The US Open comes to Wisconsin for the first time in its 117-year history, leaving Indiana as the only Great Lakes state never to have staged an Open.
I’ve seen some describe Erin Hills as a links course but it’s not in the purest sense of the words. It’s more a mixture of parkland and links and a few of the top players practising this week have been dismayed to find rough still two-feet thick, though organisers are guaranteeing that it wil have another cut before the first trio is on the tee.
So Erin Hills is definitely not a links course but the absence of any treeline is noticeable and locals warn that it can get very windy when certain conditions prevail.
I like the each-way betting down to eighth place offered by a few bookmakers, though the same are only offering one fifth the odds for a place which is a disgrace. If you bet £20 with Ladbrokes or £20 each-way on the outright winner of the US Open, you get a £5 free bet for each day of the tournament.
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The fairways at Erin Hills are incredibly wide so there really is no excuse for ending up in that vicious rough. However, the bunkers need to be avoided at all cost. They are unfashionably steep-sided and normal rules don’t apply if finding the sand. Even the most gifted bunker players will end up dropping shots – the par-three ninth doesn’t even have a shot to the green. The course may just fall short of the longest in US Open history but it’s still a weary-looking 7,600-plus yards.
Americans have won five of the last nine US Opens and the Stars and Stripes are 11/10 with most bookmakers to provide the winner again. Courses like Erin Hills are not generally conducive to very low scores and, almost invariably, there are likely to be a few in contention over the final nine holes. I think the general 4/1 for a two-stroke winning margin is a more than feasible outcome.
The US Open has seen the cream rise to the top in recent years with recent winners including Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson and all of that quartet feature heavily in the outright betting this year. But you can also have a bet without the so-called ‘Big Four’ of Johnson, McIlroy, Spieth and Jason Day. Rose is 20/1 in this market with Boylesports and you can bet each-way in this market up to four places. The Englishman certainly thrives in Majors played in the States but I’ll also be having an interest in Kevin Chappell in this market at 45/1 with Boylesports.
The Californian recorded a maiden US PGA Tour victory in the Texas Open earlier this year and also finished in the top 10 in the Masters. His tee-to-green stats are among the best on the Tour at present but, like everyone else, he’ll need to ride out the bumps and hollows that define Erin Hills. Chappell is a general 66/1 to be outright winner of the US Open and 7/1 with Betfred for a top 10 finish.
