🏌‍♀Why Did Rory Ghost Tiger?

Good Morning! The field is set for The Open Championship at Royal Troon - click here to find out the groups and tee times for Round 1 and 2.

Don’t forget to check out our top betting picks for the tournament!

Fun Fact: Since 2014, 55% of Masters, PGA and US Open winners have ranked in the top-ten that week in driving distance. None of the last 8 Open Champions have.

⛳ This day in history: On this date in 1983, Tom Watson won his fifth Open Championship, at Royal Birkdale, one shot ahead of Hale Irwin and Andy Bean. Watson blistered a 2-iron to the final green and two-putted for par.

ODDS AND PICKS
Our Top Picks For The Open Championship

🚩 The Open Championship tees off tomorrow with stars across the globe assembling at Royal Troon to battle it out for the final Major of the year.

💰 Purse: $17 million, winner takes home $3.1 million.

Here are our top picks we’re betting on:

🚀Most Likely to Win: Collin Morikawa (+1600) continues to play some of the best golf in the world right now. His putter, which used to hold him back, has actually been quite the strength over the last few months. He also has gained strokes around the greens in every start since the Wells Fargo. Considering his accuracy off the tee and being a former winner of The Open, he is our favorite to win the title.

🚀Key Player in the Top 5: Tony Finau (+650) seems to be coming into this major pretty quietly for someone who has gone 5th, 3rd, 8th in his last three starts. Despite not playing in Scotland last week, Finau has done just fine on links courses. Finau also has a great history in high winds and loves difficult courses.

🚀Key Player in the Top 10: Brian Harman (+500) is the defending champion. Last week, he was 21st in the Scottish Open and 12th there last year before winning The Open. Harman's current form is strong, gaining 6.4 strokes on approach last week, his best since finishing 2nd at the PLAYERS. His recent lower finishes are due to a cold putter, but given his career as a good putter, he's likely to have a hot week.

🚀Key Player in the Top 20: Sungjae Im (+188) has been in some superb form dating back to mid-April. In fact, if we don’t count the major championships in that stretch, his form reads: 4th, 12th, 3rd, 8th, 9th, 4th, 12th. The struggles in majors could be a worry but it’s not like Im hasn’t been able to step up in majors. He’s been in the picture at the Masters a few times and was T20 here at The Open last year.

🚀Underdog Likely to Emerge: It's exciting to see Matteo Manassero (+25000) back at The Open Championship. Fifteen years ago, he finished 13th as a teenager and quickly became a rising star. However, he hasn't played in an Open since 2016. Last week, he gained an impressive 8.8 strokes on approach in the Scottish Open, showing strong performance with his irons. He could be a significant contender this week.

* All odds via BetMGM, at the time of publishing.

ALBATROSS
This Is How Pros Plan To Counter Troon's Toughest Hole

The tiny, telegenic, and tricky par-3 8th hole, famously known as “The Postage Stamp", is undoubtedly the toughest hole at Royal Troon. The elevated tee box requires pristine wind judgment to avoid the four, extremely penal greenside bunkers. The hole’s name derives from its small, long and narrow green.

The Open rounds can swing at the Stamp and pros have their respective strategies to conquer this iconic hole.

⛳️ Bryson DeChambeau: DeChambeau — the longest hitter in the field — is taking an improvisatory method. He terms the hole as "diabolical" but plans to counter it by consistently hitting the center of the green.

⛳️ Xander Schauffele: Schauffele is a fan of the Stamp’s uniqueness but finds it super scary that the hole is so short. The World No 3 plans to enjoy the finesse test and believes it's going to be "fun" especially if the wind picks up off the left.

⛳️ Scottie Scheffler: Scheffler praised the timelessness of No 8. It’s an underrated skill for players nowadays to be able to control the ball, and the Stamp specifically encourages that.

The best ball striker in the world is definitely up for the challenge.

⛳️ Tiger Woods: Woods hit a 9-iron and a pitching wedge the last two times he played the hole. His plan is very simple hole; just hit the ball on the green. That’s it.

Green good, miss green bad. It doesn’t get any more simple than that.

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TWEET
Worth Mentioning

EAGLE
Rory Reveals Why He Ghosted Tiger

Rory McIlroy didn't respond to a supportive text message from Tiger Woods following the former's collapse at the 2024 US Open. McIlroy - who finished second at Pinehurst - will try to end a 10-year title drought at the upcoming Open Championship.

McIlroy revealed that he changed his phone number just two days after the US Open and so he wasn't aware of Tiger's message until the 15-time Major Champion himself let him know on Tuesday. Besides Tiger, Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and 22-time Grand Slam men's tennis champion Rafael Nadal also contacted McIlroy in support of last month's event.

📌 New Found Motivation: The US Open loss is a thing of the past now and McIlroy has turned his disappointment into motivation - progressing from dejection to understanding to enthusiasm. At Royal Troon, McIlroy aims to display all that he’s learned in what will be his final shot at redemption for nine long months.

McIlroy comes to the Major as the second-leading favorite, behind only world No 1 Scottie Scheffler. That’s a nod not only to McIlroy’s recent record, but also his Open résumé: six top-6 finishes in his past eight starts.

📌 Focus On Short Game: McIlroy has enlisted the help of Europe Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald for putting tips ahead of the Open Championship. Donald is also helping him refamiliarize himself with links conditions, in particular the speed of the greens.

With less than 24 hours to go before the tournament tees off, McIlroy is happy with where his game is after a bit of “rust” last week.

Watch this Story on YouTube

LOCKER ROOM
What else is making news

Golf*YouTube: Golf content on YouTube is soaring in popularity - there have been more than 4.3 billion views of golf videos on the platform in the last 90 days.

DP World Tour: Beau Forest, who works full-time as a software engineer for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprises company, carded 6-under 65 in the Barracuda Championship's Monday qualifier to earn a tee time this week in the Reno-Tahoe region.

LPGA Tour: When Lexi Thompson tees off on Friday in Sylvania, Ohio, a pair of F-16s from the Ohio Air National Guard will fly over Highland Meadows Golf Club to celebrate the 29-year-old’s LPGA career.

The Spieth Show: Jordan Spieth and his long-standing apparel sponsor, Under Armour, have put together a script that not only prepares him for all the elements that Royal Troon might offer but also gives an ode to the legendary past that The Open has captured through its history, which spans back to 1860 - click here to check out.

BIRDIE
Stars Set To Experiment New Gear @ Royal Troon

PGA Tour stars Tiger Woods, Collin Morikawa and LIV Golf's Bryson DeChambeau are all set to try out new gear this week at The Open Championship.

🏌️Tiger Woods: The biggest surprise thus far is the inclusion of a 5-wood in Woods' setup. He typically opts to use a driver, a 3-wood and a 2-iron at the top end of his set when playing on links-style courses at The Open.

Woods has also added strips of lead tape to the back cavity of his famous Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS prototype putter. Additionally, his rusty wedges have caught attention.

So his overall setup includes a TaylorMade Qi10 LS driver, a Qi10 Tour 3-wood, a TaylorMade M3 5-wood, a TaylorMade P770 3-iron, TaylorMade P7TW irons (4-PW), TaylorMade MG4 Raw wedges (56 and 60 degrees) and a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS prototype putter.

🏌️Collin Morikawa: Morikawa will use yet-to-be-released TaylorMade P7CB irons at The Open. They are cosmetically similar to the P7MC irons that have been in the TaylorMade lineup for about a year.

While the milling lines may be cosmetic, it’s possible that TaylorMade is trying to enhance spin, and thereby give good ballstrikers like Morikawa, more control.

📍DeChambeau*LA Golf Collab: LA Golf is working behind the scenes with Bryson Dechambeau for over a year to create a new driver that will come to market in 2025. It is being termed as the "most innovative driver ever made" and will feature a large amount of carbon, much like the brand's putters, the Bel Air and Malibu models.

Dechambeau has used many of the best drivers on the market over the past three years, including the Cobra LTDx, TaylorMade Stealth 2 and despite seemingly being happy with the performance of his current gamer, the Krank driver, he clearly has an appetite for more.

DRIVING RANGE
Correct Use of the Right Arm

In today's video, we explain how to use the right arm for power and accuracy.

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