The 2024 Open Championship Chalk 💣

You already know the weather is gonna get interesting in Scotland... Based on the current forecast (which might be accurate for at least another 30 minutes) the highest winds in the early rounds will arrive Friday afternoon giving a slight advantage to the PM/AM wave. But be sure to check out the Nut Hut Discord for the latest weather info…

GET IN THERE!

Collin Morikawa -168 ($9900) vs. Bryson DeChambeau +134 ($11,500)

We start with a surprising line from the sharp overseas oddsmakers that have Collin Morikawa as a HEAVY favorite over Bryson DeChambeau in a 72-hole matchup despite a $1600 difference in DFS pricing.

Neither player was here back in 2016, but both have enough Open Championship experience to draw some conclusions from. Collin obviously has the win at Royal St. Georges in 2021, but his other two starts each ended with a MC. Bryson on the other hand has just one finish better than T33 in six appearances: a T8 at St. Andrews in 2022.

Both are among the most popular plays in DFS this week. According to our Nut Hut ownership projections available in the Discord, Morikawa is the fourth-most owned at around 18% while DeChambeau is at 15%

Tyrrell Hatton -136 ($9500) vs. Viktor Hovland +112 ($9700)

Moving down to the $9k range, Tyrrell Hatton is favored over Viktor Hovland in a four-round head-to-head even though the Englishman is $200 cheaper in DraftKings DFS.

Hovland has a stellar record at the Open with finishes of T13, T4 and T12 in his three prior starts, but Hatton has more experience to lean on. Tyrrell is making his 12th Open appearance this week and his best-ever finish (T5) came at Royal Troon in 2016.

The public appears to be tailing the bookies here as Hatton is trending around 13% ownership compared to Viktor at closer to 10%. But if you’re willing to eat the chalk, Tyrrell might be the better play.

Rickie Fowler -133 ($6600) vs. Will Zalatoris +103 ($7200)

Lastly, the sharp books like Rickie Fowler in a head-to-head over Will Zalatoris even though BDR is $600 cheaper in DFS.

Making his 13th Open Championship appearance, Rickie certainly has the experience edge over Willy Z who has just one completed Open under his belt having WD’d in ‘21 and finishing T28 in ‘22. Fowler only managed a T46 here in 2016, but he does have six finishes of T25 or better.

Both Fowler and Zalatoris are flying under the radar this week according to our Nut Hut ownership projections as both are currently under 2%.

*DISCLAIMER: The Chalk Bomb is CHALK for a reason! This is a ballsy call. We're simply giving you 1 player projected to be highly owned that we think could warrant a fade in order to gain leverage in DFS GPP Tournaments. Sack up & fade OR Ignore the play. 

Just like that, another major championship season has flown by, and we’re down to one last chance at eternal glory — if only the R&A etched the Chalk Bomb into the Claret Jug…

For all the ‘casuals’, this may very well be the last golf tournament you watch this year, and I’d hate to see your DFS lineups dashed before Friday afternoon thanks to an untimely gust of wind or a pot bunker.

But at the Open Championship, bad luck is bound to find every last one of the 161 golfers teeing it up at Royal Troon this week — but who will be able to withstand it, and who will crumble? We’ll try to identify the latter here.

As a reminder for any first-time readers, the Chalk Bomb is limited to popular picks in DFS — those with a projected ownership of 15% or higher according to our Nut Hut data available in the Tour Junkies Discord. That leaves us with a total of eight players to choose from.

To whittle that down to one, let’s start with the analysis by our friends at Bet the Number who have identified some key data points and indicators specific to Royal Troon and the links golf that the Open is known for that should give us an idea of who might struggle this week.

Unlike St. Andrews and other wide-open links courses, Troon asks for accuracy as well as power off the tee to avoid insanely dense rough and occasional OB that creeps close to a few fairways. That’s not the best recipe for this week’s Chalk Bomb who is one of the longest drivers in the game but one who occasionally struggles to keep it in play. Going back to the 2023 Masters, this player ranks 53rd in this week’s field in average distance from the center of the fairway at the last seven major championships.

Up by the green, the ability to get up and down from greenside bunkers and the tightly mown runoff areas will be paramount this week, and that’s another potential problem for our pick. Over the last seven majors, this player ranks 58th in the field in SG: Around the Green from bunkers and shortgrass lies. Now, this guy seemed to solve that problem at Pinehurst a few weeks ago, but historically, this area of his game has not been a strength…

Perhaps the biggest indictment of this popular favorite is simply his record at this event. The Open presents a very different style of golf than the rest of the majors or the PGA TOUR for that matter — and not every player is suited to it.

Take out his T8 at an easy Old Course in 2022, and this player has just one top-50 finish in five other cracks at the Open Championship. What’s more, the sharp overseas oddsmakers are hedging against this guy when it comes to head-to-head matchups with the other big-name stars.

For instance, one book has him as a heavy underdog to both Ludvig Aberg and Collin Morikawa, both of whom are over $1k cheaper in DraftKings DFS.

He’s had a phenomenal season, especially in majors where he’s probably been the best player on the planet. He’s yet to finish worse than sixth in this year’s majors, and he is of course the reigning US Open champion — but as the second-most expensive player on DraftKings and 15%-owned according to our ownership projections, I’m going out on a limb and fading Bryson DeChambeu in the year’s final major!

This week, thanks to the wonderful Nut Hut Discord, I learned why it is that it’s not good to have grapefruit products with certain prescription drugs. And let me just tell you this…It’s SCARY. Don’t do it.

I’ve always wondered how many European explorers actually went back to Europe.

Why do we always have to come up with funny words for stuff? Example: a chain of island will henceforth be known as an Archipelago.

English is such a crazy language. You have Southern English, Boston English, New York English, Mid West English, Ebonics English, Texas English, Spanish English. I have no idea how someone not born a native speaker can understand anyone.

If you swat a fly and then throw it in the trash, you pretty much just sent it to Heaven.

I have to think the invention of Alexa has caused a serious and crippling decline of babies being named Alexa.

Alright, that’s all I got for this week for the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. Enjoy the exhilarating feeling of waking up to some coffee and golf. Good luck with all your lineups and bets and may your screens be green! Bome!