2025 Open Championship Betting Preview

It is hard to believe it is time for the final golf major of the season. It feels like only yesterday Rory McIlroy was slipping on his green jacket at the Masters in Augusta and he’ll be hoping to repeat the trick at Royal Portrush. James Punt is on the job, check out his 2025 Open Championship betting preview below.

2025 Open Championship Preview

The 153rd Open Championship returns to Northern Ireland and the Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club. It was only back in 2019 that the course returned to the Open rota after a 68-year gap.

The course was given a significant makeover for the 2019 event, with some new holes put in, but since then it has remained much the same with just a little length added, because they just can’t stop adding yards to championship courses.

The course now plays as a 7346 yard par 71, so not overly long. However, it is a very hard golf course. More so for mere mortals, but even these guys will find it tough. The fairways are very undulating, the rough lush and wiry, the bunkers typically deep pothole style and the greens as undulating as the fairways.

2025 Open Championship: The Weather Forecast

As with all links courses, and this is a proper links course, not like last weekend’s pseudo links used for the Scottish Open, its main defence is the weather. Sitting on County Antrim’s Atlantic coast, Portrush gets weather. Wind, rain and plenty of both, but not all the time. The weather forecast for this weekend, and it is critical for any bets struck due to the draw, is not bad.

Thursday will be cloudy with some afternoon rain. The breeze will be fairly consistent through the entire day and there is a chance of some disruption for lightning. It is hard to see any draw bias.

Friday will see some light rain early in the morning with light winds, southerly. More sunny intervals as the day goes on, say the met office, but accuweather has it cloudy all day with light showers all day, but all in all nothing too difficult. The breeze will remain fairly constant all day, but it will switch from a southerly for the morning starters, to a northerly by the end of play.

Light Winds & Showers

The first two days split forecasts give a picture of generally light winds with occasional light showers. The early/late tee times for Thursday and Friday might have a slight advantage, but nothing that looks like a game changer.

Saturday will see a light north-easterly breeze, and some light rain across the day The final day will see slightly more wind coming in from the north, but still moderate by Portrush standards, cloudy but mostly dry and any rain would be very light.

All in all, a very consistent forecast. It doesn’t look like one side of the draw will be favoured, which is not always the case in Open Championships. The players will have good scoring conditions and we should see plenty of birdies.

The weather in 2019 was not dissimilar, except for the final day when play was started early due to forecast bad weather coming in later in the day. The winning score was -15 for Shane Lowry, who was six shots clear of Tommy Fleetwood.

Sunday was the only day that the course bared its teeth and we saw a lot of over par scores, but this year, I expect the winning score to be a few shots lower, and hopefully more closely bunched.

2025 Open Championship: Course Knowledge

The fact that Shane Lowry, a player very familiar with the course, won here in 2019 may be a bit of a hint. Course knowledge paid dividends. Most players will have played the course before, but players like Tom McKibben and Shane Lowry much more so, and they will have played the new layout more often.

Rory McIlroy played here a lot in his formative years, but he has only played the new layout in two competitive rounds. I assume he has taken the chance to play it a few more times out of competition, but he hasn’t lived in Northern Ireland for some time now, so it is not like his local track, like it is for Darren Clarke.

A lot of the European Tour players say that they have come over for a sighter round in the last couple of months, but you would expect the Northern Irish and Irish players to hold something of a course advantage.

Irish Poorly Represented

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of them. McIlroy, McKibbin and Clarke are the only home nation players in the field, while the Republic of Ireland only has Lowry and Harrington as representatives. Scotland has just two players in the field, Robert MacIntyre and the amateur, Connor Graham.

The changes made for the 2019 Open were quite significant. I have played the old lay out many times, but I think only the first six holes are in the same order. The seventeenth and eighteenth are now the tented Village, and two brand new holes were built on land taken from the adjoining Valley course. Nine new tees were put in and a few new bunkers.

I think we can get distracted by the advantage of ‘local knowledge’. It is a plus, but the ability to play on links courses is more important, and don’t believe the idea that the Americans can’t play links golf, or can’t play in the wind. Six of the last ten Open Championships have been won by American players and they are the winning most nationality in the Championship’s history. Four Americans finished in the top ten here in 2019.

Stat Attack

Looking at the stats for the leading players in the 2019 Championship, four of the top five were top twenty for driving distance, four were top twenty five for driving accuracy, three were top three for greens in regulation, three were top ten for scrambling and four were top twenty five for putts per GIR, with Lowry second in that metric.

So, a good all round test of golf. There is no special magic. Hit it a long way, hit as many fairways as possible, find the greens in regulation and have a hot putter. Easy. This year the wind is not going to be a real test of technique which brings more players into the mix.

Recent Form

Again, it isn’t rocket-science. Players who win Opens come to it with some good form figures behind them. Louis Oosthuzien is the last player to win The Open on the back of some ropey form, having missed four of his previous six cuts, but he had won just before that poor run. Oosthuizen did get very lucky with the draw that year, getting the best of the conditions and that was the main factor in his win.

Of the last fourteen winners, ten had a win that season, and all had a top 3 finish. Only Oosthuizen had not had a top ten finish in his previous six events, but he had won his seventh. Of the last three winners, all had finished in the top fifteen in the Scottish Open the preceding week before the Open.

Tournament Record

Open Championships are only played on great links courses, so having a good tournament record is a big plus. 11 of the last 14 Open Champions had all previously secured at least a top10 finish.  Not only have most past winners had shown some good Open form, but good Major form. Having competed in previous majors can be good preparation for winning another.

Going through the various filters above, I have arrived at a shortlist of ten players. Scheffler, McIlroy, De Chambeau, Henley, Reed, Straka, Li, Brown, Hatton and Harman. Looking at their game stats, I have narrowed it down to five.

Scotty Scheffler

Is yet to win an Open Championship, but he is getting closer, finishing seventh last year. His form in 2025 is excellent, winning three of his last seven tournaments and finishing top ten in all of them. He has won three majors and is fully equipped to win this. That conditions are going to be gentle will make him more comfortable. 

The only negatives are his relative lack of links’ golf played, and his odds. He is the 7.00 favourite and would be the shortest priced winner since Tiger Woods in 2006. Finished T8th in the Scottish Open, but he wasn’t great on the greens. This will be Scheffler’s fifth Open Championship and his first at Portrush.

Rory McIlroy

Finally got the Masters’ Monkey off his back earlier this year and then went right off his chips. His motivation had left him and he was struggling to find his mojo. He got it back in time for last week’s Scottish Open, finishing joint second. McIlroy’s big target in 2025 was to win the Masters. He did just that and suffered big mental let down afterwards.

His second big target was to win the Open at Royal Portrush. For a Northern Irish golfer to win in Northern Ireland would probably top his Masters win. He would be elevated to God like status. That brings its own pressures, but he has less to prove now. He saw his good mate Shane Lowry win it here in 2019, and if you take his first and last holes off his card in the first round in 2019, he actually played quite well.

McIlroy ticks all the boxes and knows the course very well. He will have 290,000 supporters across the weekend and that has to count for something. However, his odds of 8.00 are only fair.

Russell Henley

Didn’t warm up with a go at the Scottish Open last week, which is not ideal, but he is in great form having won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March and most recently was 5th at the Memorial, 10th at the US Open and 2nd at the Travellers.

He is fifth in the golf world rankings, so a good run would be no surprise. He has gone well in recent majors, finishing fourth at Royal Troon last year, a fourth place at the Masters in 2023 and a top ten in the US Open a few weeks ago. What is very much to like about him are odds of 61.00.

Sepp Straka

Another ‘unfashionable’ player who goes off at generous odds as a result. He has won four PGA titles, two of them in 2025. The Austrian had a top ten finish in the Scottish Open last week and while he has missed the cut in the three majors in 2025, he was T2nd in the 2023 Open Championship. He is a Ryder Cup player and used to the big-time events. 51.00 are good odds for a player who can go close.

Bryson DeChambeau

Never quite cracked the Open Championship. There has been one top ten in 2022 but otherwise he has not been a feature. He struggles in the wind, so the conditions will not be such a problem this weekend, but maybe the vagaries of links golf do not fit so well with his scientific approach to the game. He is a 26.00 shot this weekend, a fair refection of his chances.

2025 Open Championship Selections

I am going to resist the temptation to back Rory McIlroy, simply as the odds are a bit too short. He has had one dream come true in 2025 and maybe two is being greedy. I will go with Russell Henley to lead the American charge and Sepp Straka to continue his good run of form and to go close again.

2025 Open Championship Tip: 0.5 point e/w Russell Henley to win @ 61.00 with Betfair (1/5 odds 1-8)

2025 Open Championship Tip: 0.5 point Sepp Straka to win @ 51.00 with Livescorebet (1/5 odds 1-7)

The Longshot

The Open throws up some huge priced winners. In the last fifteen Opens we have had a 201.00 winner (Darren Clarke), a 176.00 winner (Stewart Cink), and two 111.00 winers (Brian Harman and Zach Johnson). You can go back further to the likes of Ben Curtis and Bill Rodgers at huge odds. On top of that, there are big priced players getting placed every year.

Thirston Lawrence was 601.00 last year and was one of four three figured odds players who placed. Shubhankar Sharma 1501.00 in 2023 and the list goes on and on. Don’t be put off a big price, but the problem is picking the right ones.

Three Figure Punt

One player who made the shortlist and is a three-figure punt is Daniel Brown. He is a winner in 2025, winning the BMW International in Germany a couple of weeks ago. He was T10 at Royal Troon last year in his Open debut (having led at the end of the first day) and he has good form playing in Northern Ireland.

Brown won the ISPS Hansa World Invitational at Galgorm Castle in scorching conditions in 2023, and more impressively, was fourth at Royal County Down in last year’s Irish Open. Many regard Royal County Down as a tougher test than Royal Portrush, so he can golf his ball on the toughest of links.

You can get 251.00, but only with e/w terms for the first five places. There is 201.00 with seven places but I will go for firms offering the top ten places.

Daniel had lost a good friend not long before that big win, so that result in Germany was an even bigger deal than just winning a golf tournament. Things like that can be a motivating factor.

2025 Open Championship Tip: 0.5 point Daniel Brown to win @ 151.00 with Ladbrokes, Betfred (e/w 1/5 odds 1-10)

The final bet is another player who made the shortlist and he might get a place in a side market. The 2023 Champion, Brian Harman, was eighth in his penultimate event, the Travelers Championship, before travelling to Scotland for the Scottish Open last week.

He only finished T50th, but he started well with rounds of 69 and 65 to be T12 at the halfway point. Harman was 60th in defence of his Championship last year but he was 19th in 2021 and 6th in 2022 before winning in 2023, so he has a good Open pedigree.

Previous Winners Market

There is a Previous Winners market which contains sixteen players. McIlroy is the 2.63 favourite, but if he stumbles, Harman should be able to mix it with the other fourteen. Of those fourteen we have the likes of Darren Clarke, Justin Leonard, Francesco Molinari, Henrik Stenson, Stewart Cink, Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington, most of whom are in the late autumn of their careers.

Harrington might have a good run as he knows the course very well and he just won the US Seniors Open, but the real competition for Harman will be with Schauffele, who hasn’t quite fired in 2025, and ditto for Morikawa.  Shane Lowry’s recent form is not great and his Open record is very hot and cold. That leaves Speith, Oosthuizen and Cam Smith and Harman can live with them these days.

2025 Open Championship Tip: 0.5 point Brian Harman to win the past winners market @ 19.00 with Betfred, Boylesports

First Round Leader

I do like a first-round leader bet in the Open. Everyone has to tee off at the first and you can sometimes rule out a large chunk of the field based on the weather forecast. In the last sixteen years the players starting before 10.00am have produced the first round leader 56% of the time. The 08.00am to 10.00am slots have been most profitable.

It is not unusual at links courses for the sea breeze to be softer earlier in the morning and in the late afternoon. The early starters also have the slight advantage of the greens being absolutely mint. No heavy footfall on them for the early starters, and they will be a bit more receptive early on.

Not Much Weather Advantage

This year the weather forecast is not giving the early starters much, if any advantage, maybe 3-4 mph lighter winds for the first couple of hours, but nothing really significant. The later afternoon starters may see more in the way of light showers, but again, nothing very significant. A bit of moisture on the greens can slow the pace and maybe the morning players have a small advantage.

The players of interest include Tom McKibbin (81.00). He has a wealth of course knowledge and is in the first group off at 06.30am. That comes with its own pressures. A home player, in the opening group will have a crowd and the eyes of the world’s early risers on them.

Padraig Harrington has the honour of hitting the first tee shot in the same group. A reminder that the first at Royal Portrush is strange in that it has internal out of bounds on both sides of the fairway, and I can assure you, that plays on your mind.

A little later on, we have last weekend’s Scottish Open winner Chris Gotterup going off at 8.14 and he might be able to carry a bit of momentum through, but also he may have emptied his tanks, so it is a tricky one, but he is 71.00.

Big name players going out in the prime time are Schauffele and Rahm in the same group at 09.58. Form player Marco Penge is out early at 06.57 and he could go well, albeit that it is his Open debut.

Some kind bookmaker gave me a small free bet and that went on Gotterup e/w, but the weather looks to have opened this market right up this year.

-JamesPunt