The Open Championship may not have the transcendent power of the Masters, but if you ask golf bettors to rank their favorite tournaments of the season, it will be at the top of a surprising number of lists.
That’s because the Open is a bundle of chaos, where the players are competing against the conditions as much as one another, and that levels the playing field.
It’s no wonder that the British Open has produced several long-shot winners in its history. Six of the last 15 Open Champions have gone off at odds of 80/1 or longer, and four of those players were in the triple digits when they teed off:
- 2009: Stewart Cink (125/1)
- 2010: Louis Oosthuizen (200/1)
- 2011: Darren Clarke (150/1)
- 2015: Zach Johnson (80/1)
- 2019: Shane Lowry (80/1)
- 2023: Brian Harman (125/1)
And it’s not like all the other winners in that span were chalky, either. Only one of them (Jordan Spieth, 2017) was the betting favorite (Spieth was a 12/1 co-favorite with Dustin Johnson), and only four other champions boasted odds shorter than 20/1 before Round 1.
The average price of the last 15 hoisters of the Claret Jug is 63/1.
Despite all of this data, you can feel pretty confident that the two most popular bets to win this week will be the two favorites, Scottie Scheffler (+550) and Rory McIlroy (+675).
But we will swerve the top of the board and hope that this year’s Open Championship, which will be hosted by Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, plays true to form and that chaos rules the day.
2025 Open Championship picks
Adam Scott (80/1, FanDuel)
He will be a trendy pick, but Adam Scott is worth a hard look at this number. The Aussie has been playing in this tournament since 2000 and has come very close to winning the Claret Jug on a number of occasions.
Scott comes into the week in decent nick, with three top-20 finishes in his last five outings.
Tony Finau (175/1, bet365)
It’s been an unremarkable season for Tony Finau, but he could be a real threat to make some noise this week.
The Utahn finished third at Royal Portrush in 2019, and he’s had a couple of other decent showings at the Open Championship in his career.
Finau has just one top-10 finish on the season, but he’s been OK of late. He hasn’t missed a cut since the Masters, and he’s got a couple of top-20 finishes in his last five starts.
None of that may sound like a ringing endorsement, but it’s also why we’re getting a massive number on a player who has the upside to win this tournament.
Kristoffer Reitan (300/1, bet365)
Very few golfers come into the Open Championship in better form than Kristoffer Reitan. The Norwegian has a win, a runner-up, a T4, and a pair of T13s in his past six outings, and he is coming off a strong showing at the Scottish Open.
Reitan may get some love from golf die-hards who pay attention to the DP World Tour, but the fact that he’s not on the PGA Tour means we’ll get a terrific price on a red-hot player.
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John Parry (700/1, DraftKings)
It wouldn’t be the Open Championship without at least one huge long shot, and we’ve landed on John Parry to be this year’s roughie.
Parry is a two-time winner on the DP World Tour, most recently at the Mauritius Open, which is a tournament played on the coast of a windswept island, sound familiar?
The 38-year-old Englishman wasn’t great at the Scottish Open, but getting four rounds under his belt in similar conditions to what he’ll face this week is a plus.
But the real reason Parry is worth a bet at this price is that, according to Niall Lyons of Oddschecker, he has spent a lot of time in County Antrim and will be more familiar with Royal Portrush than most players in this field.
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.