechambeau finished T6 at the Masters, 2nd at the PGA and a won at Pinehurst, making this the best major season of his career. But now he faces his biggest test yet in the Open. Bryson’s game isn’t really a fit for links golf, as he likes to hit the ball miles high and turn golf into a science… which is completely contradictory to the demands of links golf. We shall see.

No. 3 - Scottie Scheffler responded to a garbage showing at Pinehurst by winning for the sixth time in 2024 the very next week. He took time off with his family instead of playing the Scottish last week… which I don’t love. It’s so important to warm up for links golf, as it’s completely different, and that’s the reason why I have him at 3 instead of 1.

No. 2 - Rory McIlroy took three weeks off after the US Open to process his emotions. He wasted no time getting back into the mix at the Scottish Open, where he hit it well enough to win but putted poorly. The last time he blew a major in flagrant fashion, at the 2011 Masters, he dominated and won the very next major. What a story it’d be if that happened again.

No. 1 - Collin Morikawa is playing the best golf we’ve seen out of him since those major-winning days of 2020 and 2021. Iron play remains elite but it’s the short game that has allowed for the surge of excellent play. If he putts well, he has a great chance of winning any tournament he plays in. Looked great at the Scottish Open and has gone T3, T4, T14 in the majors so far this year. I know he loves his chances and I do too.

Some Big Cat chatter 🐅

Last week, European golf legend, Colin Montgomerie, made some pretty aggressive comments about Tiger…

“There is a time for all sportsmen to say goodbye but it’s very difficult to tell Tiger it’s time to go. Obviously, he still feels he can win. We are more realistic.”

Yikes. In TW’s presser today, he responded accordingly 💀

That’s what we like to hear. He’s got yet another shot at winning major no. 16 this week at Royal Troon. I don’t think he’s gonna do it, but I’m more than open to that outcome.

I must say, he looks way leaner than he did at Pinehurst, and he was ripping the stinger and tossing darts all over the damn place in his practice rounds ↓

I’ve also been hearing that he was able to practice way more than usual between the US Open and this week.

He tees off at 9:37 am EST with Cantlay and Xander tomorrow.

No matter what, I’m excited to watch Tiger freaking Woods play some major championship golf this week. As I said before, you never know…

Bryson’s gonna Bryson 👀

Bryson, even when he’s not trying to, always manages to find his way into the spotlight.

This week, it’s for something completely out of left field, while also somehow so predictable ↓

Yes, you read that right. A driver where the face shape is fit to your swing. People get fitted for clubs all the time, but this is like golf’s version of play doh.

Oh, and on the “can Bryson get any more likeable?” front, we have this — he’s simply the man right now ↓

Buffet bets 💰

Now that the power rankings are out of the way, let’s get surgical. Anyone who’s not new here knows how ridiculously hot I’ve been on the golf-wagering front recently, so ride or fade as you will.

The obvious outright: fate of the universe on the line, the Martians have the death beam pointed at earth, you better hit it… I’m taking Collin Morikawa at +1600.

The less-obvious outright: for this one, I’m rocking with Patty-Ice Cantlay at +4500. Odds are simply too sexy to turn down. Sprinkle.

My favorite solo play: got a hunch about Sahith Theegala this week… running with those +500 odds for him to top-10 finish this week (including ties).

The top-10 parlay: keeping it simple for this one. Give me two northern European’s who are very used to chilly weather and windy conditions. Rory and Ludvig at +440. Hammer.

Surgical-six (to make the cut): it’s too easy to just go with Scottie, Rory, or Collin. So, I’m putting $100 for $330 profit on Ludvig, Tommy, Tyrell, Cantlay, Bobby Mac, and Cam Smith to make the cut.

Quick Bites 🥓

A legendary video: Golf Channel’s live from the Open coverage blessed us with some Tiger-Phil on the range next to each other content. At a major. In 2024. 🐐

Phil is hilarious: “I’m not a betting man as you know [pause …] I guess that’s probably not true.” 💀

Ghosted: Rory was getting too many texts after his US Open blunder so he changed his number. You won’t believe who he ghosted… 👻

If you’ve gotten this far, please share our newsletter using the referral link below. Throughout the next few weeks, we’ll be randomly giving away gift cards to our biggest referral-getters 🤝