The 14 Golfers Most Likely To Win The 2025 Open Championship At Royal Portrush Golf Club

The 153rd Open Championship will take place this week at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland with the best golfers in the world seeking the 4th and final Major Championship trophy of the season.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are two of the clear favorites to win the 2025 Open Championship but after those two the field gets less clear so today we are weeding through the muck. These are the 14 golfers who I believe are the most likely to win the 2025 Open Championship.

The story lines going into the 2025 Open Championship are plentiful. World #1 golfer Scottie Scheffler is seeking his first Open Championship and Claret Jug while #2 Rory McIlroy is hoping to win the Open Championship in his native Northern Ireland at Royal Portrush Golf Club.

Those two golfers will undoubtedly be in the mix come Sunday at Royal Portrush but here we have the 14 golfers who are most likely to win the 2025 Open Championship because it is a large field of golfers and anything can happen.

1. Scottie Scheffler

Scottie Scheffler, the reigning PGA Championship winner, has a career best finish of t7 at the British Open Championship and that came last year when Scottie was playing lights out but also on the road nonstop.

Scottie ranks #1 overall on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained off the tee (0.708), in Tee-to-Green (2.278), and in total SG (2.640). He is the clear favorite with the most accuracy off the tee and into the green and is the betting favorite to win it all.

2. Rory McIlroy

It is hard to stomach Scottie Scheffler being the ‘clear favorite’ to win the Open Championship when Rory McIlroy, the reigning Masters winner, finished tied for 2nd at the Scottish Open last week with 4 rounds in the 60s.

Rory isn’t far behind Scottie in the odd and he will have a massive home field advantage playing at Royal Portrush GC in his native Northern Ireland. But Rory’s wayward drives will be a question mark early on.

3. Tommy Fleetwood

Tommy Fleetwood is ready to breakthrough and at this point it feels likelier to happen on European soil than American. He ranks 3rd overall in Strokes Gained from Tee-to-Green which will be huge at Royal Portrush.

The winner will keep it in the the fairway and be consistent with GIRs. Tommy is set to be a very strong contender this week.

4. Shane Lowry

Shane Lowry is a great pick this week for several reasons. Like Rory, Shane Lowry will have a massive home field advantage this week playing in his native Northern Ireland in front of rowdy crowds all pulling from him. Shane is also a previous Open Championship winner, beating the field in 2019.

Currently, Shane ranks 5th on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained tee-to-green and has been reliably keeping the ball in fairway and hitting greens. That is what you should be looking for when picking a winner this week.

5. Collin Morikawa

Can Collin Morikawa win this week? Absolutely. He ranks 7th in total Strokes Gained, 2nd in Tee-to-Green, 11th in SG Off-The-Tee, and 6th in Approach-to-Green. Collin also is a 2x major winner, having won the 2020 PGA and 2021 Open Championship.

All that said, he’s 16th in the FedEx Cup points standings and hasn’t won since the 2023 Zozo Championship and publicly it seems like he’s taking some internal battle out against the media while struggling to get back in the winner’s circle.

6. Xander Schauffele

Xander Schauffele will be a hot pick this week. He won the 2024 Open Championship as well as the PGA Championship. Somehow, he’s winless this season despite continuing to play great golf.

Schauffele sits just outside the top 30 in SG Tee-to-Green (34th overall) but ranks 7th in SG Approach-to-Green. He will be in the mix this week and for survivor pools where players have been taken in the other majors, Xander will be a hot pick this week.

7. Jon Rahm

The 30-year-old Spaniard could win his first Open Championship this week. He is as comfortable as anyone playing on European soil and finished tied for 2nd at the 2023 Open Championship.

Jon Rahm, a two-time Major Champion, ranks 1st on the LIV Golf tour in Greens in Regulation % while hitting 59.76% of fairways. He will need to find the fairway to be in the mix this week but I love his golf game and I’d never make the mistake of counting him out.

8. Bryson DeChambeau

By all metrics, this should be the last of the 4 major championships titles that Bryson DeChambeau wins but there’s just something about Bryson where anytime you count him out he surprises you.

Bryson ranks 3rd on LIV in birdies, 2nd in Scrambling, t1st in Eagles, and 1st in Driving Distance. His best finish at the Open Championship was a t8 in 2022 but Bryson is obsessed with the history and lore of the game of golf. He REALLY wants this trophy and he will move heaven and earth to ensure he’s in the mix.

9. Joaquin Niemann

Does Joaquin Niemann have what it takes to win the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Irleand? He sure does. His game, when it’s on, is world class.

One reason to be optimistic about him this week is Niemann’s game in major championships is improving. He finished t8 at the U.S. Open and has 19 professional wins. His best finish at an Open Championship however is t53 in 2022 so he will need to make up a lot of ground there this week.

10. Brooks Koepka

This is a bit of a homer pick on my part but you can never count Brooks Koepka, a fellow Florida State alum, out in a major championship. The biggest events bring more out of his game and that will be true this week.

Brooks is a 5x Major Championship winner and finished t4 in the 2019 Open Championship. It almost feels like a coin flip between Brooks making the cut and winning this week.

11. J.J. Spaun

The 2025 U.S. Open champion, J.J. Spaun, checks a lot of favorable boxes going into the Open Championship. J.J. ranks 11th overall in Strokes Gained, 8th in SG Approach-to-Green, and 13th SG Tee-to-Green.

Unfortunately for Spaun, he didn’t make the cut at the Scottish Open which doesn’t bode well for this week. But he has the game and the accuracy to win it all at Royal Portrush GC.

12. Tyrrell Hatton

Another European golfer who figures to be in the mix this week is LIV’s Tyrrell Hatton. From Marlow, Buckinghamshire, Hatton knows links golf as well as anyone and has finished t5 in the Open Championship back in 2016.

Hatton came alive at the U.S. Open and ended up tied for 4th place and will seek to keep his strong showing in major championships going at Royal Portrush. He has 13 professional wins, 8 on the European Tour, and will like how the course sets up to his game this week.

13. Ludvig Aberg

With 1 win so far in 2025, Swedish golfer Ludvig Aberg is poised to break through, or so it seems. He won the 2023 Omega European Masters so has a history of winning on European soil, and he ranks 15th in SG Off-The-Tee while 50th from Tee-To-Green and 65 overall in Strokes Gained.

All of that said, Aberg has yet to make the cut in Open Championship. He finished 2nd at the 2024 Masters and 12th at the U.S. Open last year.

14. Viktor Hovland

Viktor Hovland has come *this close* in Major Champsionships, with a 7th place finish at the 2023 Masters, 2nd at the 2023 PGA, 3rd at this year’s U.S. Open, and t4th at the 2022 Open Championship.

I do believe Hovland will win a Major Championship at some point in his career. He won the 2025 Valspar just down the road from me, ranks 25th overall in Strokes Gained and 14th in SG Tee-To-Green. Viktor has the game to win an Open Championship and if he gets hot the crowd will help lift him along.

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