Steve Palmer's Open Championship first-round preview & later threeball tips

Golf tips, best late threeball bets and player analysis for the Open Championship at Royal St George's, Sandwich, Kent.

Where to watch

Sky Sports Main Event & Golf, 6.30am Thursday

Best bets

Joost Luiten to win threeball
2pts 11-4 BoyleSports

Kurt Kitayama to win threeball
2pts 6-5 general

Lanto Griffin to win threeball
2pts 11-10 BoyleSports

Aaron Rai to win threeball
2pts 10-11 BoyleSports, Coral, Ladbrokes

Preview

Open Championship favourite Jon Rahm gets his bid for the Claret Jug started at 9.58am, joining defending champion Shane Lowry and former St Andrews king Louis Oosthuizen in the marquee morning group at Royal St George's.

Rahm has been the subject of sustained outright support all week for the Sandwich showpiece, with the few remaining 8-1 quotes coming under pressure, and the US Open victor should have sunshine, temperatures around 20C and 14 mph winds for the opening holes of his round.

Similar weather is expected for the afternoon, with the breeze weakening, so scoring conditions should be decent. The main task of the players will be staying out of the rough, which many have been describing as the deepest they have seen at an Open.

Even musclebound Californian Bryson DeChambeau has admitted that he has had trouble advancing his ball from the rough, and the thick, tangly hay lining the fairways is one reason to believe Jason Day may be a vulnerable short-priced favourite in the 12.20pm threeball.

The injury-plagued Australian has admitted in the not-so-distant past that his chronic back problems left him wondering whether he would have to take early retirement. Whenever he appears to have made a breakthrough with his brittle body something has gone wrong and it was horrible for his fans to have to watch the 33-year-old grimacing through the latter stages of the Travelers Championship at the end of last month.

Reaching down to pick his ball out of the hole can be too much for Day sometimes, so there is no urge to support him at evens to defeat Johannes Veerman and Joost Luiten in round one of the Open. If Day's ball ends up in the gnarly rough, he will not be hacking at it full throttle, always having to be mindful of his back issues.

Day has contended strongly in each of the Stateside Majors, winning the US PGA when at the peak of his powers in 2015, but his Open record is patchy. Nine starts have yielded only one top-ten finish and he missed the cut at Royal Portrush in the last one.

Day, who has missed five cuts this year, can be opposed with Luiten, the 11-4 outsider. The steady Dutchman has made the cut in four of his seven previous Opens and is preferred to debutant Veerman. Luiten, typically accurate from tee to green, is better suited to the Sandwich assignment.

At shorter odds, Kurt Kitayama (3.54pm), Lanto Griffin (11.15am) and Aaron Rai (11.36am) are attractive day-one options.

Two-time European Tour champion Kitayama is up against Deyen Lawson, who has missed ten cuts in a row, and Poom Saksansin, who has not competed since early March and is outside the world's top 1,000.

Griffin, the 2019 Houston Open victor and world number 75, also faces weak opposition in the shape of Rikuya Hoshino and Connor Worsdall, while the accurate Rai should prove far too reliable off the tee for Paul Waring and Daniel Croft.

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