We gave you Scottie Scheffler at the Masters and Bryson DeChambeau at the U.S. Open. Last year, we journeyed well down the odds board to give you 100-to-1 long shot Brian Harman at the British Open. So you could say these major championship predictions have been doing pretty well of late, and we’ll look to end the season with another winner at this week’s British Open at Royal Troon.
First, here’s a look at the general makeup of recent British Open winners.
- Ten of the past 12 winners had a previous top-10 at the British Open, including Harman last year.
- Sixteen of the past 23 British Open winners had a victory in the same season entering that year’s tournament. Only one of those 23 — long shot Ben Curtis at the 2003 British Open — didn’t have at least two top-10 finishes in the season entering the British Open. So we’re looking for someone with a win or at least two top-10s this year.
- Nine of the past 12 winners had a top-20 finish in at least one of their previous two major appearances.
- Each of the past 12 winners had won a major or finished second at a major in his career.
- Ten of the past 12 winners had at least one top-10 finish in their previous three tournaments.
- Since 2000, only two British Open winners ranked worse than 55th in the Official World Golf Ranking: Curtis and Darren Clarke in 2011.
Before getting to the golfers I think can win, I’ll address three golfers who won’t be on my betting card this week, even though they match all or most of the above trends. One of them is world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. Fading a guy who has won six times in his past 10 tournaments, one of them the Masters, is obviously a risky proposition, but there’s too much variance involved in the British Open to bet such an overwhelming favorite (+500 odds): All it takes is one tee time on the bad side of the always fluctuating Scottish weather and your bet is shot. Plus, Scheffler spoke during the U.S. Open — where he barely made the cut and finished tied for 41st — about how he struggled to wrap his head around the uncertainty of Pinehurst’s waste areas, and he’ll find a similar situation if he misses the fairway at Troon.
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Another golfer I won’t be betting is U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau (+2000), who has just one finish better than a tie for 33rd in six British Open appearances (at St. Andrews, where being wayward off the tee usually isn’t an issue). Tee-shot accuracy is much more crucial at Troon, and DeChambeau is not consistent enough in that department. He also has lost strokes around the green in his past three LIV starts, and that tends to be crucial at the British Open.
Finally, I’m steering clear of Ludvig Aberg to win at +1800. Since making his debut as a professional at the 2023 Canadian Open, the 24-year-old Swede has 12 rounds of 64 or better, more than anyone else over that span. (Yes, even more than Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, who each have 10 such rounds since then.) But he also has been awful on Sundays, failing to shoot better than 70 in the fourth round in every tournament since the Masters. I’ll steer clear until he proves he can wrap things up.
With all of that throat-clearing out of the way, here’s a look at golfers to target. All odds taken Wednesday from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Rory McIlroy (+850)
It seems almost statistically impossible McIlroy hasn’t won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship, and he has done nothing but excel at the British Open since he last won the claret jug (also in 2014). McIlroy, who’s 6 for 6 in our trends, has finished in the top 10 in six of his past eight British Opens, including a tie for fifth at Troon in 2016. A win this weekend would make for a nice story line after McIlroy’s calamitous miss at the U.S. Open, and he obviously has the tools to do it, leading the PGA Tour in total driving (a measure that combines distance and accuracy off the tee) and ranking 12th in scrambling, an important ability at Troon.
Xander Schauffele (+1200)
Schauffele, who fits all six of our prerequisites, has probably been the most dominant PGA Tour golfer not named Scottie Scheffler this season, with his PGA Championship breakthrough and nine other top-10 finishes. He also leads the PGA Tour in scrambling, which is a key asset at Royal Troon: When the course hosted the 2016 British Open, all seven golfers who finished in the top five ranked 17th or better in scrambling. (Winner Henrik Stenson was seventh, and runner-up Phil Mickelson was first.) In 2004 at Troon, six of the eight players who finished seventh or better ranked in the top 12 in scrambling. (Mickelson, who finished third that year, again was first in scrambling.) Justin Leonard ranked second on the PGA Tour in scrambling in 1997, the year of his British Open win at Troon. Schauffele also ranks seventh in par-5 scoring average, and attacking Troon’s three par-5s will be crucial this week.
Collin Morikawa (+1600)
Morikawa won the British Open in his tournament debut in 2021 but has missed the cut in his past two ventures across the pond, so this is more of a form play than anything else. Morikawa’s tie for fourth at the Scottish Open was his sixth top-10 finish in his past 10 tournaments, and he’s gaining strokes across the board after some early-season woes with his putter and wedges. Morikawa is a player who seems to crumble if it’s at all windy, but the forecast doesn’t call for imposing breezes off the Firth of Clyde this week, and that means he’s worth a look to win another claret jug.
Tyrrell Hatton (+2800)
Hatton won the LIV Golf event in Nashville in late June and then finished third at last weekend’s LIV tournament in Spain, two of his six top-10 finishes this year (another was at the Masters). He also was a respectable-enough T-26 at the U.S. Open even though he had one of his worst putting performances in recent memory. It’s a fixable problem for Hatton, who generally is a good putter and has a good track record at the British Open, with four top-20 finishes (three of them in the past four years). Among them was a tie for fifth in 2016, the last time Troon hosted the tournament.
Tony Finau (+4500)
Here we go again putting our faith in Finau, who has just one finish better than a tie for 15th in his past 13 major appearances. But his British Open history has been solid, with two top-10s and four top-20s, including a tie for 18th at Troon in his Open debut in 2016. Finau enters in sizzling form, with three straight top-eight finishes entering the tournament, one of them a tie for third at the U.S. Open. He has finished no worse than 18th in six of his past eight tournaments. Finau, who nearly went 6 for 6 on our trends (his best major finish is third place), has been above average in every department except driving accuracy, and as long as he can keep things out of the gorse, he could contend. He also leads the PGA Tour in par-5 birdie-or-better percentage.
Hideki Matsuyama (+5000)
It seems few people are talking about the season Matsuyama is having, even with his victory at the elite-field Genesis in February and the five other top-12s or better that have followed, one of them a tie for sixth at the U.S. Open. The 2021 Masters champion’s British Open record hasn’t been exceptional, with only one top-10 in his maiden tournament in 2013, but he’s second on the PGA Tour in scrambling this season.
Aaron Rai (+6500)
Rai needed a superhuman final round Sunday at the Scottish Open to even squeeze into the tournament and he came through, shooting a 7-under-par 63 to tie for fourth and punch his ticket to Troon. It was the third straight top-10 for the Englishman, who leads the PGA Tour in driving accuracy. Rai doesn’t have a whole lot of major championship experience, appearing in only six of them, but he tied for 19th at the U.S. Open this year and matched that finish at the 2021 British Open. If you’re looking for a long shot, or a top-10 or top-20 wager, you could do much worse.
Russell Henley (+11000)
Last year, a short- but accurate-hitting University of Georgia product came from well down the odds board to win the British Open despite only limited major championship pedigree. Why not make it two in a row with Henley trying to replicate Harman’s grand feat from a year ago at Royal Liverpool? Henley has just two top-10 finishes in 39 major championship appearances, but both of them were this season or last season, the latest being a tie for seventh at the U.S. Open. Henley ranks 10th in driving accuracy and 26th in scrambling in PGA Tour play this season, and he has five top-12 finishes since March.
Scottish Open trend
Here’s one more idea that doesn’t involve picking a winner: Over the past two years, 23 golfers have finished in the top 10 at the Scottish Open and then gone on to play in the British Open the next week. Only two of those golfers failed to make the cut at the British Open: Alex Smalley and Rasmus Hojgaard in 2022. You could swing for the fences and bet all 14 golfers who finished in the top 10 at this year’s Scottish Open to make the cut this week, either separately or as a parlay: Robert MacIntyre, Adam Scott, Romain Langasque, Rai, McIlroy, Sungjae Im, Sahith Theegala, Morikawa, Aberg, Richard Mansell, Wyndham Clark, Alex Noren, Victor Perez and Corey Conners.
As of Wednesday morning, here were the odds to win the British Open of the leading contenders, according to DraftKings Sportsbook:
- Scottie Scheffler: +500
- Rory McIlroy: +850
- Xander Schauffele: +1200
- Collin Morikawa: +1600
- Ludvig Aberg: +1800
- Bryson DeChambeau: +2000
- Tommy Fleetwood: +2500
- Jon Rahm: +2500
- Tyrrell Hatton: +2800
- Viktor Hovland: +3000
- Patrick Cantlay: +4000
- Brooks Koepka: +4000
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