All eyes will be on the likes of Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Tiger Woods (uh, shouldn’t Woods fall in the sleeper category now?) in the upcoming 2018 British Open, but for every serious contender, there’s a sleeper lurking in the shadows and waiting for bettors to give them a look. Here are three of them.
Poulter has managed to keep himself in position to have a finish decent this season. He has three top 10 finishes in 13 starts so far in this PGA campaign. He also has seven top 25s and missed the cut just twice. His biggest achievement this year was a win at the Houston Open last April, which succeeded a T5 at the World Golf Championship in March. To further illustrate how consistent Poulter has hung around, he has not finished outside of a T30 in any of his last nine starts.
For someone with a +4,000 odds to win, Oosthuizen appears to be a tasty selection to back. For one, he has a Claret Jug back at home from a win in 2010. He definitely knows that it’s like to win the Open. He also has a T2 in the same event. That’s not to mention that he’s been pretty solid of late with a string of respectable outcomes of late. He was a T5 at the Forth Worth Invitational, a T13 at the Memorial Tournament, and a T16 at the US Open.
Finau finished 10th at the Mater last April despite the fact that he played on a severely injured ankle. Since then, that ankle has not been a huge issue at all. Save for a missed cut at the FedEx St. Jude Classic last month, 28-year-old Finau has been finishing decently in his starts. He has eight top 25s in his last 10 starts. He placed fifth at the US Open and a T21 in the recently concluded A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier. Finau had a T18 last year at Royal Birkdale.
