Scottie Scheffler has been the strong favorite in every event he's played in for the past three seasons, but his hold on the top spot on the odds sheet coming into the 2026 Open Championship is as tenuous as we've seen.
Scheffler finally broke through at last year's Open Championship at Royal Portrush, running away on Sunday to a dominant victory to capture the Claret Jug for the first time and move one step closer to completing the career grand slam. Typically that would bolster his position as the favorite, but Scheffler finds himself as the favorite by just a nose coming into his title defense at 15/2 (via BetMGM), just ahead of Rory McIlroy at 17/2.
While we've seen McIlroy's odds surge after his Masters wins the last two years -- he was co-favorites with Scheffler heading into the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow -- his proximity to Scheffler coming into The Open is much more a commentary on the state of Scheffler's game than anything from the oddsmakers.
Scheffler's struggles have been relative to expectation, as he has been a constant presence on the first page of the leaderboard this season, with four runner-up finishes, nine total top 10s and 14 top 25s in his 15 starts. That's why he's remained the strong pre-tournament favorite each week even as his winless drought has dragged on since January, but his performance last week at the Scottish Open rang new alarm bells.
Scheffler missed the cut at the Renaissance Club in his pre-Open Championship tune-up, snapping a streak of 78 consecutive weekends played in PGA Tour events. Slow starts plagued Scheffler's early season performances, but he always found the switch when he needed it to stay in the mix. That wasn't the case in Scotland and the lack of sharpness in his game he mentioned at the U.S. Open last month was apparent once again.
It's been hard to talk about Scheffler this season because he's obviously not been at his best but continued to grind out strong finishes. That's kept him in a tier of his own even as his level has dropped a touch, but after missing the weekend in Scotland, oddsmakers are offering him at his longest odds in a major since the 2022 Open Championship (16-1).
2026 Open Championship betting odds
Odds via BetMGM Sportsbook
- Scottie Scheffler (15/2)
- Rory McIlroy (17/2)
- Matt Fitzpatrick (16-1)
- Tommy Fleetwood (18-1)
- Jon Rahm (22-1)
- Chris Gotterup (28-1)
- Collin Morikawa (28-1)
- Ludvig Åberg (28-1)
- Xander Schauffele (28-1)
- Justin Rose (30-1)
- Wyndham Clark (30-1)
- Cameron Young (33-1)
- Robert MacIntyre (33-1)
- Tyrrell Hatton (33-1)
- Viktor Hovland (33-1)
- Sam Burns (40-1)
- Bryson DeChambeau (45-1)
- Tom Kim (45-1)
- Joaquin Niemann (50-1)
- Russell Henley (50-1)
- Brooks Koepka (55-1)
- Min Woo Lee (55-1)
- Justin Thomas (60-1)
- Patrick Reed (60-1)
- Si Woo Kim (60-1)
- Jordan Spieth (66-1)
- Patrick Cantlay (66-1)
- Shane Lowry (66-1)
- Aaron Rai (80-1)
- Alex Fitzpatrick (80-1)
- Hideki Matsuyama (80-1)
- J.J. Spaun (80-1)
- Nicolai Højgaard (80-1)
- Akshay Bhatia (90-1)
- Ben Griffin (90-1)
- Cameron Smith (90-1)
- Brian Harman (100-1)
- Corey Conners (100-1)
- Harris English (100-1)
- Kristoffer Reitan (100-1)
- Kurt Kitayama (100-1)
- Rickie Fowler (100-1)
- Michael Thorbjornsen (100-1)
- Victor Perez (100-1)
- Maverick McNealy (100-1)
- Adam Scott (125-1)
- Alex Noren (125-1)
- Eugenio Chacarra (125-1)
- Jacob Bridgeman (125-1)
- Keegan Bradley (125-1)
- Ryan Gerard (125-1)
- Angel Ayora (150-1)
- David Puig (150-1)
- Gary Woodland (150-1)
- Jake Knapp (150-1)
- Jason Day (150-1)
- Keith Mitchell (150-1)
- Marco Penge (150-1)
- Max Homa (150-1)
- Ryan Fox (150-1)
- Sepp Straka (150-1)
- Sungjae Im (150-1)
- Johnny Keefer (150-1)
- Harry Hall (175-1)
- J.T. Poston (175-1)
- Jordan Smith (175-1)
- Matt Wallace (175-1)
- Rasmus Højgaard (175-1)
- Ryo Hisatsune (175-1)
- Thomas Detry (175-1)
- Alex Smalley (200-1)
- Daniel Berger (200-1)
- Eric Cole (200-1)
- Haotong Li (200-1)
- Jayden Schaper (200-1)
- Lucas Herbert (200-1)
- Max Greyserman (200-1)
- Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (200-1)
- Sahith Theegala (200-1)
- Tom McKibbin (200-1)
- Bud Cauley (225-1)
- Casey Jarvis (225-1)
- Nick Taylor (225-1)
- Andrew Novak (250-1)
- Jackson Suber (250-1)
- Jesper Svensson (250-1)
- Keita Nakajima (250-1)
- Louis Oosthuizen (250-1)
- Matthew Jordan (250-1)
- Michael Brennan (250-1)
- Michael Kim (250-1)
- Pierceson Coody (250-1)
- Scott Vincent (250-1)
- Bernd Wiesberger (300-1)
- Billy Horschel (300-1)
- Daniel Hillier (300-1)
- John Parry (300-1)
- Matt McCarty (300-1)
- Sam Stevens (300-1)
- Sami Valimaki (300-1)
- Daniel Brown (350-1)
- Francesco Molinari (350-1)
- Hennie Du Plessis (350-1)
- Laurie Canter (350-1)
- Nico Echavarria (350-1)
- Andy Sullivan (400-1)
- Antoine Rozner (400-1)
- Francesco Laporta (400-1)
- Jose Luis Ballester (400-1)
- Kazuma Kobori (400-1)
- Matthew Southgate (400-1)
- Peter Uihlein (400-1)
- Shaun Norris (400-1)
- Adrien Saddier (450-1)
- Dan Bradbury (450-1)
- Kouta Kaneko (450-1)
- Alistair Doherty (500-1)
- Caleb Surratt (500-1)
- Frederic Lecroix (500-1)
- Joakim Lagergren (500-1)
- Martin Couvra (500-1)
- M.J. Daffue (500-1)
- Padraig Harrington (500-1)
- Stewart Cink (500-1)
- Michael Hollick (600-1)
- Austen Truslow (750-1)
- Henrik Stenson (750-1)
- James Nicholas (750-1)
- Jeongwoo Ham (750-1)
- Matthew Baldwin (750-1)
- Naoyuki Kataoka (750-1)
- Ren Yonexawa (750-1)
- Sam Bairstow (750-1)
- Travis Smyth (750-1)
- Alejandro De Castro Piera (1000-1)
- Baard Skogen (1000-1)
- Cameron John (1000-1)
- Darren Clarke (1000-1)
- Fifa Laopakdee (1000-1)
- Jack Buchanan (1000-1)
- Jack McDonald (1000-1)
- Ji-Ho Yang (1000-1)
- Kazuiki Higa (1000-1)
- Marcus Plunkett (1000-1)
- Mason Howell (1000-1)
- Ryutaro Nagano (1000-1)
- Stuart Grehan (1000-1)
- Tiger Christensen (1000-1)
- Tim Wiedemeyer (1000-1)
- Tom Sloman (1000-1)
- David Duval (1500-1)
- David Howard (1500-1)
- Lev Grinberg (1500-1)
- Mateo Pulcini (1500-1)
- Nevill Ruiter (1500-1)
