Scottish Open

A strong field head north of the border this week for one last chance to hone their links golf skills ahead of The Open Championships next weekend. The course is the Dundonald Links course, and it's the first time it's been used for a European Tour event. Without any direct course form, we'll be taking a similar approach to last week, and looking to identify players who might be most suited to links golf. Last week we identified Anthony Wall as a massive outside chance, and he duly rewarded us with a Top 20 finish - albeit shared in a ten-way dead-heat!

The field is strong this week with four of the World's Top 10 in action in the shape of Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Alex Noren.

Fowler was a man we really wanted to be with this weekend, with a game perfectly suited to the conditions and plenty of previous form in these types of conditions, but at 8/1 he's a stand out favourite and it's hard to justofy backing him at that sort of price. Similarly, Rory McIlory has pedigree, but two recent missed cuts make it impossible to trust him at 11/1.

Instead, we are going to plump for Adam Scott as our man towards the top of the betting. He's enjoyed great form on Links courses in the past and on our stats tends to outperform the field on such courses as strongly as anyone - beating the field by an average 2.5 strokes over a decent sample of events. He's enjoyed fair form this season as well of course, finishing 10th in the St Jude, 6th at the Players Championship and 9th at the Masters.

1pt e/w Adam Scott to win at 20/1 (Sporting Odds - 6 places 1/4 odds)

Another man who likes Links courses more than most is Marc Warren. The Scot will also be more at home than most in his home country, so could be in for a big weekend by his standards. He's always loved this event, finished 3rd in 2012 and 2014, and 5th in 2015.

Warren hasn't had any form to speak of this season of course, which suggests we might not want to set his improvement level too high, but he could pull out enough to secure a Top 20 finish at 8/1

1pt Marc Warren to finish in the Top 20 at 8/1

Another Scotsman who goes well on this sort of track is Russell Knox. He's finished 10th in each of the past two years in this event, He scores an average 1.3 strokes better than the field on Links course, and raises his own game by an average 0.6 strokes, so could be one to follow at the big prices. He's 100/1 to win outright, but we prefer the look of the 8/1 on a Top 10 finish given the quality at the head of the field. Knox hasn't enjoyed a mega season, with two 11th places being the highlight so far at the Heritage and the Sony Open, so it would take a season high to land the bet. We'll keep the stakes small on this one.

0.5pts Russell Knox to finish in the Top 10 at 8/1

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