With the big names all priced accordingly and conditions always key, Ben Coley is keeping to two speculative antepost selections for the Open.
Golf betting tips: The Open
1pt e.w. Alex Noren at 125/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen at 150/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
If the Masters is the trickiest major to bet on this far in advance because of how likely it is that an elite golfer wins, the Open is almost as tricky, but for an entirely different reason. This is the major where you can feel most hopeful about landing a 100/1 winner the week of the event, which happened as recently as 2023. That makes it a bit harder to justify betting now, with fewer places on offer.
Throw in the weather and the likelihood that the champion played well a week earlier in the Scottish Open, as the last four all have, and you'll need to be close to certain you're on the right side of the argument to be striking a bet this far out. As we know, certainty in golf betting is all but impossible to find.
One angle which is always worth exploring is the tendency to overrate players from the UK and Ireland and underrate those from the United States. Last year, the first three home were from the US; a year earlier, Billy Horschel and Russell Henley were among the biggest threats to Xander Schauffele, who in turn succeeded Brian Harman, two years after Collin Morikawa had won.
The most vivid demonstration of this can be found in Robert MacIntyre, who was 125/1 in places for the PGA Championship earlier this week, 80s and bigger with plenty of firms, but is as short as 18/1 for the Open. It's madness to consider any golfer's chances for two tournaments to be so far apart, even if that golfer is a links-proven Scot who, yes, makes sense as a potential winner of the Claret Jug.
Unfortunately, in a sparse antepost book there aren't many ways to exploit this bias and those that stand out, Ben Griffin (100/1) and JJ Spaun (200/1), don't really strike me as likely candidates even if they are overpriced on form. There's no way to benefit from those who are egregiously underpriced, like 50/1 shot Chris Gotterup, and the likes of Henley (50/1), Patrick Cantlay (55/1) and Cam Young (66/1) aren't quite big enough.
With Tommy Fleetwood further up the betting than he is for the PGA and the US Open, and Jon Rahm's links record being given real respect, there simply isn't a strong bet to be had in this market and I considered leaving it alone altogether.
There are though two Scandinavians at opposing ends of the age and experience scale that I could see emerging as genuine each-way contenders at odds closer to 50/1 than the three figures we can take now, so I'll side with both ALEX NOREN and RASMUS NEERGAARD-PETERSEN.
Noren is a Scottish Open champion and Dunhill Links contender who loves playing this kind of golf and who, in winning both the British Masters and the BMW PGA in the autumn of 2025, added to an exceptional record in the UK and Ireland as a whole.
He was Europe's clear 13th man when it came to Ryder Cup selection, his comeback from injury just not quite completed in time, and he signed off an excellent year with second place in the Hero World Challenge, where he lost a play-off to Hideki Matsuyama.
With all of this in mind, plus the fact that he was sixth through 54 holes at Birkdale in 2017, I'm surprised he's not shorter than 125/1. Perhaps it's because he'll turn 44 during Open week, but that's no handicap in this major. If anything, experience is a positive and he has stacks of it.
Were the event taking place today I would imagine he'd not only be 50s, but popular at that. Plenty can happen in the meantime but anything above 66/1 screams value about a player inside the top 20 in the world whether you prefer the official rankings, or those of DataGolf.
Neergaard-Petersen does not have that experience – he'll be making his Open debut, a handicap just two players have overcome to win it this century. However, the Dane is a world-class player in the making, he's just won the Australian Open under firm, difficult conditions, and he contended for the US Open on his first try in that back in June.
With a top-five finish in the Dunhill Links plus second place in Doha to his name already, it's clear this kind of golf is going to suit one of the most impressive ball-strikers in Europe, and providing he can make the transition to the PGA Tour then it wouldn't surprise me at all were he to emerge as a genuine major threat as soon as this summer.
He was sure of his Open spot before his exploits in Australia so we're guaranteed a run unless he's injured, and while I'd be less confident predicting his starting price than I'd like to be, there's definite scope for it to be a good deal shorter than 100/1. Three-figure prices are worth taking given the potential upside, accepting that we might have been better waiting in this instance.
Guesswork and instinct are big parts of the Open, so in that spirit we'll take a couple of chances and hope that at least one of them arrives on the west coast of England as a strong candidate to lift the Claret Jug.
Posted at 12:00 GMT on 31/12/25
Ben Coley's golf tipping record by year
2025: +136.20pts
2024: +255.00pts
2023: +312.22pts
2022: +585.04pts
2021: +692.51pts
2020: +363.56pts
2019: -145.12pts
2018: +50.73pts
2017: +316.45pts
2016: +190.87pts
2016-2025 total: +2657.46pts
