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Victor Perez among players to back as a first-round leader at the 2024 Open Championship

3 players to back to get off to hot starts at Royal Troon

Victor Perez of France tees off on the 11th hole during the final round of Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)Read moreKamran Jebreili / AP

Published July 17, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

Chaos is the name of the game at the Open Championship.

The weather is wet and unpredictable, the course is full of trouble and the field is full of starpower. All of this adds up to a tournament that is notoriously hard to predict.

And if you shorten the tournament from 72 holes to just 18, you introduce even more chaos to the equation. That’s why folks love to bet first-round leaders. Only a select few golfers may be able to win a tournament this deep, but nearly every player in this field can top the leaderboard after 18 holes.

So let’s throw a few darts, shall we?

2024 Open Championship First-Round Leader Picks

Victor Perez (+10000, DraftKings)

Things are pointing in the right direction for the Frenchman, who is now up to 66th in the FedEx Cup rankings and No. 72 in the World Golf Rankings. Perez finished T10 at last week’s Scottish Open and has a wealth of experience on these kinds of setups. Perez is also intriguing as an outright pick, but this field is almost certainly a bit too robust for him to nick a win. Instead, we’ll hope he can get off and running with a blinder on Thursday.

Matt Wallace (+12000, FanDuel)

An Englishman with plenty of experience playing in these conditions, Matt Wallace is the type of fiery golfer who can get white hot on a moment’s notice -- or go in the complete opposite direction. Wallace’s volatility makes him a tough player to back to win this tournament outright, but he’s certainly capable of storming out of the gates.

C.T. Pan (+15000, DraftKings)

A bit of a throwback, C.T. Pan isn’t ever going to overpower a course. But he can work his way around tricky tracks with the best of them. That makes him an interesting punt at a links set-up, where clever golf is often more important than just raw ability. Like Perez, Pan is an interesting flier in the outright market, but this seems like a more feasible way to back a player who just finished T2 at the John Deere Classic two weeks ago.

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