The Open Championship Preview & Best Bets (2025)

Welcome to The Open Championship preview! We’re already in the heart of July, and it’s time to break down one of golf’s most prestigious majors. The tournament is back for its 153rd edition, and the anticipation continues to build as we inch closer to tee time.

Royal Portrush, Dunluce Links, plays host to this year’s championship, as it did in both 1951 and 2019.

Editor’s Note: We’ll also have you covered for more Open Championship First Round Leader bets!

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The Open Championship Preview

The Open Championship plays at par 71 and over 7,300 yards. Dunluce Links is a beautiful course that offers an extremely high degree of difficulty for the tournament field.

British Open Expert Picks

Jon Rahm

To Win: +1200
Top 10: +140
FRL: +1400

I hate the number, but it’s justified. Rahm is a guy who can grind it out under any circumstance and any weather condition. He’s finished top 10 or better in 12 of his 14 appearances this season between the LIV and a few TOUR majors.

He’s finished top 10 in three of his last four majors and T7 or better in his last two Open appearances. I like betting on him to win more than FRL (but I’ll still add it to the card), as he can rely on his ability to hang around and scramble better than most of the field if necessary. It’s hard to not envision Rahm being in the mix on Sunday.

Tommy Fleetwood

To Win: +2800
Top 10: +250
FRL: +3500

Fleetwood finally winning a major would be the weirdest event of all time, right? The golf world would collectively exhale, as one of the game’s greatest players since 2010-ish, who has yet to win a major, could finally get this gigantic burden off his back. We’ve seen some really weird stuff over the past five years. Heck, we’ve been through a pandemic. In fact, I had to buy toilet paper from Japan once, which showed up at my doorstep seven months later during that strange 2020 year. That certainly was not on my BINGO card. By the way, it was terrible and I would not recommend it.

Anyway, that’s why I’m willing to say pretty much anything is possible. His game sets up unbelievably well for this course – he can putt, his approach game is nails, he’s fantastic around the green, and he’s accurate off the tee. That being said, his form is a little suspect, but he finished T17 last week in the tune-up, and he had that T2 at the 2023 Open. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. While I’m a little crazy, luckily, I haven’t bet on Fleetwood to win in a really long time. Let’s get weird.

Viktor Hovland

To Win: +3000
Top 10: +340
FRL: +4000

This one is pretty simple. He’s one of the best ball strikers (and sometimes THE BEST) on TOUR. I mean, when he’s on, he’s just throwing lawn darts at the pin. Hovland is an above-average putter, and he is accurate enough off the tee. Hovland has been in much better form after a down winter/spring, and his last four Open appearances are CUT, T13, T4, T12, respectively. He’s finished top 10 in five of his last 12 majors

Robert Macintyre

To Win: +4000
Top 10: +360
FRL: +4000

Bobby Mac is an underrated all-around player. He is above average in pretty much every major metric. He owns two T8 finishes or better at The Open dating back to 2018, and he finished runner-up at this year’s U.S. Open, so I’m not worried about pedigree. Bobby has gained approach strokes in eight of his last nine appearances, around-the-green strokes in his last four, and he is generally an accurate driver off the tee.

Sepp Straka

To Win: +5000
Top 10: +500
FRL: +5000

Straka is playing some of the best golf over the past couple of seasons, and that’s especially true in 2025. According to Datagolf, he’s only lost accuracy on his drives in two tournaments dating back to August 2024. He’s one of the best ball strikers on TOUR, losing approach strokes in just three tournaments in the same time frame. That’s elite stuff.

Straka is not long off the tee, and he’s not great around the green. However, length shouldn’t matter, and if his approach game is on, he won’t have to rely on cleaning up around the greens. His last three Open results are T22, 2, and MC.

Russell Henley

To Win: +6500
Top 10: +500
FRL: +5500

Henley really fits the bill here, especially at a gigantic price. He’s lost approach strokes in a tournament just twice since last April, and he’s one of the best putters, elite around the greens, and one of the most accurate drivers of the ball on TOUR. Henley has three top 10 finishes across his last five majors played. I’m scratching my head at these odds, but the data and recent major history are too good. Plus, he’s in excellent form.

Justin Rose

To Win: +8000
Top 10: +650
FRL: +5500

And we’re deep into the long shots. Rose had a heartbreaker at the Master’s when Rory completed his emotional slam, was understandably not great for a few weeks, and then popped back off at the Scottish while shooting very low last Sunday. You can do worse than 80/1 on Rose this week. Truthfully, he’s extremely inconsistent and his metrics are all over the place, but he owns a pair of T2 finishes or better across his last five Open appearances.

In fact, Rose has finished T6 or better in three of his last four major appearances. Rose is big-game hunting. At this point, it could be a mental thing, and he may have a little extra for such a massive tournament. He has just one major under his belt (2013), but I’m sprinkling in some lunch money.

Course Layout and Factors

There are plenty of deep bunkers and unforgiving rough, which will require pinpoint precision and accuracy. But golfers won’t just be able to plot around the course.

Unexpected conditions and wind gusts will challenge even the world’s best scramblers, while mental toughness and resilience will be keys to success.

The course was originally designed by Harry Colt, but it underwent many renovations before The Open in 2019. Some of the changes included:

Five new greens
Eight new tee boxes
10 new bunkers
Two new holes

Hole No. 16 is also known as “Calamity Corner,” which might be one of the toughest par-3 layouts in the world. The layout is right near the coast, so golfers have to do battle with a ton of wind on this hole, regardless of tee time.

Weather conditions are almost always a factor, and perhaps “links” experience is a bonus. It’s important to check the forecast for The Open up until tee time to see if golfers in either wave have an advantage.

THE OPEN Championship: Winners, Scores, Trends & History

Harry Vardon (6 career Open wins), Tom Watson (5), and Peter Thomson (5) own the most Open victories. Xander Schauffele is the returning champion, while Brian Harman won in 2023, and Cameron Smith did so in 2022.

Winning scores have ranged from -8 to -20 under par, dating back to 2014. The last Open Champion to be over par for the tournament was Padraig Harrington in 2008 (+3).
Schauffele, Harman, and Smith each finished T33 or better in the previous year’s Open before their respective victories
Across the last 20 years, Collin Morikawa was the only winner during his Open debut

The Open Championship Odds

Shane Lowry won his first major championship at Royal Portrush in 2019. Lowry might be the most stereotypical “links” golfer on TOUR, but he’s also played consistently great golf over the past five or six years. The latest betting odds are below, via FanDuel Sportsbook:

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