2025 Open betting tips: Who is our expert backing to be Champion Golfer?
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Our man in the know is on red-hot form. Now he turns his attention to the big one, as he names his top Open Championship betting tips ahead of the first round from Royal Portrush.
Open week has arrived, and Royal Portrush is primed to test the world’s best players who congregate on the north coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland for the season’s final major.
Shane Lowry romped his way to victory on home soil six years ago, with six European players registering top 10 finishes, including Tommy Fleetwood, Lee Westwood, Robert MacIntyre, Danny Willett, and Tyrrell Hatton. Americans Tony Finau, Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler, and Patrick Reed rounded off the top of the leaderboard.
As usual at this time of year, I’ve been burying myself in the data – Open champion trends, course characteristics, weather forecasts, and what it takes to prevail in golf’s oldest tournament. Can anyone stop the likely lads from landing another major to their tally, or will Chris Gotterup’s Scottish Open triumph inspire another breakthrough win on the links?
To cover all bases, I’ve pulled out a selection of picks, which I believe represent cracking value at this 153rd Open Championship. And if you’re not 100% sold on the below, then see our 2025 Open Championship Power Rankings, where we’ve singled out the 30 players we can see lifting the Claret Jug on Sunday.
2025 Open Championship betting tips: Outright winner
Before I get to my main man, let’s start with a few outsiders I like the look of…
The Long Shot: Marco Penge
100/1 e/w (Betfred 10 Places 1/5 odds)
I thought long and hard about whether I can envisage Marco Penge making a run at the Open Championship, and in the end, I very much landed on “Yes”. That was in no small part down to his performance last week in Scotland, where he finished 2nd among an elite field and was inside the top 5 all week.
It wasn’t as if he made a late run or started hot and held on; Penge was simply one of the best players all week, in a field that included most of the game’s very best players, namely Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and this week’s defending champion, Xander Schauffele.
Sure, he didn’t get the win, and it was indeed Chris Gotterup who stared down McIlroy and won his second PGA Tour title in exciting fashion, but Penge will certainly have taken plenty out of last week’s performance.
First, it was a nod that he can play well in this sort of test. Prior to his performance last week, we were staring at some old amateur form for any links pedigree, and the only recent evidence we had was two missed cuts in this event. Fast forward a week, and not only do we have him excelling in a strong field, but he did so on a links layout. Now we know Renaissance isn’t the purest of links tests, but Penge had to play enough shots around the greens and from the rough, and he did so with limited stress, which suggests he can cope with whatever is thrown at him at Portrush this week.
I was also encouraged by Penge’s performance at the PGA Championship. He finished inside the top 30 that week, in what was not only his first major start in the U.S. but his first appearance over their full stop. That in itself comes with its own challenges, and he rose to the occasion.
Now that we have seen him in contention with the truly elite players of the game, our expectations around Penge should shift slightly, and we can now look at his form, which shows 25th, 21st, 11th, and 2nd place finishes since the PGA Championship, very favourably. Before finishing 2nd last week, he led after round 1 in Munich and was still 4th going into Sunday, eventually settling for 11th. When 21st in Italy, he was better placed at halfway, sitting in 14th, and when 25th in Soudal, he was in 2nd place going into the weekend, but couldn’t hold on. Considering he had played the PGA Championship the week before the Soudal, it’s no surprise he faded over the weekend, but this time around, the Scottish Open looks ideal prep as he makes the short trip over to Northern Ireland for the Open.
It might be too much too soon, but Penge is certainly looking like the player we all hoped he would be when turning professional after a promising amateur career, and he can take his new found stature and confidence into this week and put in a big performance, hopefully cracking the top 10 again, as he did last week.
The Each Way Play: Tyrrell Hatton
28/1 e/w (William Hill 7 Places 1/4 odds)
Tyrrell Hatton posted his best ever major finish at the U.S. Open two starts ago, finishing T4 there, and now he returns to the major where he’s posted three top 10s and four top 11s overall since 2016.
The best of those Open finishes came when finishing T5 at Troon in 2016, but three years later, he finished T6 here at Portrush, and that’s enough to go back to him again this time around.
We know Hatton can win big events, especially on links, where he’s a three-time winner of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, and now he has the chance of winning the Claret Jug at a course he showed a liking for on his last visit. He shot four rounds of par or better here six years ago, and he arrives a much better player this time around.
It’s always been a bit of a mystery that Hatton hasn’t gone closer in the majors, as he’s been able to win the very best DP World Tour events and he’s won on the PGA Tour, but I am confident than he will seriously contend in one sooner rather than later, and this looks to be a great opportunity for him.
A winner already this season back at the Dubai Desert Classic, and a top performer in two of the three majors so far (14th Masters, 4th U.S. Open), Hatton has to be considered a huge contender this week, even if I had hoped for slightly better from him in Spain last week.
I will take the larger body of work this season, though, which shows he’s been hitting the ball well, has won once on the DP World Tour, contended multiple times on LIV, and posted his best-ever major finish. These are all signs that suggest a big week at the year’s final is on the cards.
The Next Best: Ryan Fox
66/1 e/w (10 Places Betfred)
Ryan Fox is enjoying an incredible season, winning twice on the PGA Tour, to add to his illustrious trophy cabinet on the DP World Tour. Now a winner of the Dunhill Links, the BMW PGA Championship, and the Canadian Open, among others, Fox is clearly a man who can step up on the big stage, but so far, a very strong major performance has alluded him.
He is aware of this and is very keen to put it right, and while his game certainly works for all four majors, he is an excellent links player, so the Open Championship may well be his best shot at major success.
Despite never contending in a major, Fox has finished inside the top 26 in all four, with his best being a T16 in this event. Not only is that eye-catching because it’s the Open, but it also came here at Portrush in 2019. At that point in his career, Fox had only won the Perth Super 6 event, and that had happened earlier that year. Since then, he’s added three DP World Tour wins, two PGA Tour wins, and finished inside the top 3 of the Irish Open twice for good measure. All in all, he’s improved greatly as a golfer, and it’s that stark improvement in his game and the confidence of the two wins on the PGA Tour this season that suggest to me he’s ready to make the leap in the majors.
28th in the PGA Championship and T19 in the U.S. Open, both of which came the week after winning a PGA Tour event, Fox is clearly settling into these events, especially when you consider the increased pressure and expectation that a recent win brings.
Fox was well placed after round one here six years ago, sitting two back of J.B. Holmes’ opening-round lead. A poor round on Friday saw him fall away quickly, but rounds of 70-69 over the weekend saw him finish the week inside the top 20 and just a couple of shots outside the top 10. If he were to start quickly this week, I could see him staying there as the week progresses, now that he knows he is a winner on both tours and a two-time winner already this year.
Fox’s fine approach play this season is what has driven his best results, but we know his driver is also a weapon more often than not, and he’s very streaky with the putter. This lethal combination and a clear understanding of the nuances of links golf all point toward a big run in this week’s event.
I am going to take slightly shorter odds and take advantage of the 10 places on offer, as he might still need at least one experience of contending in a major before he wins one, but I am certainly excited to see what he can do this week, and fully expect his best major finish to date.
The Banker: Jon Rahm
11/1 e/w (Betfred 10 Places 1/5 odds)
Jon Rahm has been my pick for this for a while now, and I am adamant he will be in the mix come Sunday.
Sure, his top 10 streak on LIV finally ended when finishing 11th in Dallas, but he bounced right back, posting a final round 65 in Spain to finish 2nd behind Talor Gooch at LIV Golf Valderrama. Given that it is his home event and somewhere he is under pressure to perform, I am encouraged by his efforts there, a week before the final major of the season.
It’s Rahm’s form in the first three majors this year though, that inspires confidence, finishing 14th or better in all three, coming particularly close at the PGA Championship. Despite what the final leaderboard said, Rahm was Scottie Scheffler’s closest challenger at the PGA Championship right until the end, and that will have given him the jolt he needed to make another run in the majors.
In addition to his positive week at the PGA Championship, he shot the round of the day on Sunday of the U.S. Open, and while he ultimately fell some way short there, his opening and closing rounds were another indicator that this week could be a good one.
Rahm was solid here at Portrush in 2019, as he finished T11, and he was inside the top 10 for two of the four rounds, so he will have positive memories coming into the week. Add to that an extremely solid Open Championship record in general, which has seen him finish T7 or better in three of his last four Open starts, and I am confident Rahm can win his third major.
A win this week would mean Rahm was within touching distance of the career Grand Slam, and I can’t find any fault in his game to suggest he won’t at least give himself a chance here at Portrush this weekend.
Rahm always talks about Seve Ballesteros and what his legacy means to him, and it would be something special if the former could become just the second Spanish winner of the Open Championship.
The Bonus Pick: Russell Henley
66/1 e/w (Bet365 8 Places 1/5 Odds)
I had a couple of contenders in the final spot, one was to take another player from the top in Xander Schauffele, and the other was Patrick Reed, who has long been in my mind for this, based on his 10th here in 2019. Ultimately, though, I have landed on Russell Henley, whose form I found hard to ignore.
Henley has finished 5th, 10th, and 2nd in his last three starts, the latter coming when in contention at the Travelers Championship. He didn’t paint himself in glory that day, but it was a continuation of the very good form he has shown this season.
Brian Harman was on a similar run heading into the 2023 Open Championship, as he had also finished 2nd at the Travelers Championship before a 9th at the Rocket Mortgage and a 12th at the Scottish Open. Henley doesn’t have the Scottish Open effort to lean on like Harman did the week before, but where the similarities continue is in their past Open Championship efforts. Harman finished 6th at the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews, the year before he won at Hoylake, and Henley finished 5th in this event 12 months ago at Royal Troon.
Unlike Harman at St Andrews, who had to bounce back from a slow start, Henley was heavily involved in the Championship last year and had a chance to win going into Sunday, so if anything his 5th there was far more impressive than Harman’s 6th at St. Andrews. 19th and 26th place finishes were Harman’s best efforts prior to finishing 6th, and Henley also has 20th and 37th place finishes to his name, the latter of which saw him sit 10th at halfway. All this to say that Henley and Harman have very similar profiles of major contention and Open Championship form, and now it could be Henley’s turn to lift the Claret Jug as an underrated American, as Harman did two years ago.
Data Golf and the OWGR have Russell Henley as the 6th best player in the world, and while that might seem a bit high, it goes to show how consistent he has been, and that’s something we need to consider, especially at 66/1. We should also take stock of the fact that he just finished T10 at the U.S. Open, after missing his first two major cuts of the year. Like Sepp Straka, Henley was threatening to play poorly in the majors despite excellent form elsewhere, but he put that right at Oakmont, and can better it again this week.
Statistically, Henley is enjoying a great season, ranking 9th in SG Tee to Green, 15th in SG Approach, 6th in SG Around the Green, and a pleasing 34th in SG Putting. This solid combination has seen him rank 5th in SG Total this year, and it’s only a lack of distance off the tee that holds him back from ranking highly in SG Off the Tee as well. Like Harman did in 2023, he can lean on his superior accuracy to plot his way around this golf course and put together a great score at the end of this week.
With Henley skipping the Scottish Open last week, he might be out of sight, out of mind, but I don’t mind him taking the week off to prepare for this test. Also, if there is anything to the Honda Classic link, Henley has won there and finished 3rd, 6th, and 8th since as well. That link is largely down to several Open Champions winning at PGA National over the years, but it was solidified here, especially by Lowry, who is a perennial contender at the Honda and won at Portrush in 2019.
It was a Georgia Bulldog 1-2 when Harman beat Sepp Straka in 2023, and let’s hope Henley brings home another title for his Alma Mater this week.
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Tom Jacobs reveals his 2025 Open Championship betting tips
