A few reasons why Jimenez can lead British Open after round one
Published:Predicting the early major leaders has been one of the success stories of this site in 2013, correctly identifying that Sergio Garcia would lead the Masters at 50/1 and then coming close with Billy Horschel in the same market at the US Open at 66/1.
We had Horschel to top the leaderboard after the opening round, but instead he led the field after round two.
Anticipating the first round leader in the Open Championship has proved a trickier task, but there are clear reasons as to why Miguel Angel Jimenez looks way overpriced to achieve the feat at 125/1.
Jimenez may only have one victory on his resume since 2010, but he is certainly a steady player when it comes to competing on challenging courses.
The Spanish cigar-smoker has at worst made the cut in his last eight visits to Augusta for the Masters and has been inside the top 27 in five of his last six Open Championship appearances.
Key to these strong showings has been impressive starts over the opening 18 holes, with Jimenez shooting sub-70 five times in the last eight years at the Open Championship.
Meanwhile, two of these efforts in the last four years have been 66 and 64, showing that Jimenez has the ability to go low.
His recent form has additionally shown signs of improvement and he has broken 70 in the opening round on three of his last four European Tour starts too.
Furthermore, one of the big necessities at Muirfield will be to drive the ball straight, given that the rough is expected to be especially testing.
Thankfully for Jimenez, his driving accuracy percentage in terms of finding the fairway off the tee is second in 2013 only to 2010 when looking at his statistics across the last eight years.
An early tee time has been productive among first round leaders in the last three years at the Open Championship, with Adam Scott in the 13th group last year, Thomas Bjorn in the sixth three-ball the year previous and Rory McIlroy starting 11th in 2010.
Jimenez is in the seventh three-ball to begin this time, alongside KJ Choi and Jimmy Walker.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
