I’m not entirely, if at all, convinced this is as open as the title suggests.

Of the last 12 championship winners, just Brian Harman (26), Shane Lowry (33) and Zach Johnson (25) have been outside of the world top 10 on the OWGR, and around the same on DataGolf. The last-named was the biggest shock of the three, with Lowry an obvious call in horrible conditions at Portrush and 2023 victor Harman showing recent form that allied with some excellent finishes from the previous season.

In essence, don’t look too far down.

Prices about the very much in-form Matt Fitzpatrick and never-wins Tommy Fleetwood look far too ‘win only’ for my liking, so I’ll row in strongly with Robert MacIntyre, with whom I bored at least two listeners of the Lost Fore Words podcast with for many years, insisting he wins The Open in at least four of his six attempts.

Bob should have contended even more strongly on debut in 2019, losing his position after a strong opening round, rallying with a final round 68 (joint-second best of the day) to finish tied-6th on a leaderboard that screamed ‘links’. Learning from that, he chased hard throughout the final day at a fast Royal St George’s in 2021, where conditions wouldn’t be a million miles away from ones facing the players this week.

To the chagrin of my bank manager, Bob went a tad too hard at the 14th hole, the final par-5, where a bogey took it all out of him. Still, that 8th place finish was the middle of three top-10s in total, last year again coming on strong on payday, a final round 67 tying for seventh place.

Bob is the maverick player. He needs to be focussed to play his best and with a bit of freedom, the same style he showed last week at the Scottish Open where his worst round of the week (69), on Sunday, looked like being a few shots more before a rallying 4-under through his final seven holes.

The form of his best efforts reads very well. Runner-up in the 2023 outing at Renaissance before returning a year later to beat a top-quality field runs alongside the fact that recent Open winners generally have an excellent week in Scotland; a runner-up finish behind JJ Spaun at the 2025 US Open links them both at The Players and in Texas; a Canadian win beating last week’s champ, Tom Kim, and Rory McIlroy is clearly top grade whilst that Dunhill Links victory stamps him as a major challenger for this, er, Major.

Back Bob up with Wyndham Clark who I thought advertised his recent US Open victory with a streak of form.

Whilst 2025 wasn’t great, that top-5 in the American domination of Portrush last year was enough to show a semblance of the form that had lifted him to success on two occasions in 2023 -at Quail Hollow and at the US Open- and again at Pebble Beach a year later.

Back to this season and whilst a win (30-under) at Craig Ranch wasn’t a complete guide, it did set off a run of form reading 1-3-T11-1-T5-T13, that other victory being an excellent front-running display at Shinnecock Hills, another course tailor-made for his bombing technique.

Interestingly, the worst of his last six efforts was in Scotland but that was purely down to him not able to find a thing during much of Sunday, dropping from sixth place to outside the top dozen. That effort was reminiscent of his game just before the most recent major win and he looks absolutely prime to run a big race after a huge event last year, opening with a 76 before a brace of 66s and a final round 65.

For the final pick, I’ll take the chance on Ben Griffin to land an each-way payout at three figures.

The 30-year-old (a good age for golfers and bang there as a number for this event) will need to find something on victory form but sneakily brings in decent Major form. Okay, he has missed three from three in this event, but since the last of those has four top-20 finishes in home Majors – T8/T14 in the PGA, and T10/T17 in the US Open.

Recent form won’t shout Major winner but a pair of 3rd place finishes, behind Cameron Young and Scottie at the Cadillac, and at tight Colonial, where tee-to-green counts plenty, are good enough hints that this three-time winner may take advantage of conditions this week.

He will appear in another wager very shortly but at 110-1 8 places, he’s worth a shekel.