The Open 2026 odds landed this week, and the top two names surprised nobody. Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy sit first and second in The Open 2026 odds, the same way they’ve headed nearly every major board for two years running. But dig one layer into The Open 2026 odds and something strange turns up.
The favourite can’t win a tournament right now. Hasn’t since January.
Royal Birkdale stages the 154th Open from July 16 to 19, out on that raw stretch of Southport coast where a two-club wind counts as a calm morning. Scheffler flies in as defending champion. McIlroy flies in with a second green jacket and, apparently, a grudge against his own golf swing. Somewhere below them, a Southport lad who grew up peering through Birkdale’s fences is drawing quiet, sentimental money. Sentimental money is usually dumb money. Usually.
Who Is Favored to Win the Open 2026?
Scottie Scheffler is the favourite, priced anywhere from +600 to +750 depending on which sportsbook happens to be open on the phone. Covers pegged his win probability at about 16 percent on July 14. In a 156-man field, on a coin-flip golf course, that’s an enormous number. It’s also his weakest price at a major in three years.
The opening board for tournament week shook out like this:
- Scottie Scheffler: +600 at DraftKings, drifting toward +750 elsewhere
- Rory McIlroy: +780 to +900, the only other man under 10-1
- Tommy Fleetwood: +1500 to +1800, born about four miles from the clubhouse
- Matt Fitzpatrick: +1500 to +2150, fresh off a T3 in Scotland
- Jon Rahm: +1550 to +2000, lurking the way Rahm always lurks
Now, the caveat. ESPN’s betting desk noted on July 15 that Scheffler hasn’t carried a price this long into a major since the 2023 Open, back when he and McIlroy shared favouritism at +700. Sixteen straight majors as favourite or co-favourite, per Yahoo Sports, and yet the books just blinked. Barely. But bookmakers don’t blink for fun.
And then there’s the sky. Players told ESPN this week they’re bracing for conditions one or two called unprecedented, which is a bold word from men who play in Scotland for a living. Weather like that shreds betting boards. A 40-mph gust doesn’t care about world ranking.
The Open 2026 Odds Board at Royal Birkdale
The Open 2026 odds don’t agree with each other, which is the first thing worth exploiting. The table below merges DraftKings and FanDuel prices from July 13 and 14, with each man’s last Open and his 2026 headline.
| Player | Best Listed Odds | 2025 Open Result | 2026 Form Note |
| Scottie Scheffler | +600 (DK) | Won by 4 at Portrush | Missed cut in Scotland |
| Rory McIlroy | +780 (DK) | T7 | Masters champion, again |
| Tommy Fleetwood | +1500 (FD) | Contended | T13 at Scottish Open |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | +1500 (FD) | Solid week | T3 at Scottish Open |
| Jon Rahm | +1550 (DK) | Made cut | Quietly steady on LIV |
| Xander Schauffele | +2200 (DK) | T7 | Still hunting 2024’s magic |
| Chris Gotterup | +2900 (DK) | — | Three wins this season |
| Cameron Young | +2900 (DK) | — | Built for links golf |
| Collin Morikawa | +3000 (FD) | Made cut | 2021 Champion Golfer |
| Wyndham Clark | +3300 (FD) | T4 | Won the U.S. Open in June |
Look at Scheffler’s row for a second. +600 at one shop, +750 at another. On a hundred quid, that’s the difference between winning £600 and £750 for the identical outcome. Bettors who never compare The Open 2026 odds across books hand that margin back every single year, and the books gratefully accept.
Why the disagreement? Liability, mostly. British punters pile onto McIlroy and Fleetwood, so UK-facing books trim those prices while American ones hold. Lines this week move by the hour. Every number above carries its date for exactly that reason, treat them as a Tuesday snapshot, not gospel.
One more habit worth stealing from professional bettors: they read The Open 2026 odds as opinions, not facts. A price is just a bookmaker’s guess with a profit margin stapled to it. When two books guess differently about the same golfer, one of them is wrong, and the wrong one is paying for the mistake.
Birkdale’s own history deserves a line too. This is the course’s 11th Open. Jordan Spieth won the last one in 2017, the day he made that absurd bogey off the driving range at 13 and then played his last five holes in five-under, as if embarrassed about the detour. McIlroy finished fourth that week. Both are back. Only one is priced like it.
Scheffler vs McIlroy: The Head-to-Head That Defines the Week
Every major lately gets sold as Scheffler vs McIlroy, and mostly the golf hasn’t cooperated. Birkdale might. The Open 2026 odds squeeze barely a percentage point between them, the tightest the market has priced this pair all season. On one side, the most dependable golfer alive, having a genuinely odd month. On the other, a seven-time major winner who stood on a Scottish fairway last week and announced, “I’m so bad at golf!”
He shot 64 the next day. So, grain of salt.
The Case for Scottie Scheffler
Start at Portrush. Scheffler won the 2025 Open at 17-under, four clear of Harris English, and never once looked like a man under pressure. Five career Open starts, never outside the top 25. For a player who spent years wearing the “can’t handle links golf” label, that record reads like a lawsuit against the people who wrote it.
History is on the table as well. Nobody has defended the Claret Jug since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08. No American since Tiger Woods in 2005-06. Scheffler shrugs at this sort of thing in press rooms. His scorecards tend not to.
But something is off, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest handicapping. He missed the cut at the Genesis Scottish Open, his first missed cut anywhere in almost four years. He hasn’t won since the American Express in January. Thirteen starts. Nine top-10s in that stretch, including second at the Masters and T4 at the U.S. Open, per Yahoo Sports, which for most professionals would be the season of a lifetime. For Scheffler it’s a drought, and he reportedly considers finishing second worse than missing the cut. Make of that what you will.
The missed cut came with an accidental gift, though. Two free days. He’d never seen Birkdale before, and ESPN’s preview noted he spent the weekend learning it. An over-prepared Scheffler is nobody’s idea of good news.
The Case for Rory McIlroy
McIlroy’s 2026 barely qualifies as a schedule. Ten starts. That’s it, he drifts into tournaments like a headliner who only plays festivals now. And the maddening part is it keeps working. He won a second straight Masters in April. Seven majors. The career the Claret Jug would merely decorate, not define.
Recent form? Glowing. He closed the Scottish Open with that Sunday 64 for T7, contending on a proper links until the final hour, all while trash-talking himself to anyone with a microphone. Players who are actually bad at golf don’t shoot 64 on links courses. They shoot 78 and blame the caddie.
The Open record runs deep. Champion at Hoylake in 2014. Fourth at this very Birkdale in 2017, five-under, seven behind Spieth. T7 at Portrush last summer. Wind doesn’t rattle him; it seems to entertain him, and Birkdale’s flat, honest fairways suit that towering shaped flight he produces on demand.
So why second in The Open 2026 odds and not first? Stretches. One sloppy run of three or four holes, usually a Friday afternoon, usually just when the leaderboard opens up, has cost him at several recent majors. Nobody questions the talent anymore. The focus gets cross-examined every July.
The market has done the maths and split it down the middle. Scheffler’s floor, McIlroy’s ceiling, about 130 points apart, with head-to-head matchup markets already live for anyone who’d rather bet the rivalry than the field.
What Are the Odds on Rory McIlroy Winning the Open?
Rory McIlroy sits at +780 to +900 to win the 2026 Open, second favourite behind Scheffler and the only other player under 10-1. Call it an implied probability of 10 to 11 percent before the bookmaker’s cut. DraftKings had him at +780 on Monday morning; Yahoo Sports listed +900 the same day. Same golfer, same tournament, a full 120 points of daylight between shops.
Is that a fair price? Depends entirely on which McIlroy shows up. The one who closed Scotland with a 64 is underpriced at +900. The one who leaks four shots in a bad half hour on a major Friday is overpriced at +780. Twelve years of evidence says both men exist, and they share a locker.
There’s a case the smarter McIlroy bet isn’t outright at all. His Top 5 and Top 10 prices absorb the bad-stretch risk while still cashing on everything his links game reliably delivers. He’s finished T7 or better at each of the last two Opens, and he adores wind the way most professionals merely tolerate it. Boring bet. Better maths.
Best Value Bets in The Open 2026 Odds
Now the fun tier. The Open 2026 odds get genuinely interesting between 15-1 and 45-1, which, as Part 1 pointed out, is exactly where Birkdale has historically gone shopping for champions. Spieth in 2017 and Harrington in 2008 both came from outside the favourites. Three names stand out this year, plus a small basket of longshots.
Tommy Fleetwood, The Hometown Story
Fleetwood grew up in Southport. Not “the area.” Southport. Royal Birkdale was the posh course down the road when he was learning the game, and this week he plays an Open there at 18-1 while still chasing his first major after a career full of near things. He called the week a dream in his ESPN interview, which is the sort of thing that either lifts a player or buries him.
The form is fine rather than frightening, T13 at the Scottish Open, but nobody in the field will read the wind on this specific piece of coastline better. The worry is emotional weight. Forty thousand people willing one man to win has crushed sturdier golfers. At +1500 to +1800, the market is charging a premium for the fairytale. Sometimes fairytales cash.
Matt Fitzpatrick and the English Drought
Here’s a stat that stings in Southport: no English golfer has won the Claret Jug since Nick Faldo in 1992. Thirty-four years. Fitzpatrick arrives as the form Englishman, fresh off a T3 at the Scottish Open, priced +1500 to +2150 depending on the book. He already owns a U.S. Open, won the hard way at Brookline, so the major-Sunday nerves question was answered years ago.
His game fits too. Fitzpatrick doesn’t overpower courses; he dismantles them, fairway by fairway, and Birkdale rewards exactly that kind of patient, positional golf. Of the two English hopes, he’s the colder-blooded pick. Fleetwood has the story. Fitzpatrick has the T3.
Longshots Worth a Look
Past the household names, three prices kept catching the eye this week:
- Wyndham Clark (+3300 to +4300). Won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, then won the U.S. Open in June, his second, and hasn’t finished outside the top 11 in six starts. He was T4 at last year’s Open, so links golf clearly clicked. Arguably the hottest golfer alive, priced like an afterthought.
- Tom Kim (around +4500 to +5900). Won the Genesis Scottish Open on Sunday and promptly rocketed from the 100-1 range, per ESPN. Winning a links event the week before an Open is about the loudest form signal that exists.
- Chris Gotterup (+2900 to +3300). Three PGA Tour wins in 2026, including the John Deere, then contended again in Scotland. The market still treats him like a curiosity. The results stopped being a curiosity months ago.
None of these three will headline a single preview show. That’s rather the point. The Open 2026 odds reward bettors who move before the television previews do, because every Wednesday feature on a longshot shaves points off his price by Thursday morning. Kim already proved it, his number nearly halved within a day of the Scottish Open trophy photo. Value has a shelf life measured in hours this week, not days.
Smarter Ways to Bet The Open 2026 Odds
Outright winner bets are the lottery tickets of golf. Even Scheffler at +600 loses this bet about 85 times in 100. The Open 2026 odds spread across dozens of other markets, and several of them respect a bettor’s money considerably more.
A few principles the sharps repeat every July, worth taking seriously:
- Shop at least two or three books before locking anything; the Scheffler gap alone proves why
- Prefer Top 10 and Top 20 markets for steady players whose Sundays occasionally betray them
- Watch Thursday’s tee times, at links Opens, one half of the draw often gets the brutal weather and the other gets a stroll
- Head-to-head matchups strip out the other 154 golfers entirely; Scheffler vs McIlroy is live at most books right now
- Never chase a price that has already collapsed, because the value left with the early money
And then there’s the fade. Bryson DeChambeau opened around +2800 at some shops and has drifted all the way to +6500, and SportsLine’s David Bearman is steering clear entirely, pointing to ugly approach and short-game numbers at the last two majors and the fact that Bryson hasn’t played competitively since the U.S. Open. Nick Faldo went further on ESPN, accusing him of having no strategy at all for links golf. Harsh. Possibly accurate. A missed cut wouldn’t shock anyone paying attention.
Final Thoughts
Strip away the noise and The Open 2026 odds tell a simple story with a complicated ending. Scheffler and McIlroy deserve the top of the board, one owns the jug, the other owns the season’s loudest major win. But Birkdale has spent a century declining to read scripts. The last two Opens here went to men outside the favourites, the forecast looks vicious, and the 15-1 to 45-1 tier is stacked with players in genuinely better form than the favourite.
So the closing take runs like this: McIlroy is the better outright price of the top two, Fitzpatrick is the value play among the English pair, and Clark is the longshot the numbers keep pointing at. Whatever happens, Thursday morning’s weather report will move The Open 2026 odds more than anything written this week.
Key Takeaways
- Scottie Scheffler tops The Open 2026 odds at +600 to +750, which works out to a 16 percent chance
- Rory McIlroy is next in The Open 2026 odds at +780 to +900, and nobody else gets under 10-1
- Scheffler just missed his first cut in almost four years, and the books noticed straight away
- McIlroy owns a 2026 Masters title already, plus that Sunday 64 in Scotland last week
- Tommy Fleetwood gets a hometown Open at Birkdale around 18-1, still hunting major number one
- Fitzpatrick’s T3 in Scotland makes him the form Englishman, chasing a drought running since 1992
- Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open in June and hasn’t finished outside the top 11 since May
- Tom Kim went from 100-1 to about 59-1 in The Open 2026 odds after winning the Scottish Open
- The Open 2026 odds swing wildly between sportsbooks, so checking two or three shops is free money
- Skip the outright when gales arrive; Top 10 and matchup markets in The Open 2026 odds punish weather less
FAQs
Who will win the British Open?
Nobody knows, and that’s the fun of it. The Open 2026 odds back Scheffler. Form backs Fitzpatrick or Clark. And Birkdale history? It keeps ignoring favourites altogether.
Who has the best odds to win the championship?
Scottie Scheffler leads The Open 2026 odds at +600 to +750, book depending. His 16th straight major as favourite, yet his longest price at one since 2023. Telling.
How much does Scottie Scheffler get for winning the Open?
$3.2 million if he defends the Claret Jug, out of a record purse of roughly $17.75 million. The R&A confirmed those payout figures during tournament week.
What is the biggest win in The Open Championship?
Old Tom Morris, by a mile. Thirteen shots at Prestwick in 1862, still the widest margin in any major. Tiger’s eight at St Andrews in 2000 is the modern mark.
Which golfer is a billionaire?
Tiger Woods, and nobody on The Open 2026 odds board has caught him. Forbes made it official in 2022, mostly endorsement money, barely prize cheques.
