This week marks a monumental week, as the home of golf is set host the 150th Open Championship.
This is the 30th time that the Open Championship will be hosted by St. Andrews.
The first order of business when constructing a first-round leader card is to examine whether starters in the morning or afternoon have historically had the advantage at The Open Championship, and specifically at St. Andrews.
In the past 10 renewals of the Open Championship, there have been 13 first-round leaders or co-leaders. Of the 13, eight of the first-round leaders have teed off in the morning.
In the past two Open Championships at St. Andrews (2010 and 2015) both of the first-round leaders have come from the AM:
2010: Rory McIlroy (-9)
2015: Dustin Johnson (-7)
Therefore, the first-round leader trends at the Open Championship seemingly have a slight bias to the morning starters.
When building a first-round leader card, the other important factor to keep an eye on is the weather. Particularly in Open Championships, unfavorable weather draws have resulted in half the field (or more) being completely wiped out of the tournament.
As of now, there isn’t a clear weather advantage for the AM or PM starters, but the situation should be monitored up until the first tee time.
To be safe, I think it’s wise to target a few players from both the AM and PM wave just in case one of the waves gets a major advantage.