Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports Pictured: Dustin Johnson (left to right) and Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau
The 2019 U.S. Open gets underway on Thursday morning at 9:45 a.m. ET at the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links in California.
Dustin Johnson is the current betting favorite at 7-1 with two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka right behind him at 8-1. Koepka, who won the PGA Championship last month, was the favorite to win at Pebble Beach for most of the past month, but he’s since drifted a little bit at the Westgate SuperBook.
Tiger Woods is hanging around near the top of the board at 10-1, the same odds as Rory McIlroy. Jordan Spieth, who all of a sudden is in good form, is tied with Patrick Cantlay at 16-1.
Check out our golf experts’ favorite bets for the first day of the third major of the 2019 season.
Jason Sobel
The Bet: Haotong Li (+160) over Bubba Watson, J.B. Holmes
If you’re looking for a little more value than a head-to-head matchup bet can provide, check out 3-Ball options, in which a player has to beat his other two playing partners.
There are a handful of possibilities for the first round in which one of the three can easily be eliminated, essentially rendering it a matchup bet with better odds.
My pick is Li, the talented young player from China, mostly due to the fact that while I like him, I really don’t like his two fellow competitors, Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes.
Maybe my Fade Bubba strategy is going too far, but he’s been awful at the U.S. Open over the past decade. Meanwhile, Holmes has been awful ever since winning at Riviera four months ago. This feels like a perfect fit for Haotong.