With just a week to go until the Open Championship, most of the world’s best golfers have skipped over the pond for the 2023 Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club just outside of Edinburgh.
The field features several of the biggest names on the PGA Tour, including tournament-favorite Scottie Scheffler.
Scheffler is the only golfer in single-digits for the Scottish Open, but there are six other PGA Tour heavyweights under +2000: Rory McIlroy (+1000), Patrick Cantlay (+1400), Xander Schauffele (+1600), Tyrrell Hatton (+1600), Viktor Hovland (+1800) and Rickie Fowler (+1800).
Outside of the usual suspects like Scheffler and McIlroy, you can expect players with links-style golf backgrounds like Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood (+2200), Matt Fitzpatrick (+2500), and Shane Lowry (+3500) to be popular punts this week.
With a bunch of elite players in the field it’ll be tough for a long shot to break through this week, but we’ve seen some surprising names like Min Woo Lee and Aaron Rai take down this event in its four years at the Renaissance Club.
Here are some long shots that could make noise in Scotland this weekend:
A native of Scotland, Robert MacIntyre may end up as a pretty trendy underdog both this week and next.
Not only is he familiar with links golf, but he’s got a couple of top-20 finishes in his four trips to the Renaissance Club.
MacIntyre held the lead heading into the turn Made in Himmerland last weekend but a triple-bogey on the 13th hole doomed him to a disappointing T4 finish.
If the Scot can shake that, he should be a live long shot as star-studded fields don’t seem to throw him off his game.
The 26-year-old lefty has two top-10s at the Open Championship and a couple of impressive showings at the Masters in his career already.
Kitayama finished second at this event last year, so he’s already proven to have success here.
Kitayama has played a ton on the Euro Tour in the past and finished T-4 at the PGA Championship earlier this season, so he’s always dangerous in good fields.
He’s been a trendy pick at each tournament since then, but these odds are still a tasty number.
This is a dart throw based on course history.
Although Jamie Donaldson hasn’t won an event since a victory on the Asian Tour in 2015, he’s clearly comfortable at the Renaissance Club.
The 47-year-old native of Wales has played this tournament three times and has finished inside the top-10 twice.
Donaldson’s form isn’t grand at the moment, but he’s finished inside the top-30 in two of his last five starts and was second after Round 1 at the British Masters his last time out.