Scottie Scheffler has won his second major of the year and his fourth major of his career after dominating the field this week at Royal Portrush to take home The Open Championship.
Scheffler entered the 2025 Open Championship as the betting favorite with 6-1 odds, which was actually his longest odds to win a major since 2023.
With Scheffler's win, 7 of the 8 majors over a 2-year span have been won by golfers with odds of 20-1 or shorter — the first time that has happened since 1993 and 1994.
The Chalk Three
This week, Scottie won his third career major at 10-1 odds or shorter and his second career major at under 10-1 odds — both notes put him near the top of the list for any golfer in the last 40 years, which is a pretty incredible feat considering the run he has been on not just the last few years, but since just May of 2025.
Recent Winning
Since the Byron Nelson, which started right at the beginning of May this year, Scheffler has played in eight events and won four of them:
Byron Nelson: 11-4 odds (+$275)
PGA Championship: 9-2 odds (+$450)
Memorial Tournament: 11-4 odds (+$275)
Open Championship: 6-1 odds (+$600)
A $100 bettor taking Scheffler to win each of these eight events would be up $1,200. Scottie's recent run really started, though near the start of the 2024 season. If you bet $100 on Scottie in each of his tournament starts on the PGA TOUR and in major tournaments in the last two years, you would be up $2,545 in total, having won 12 tournaments, which is about a 33% hit rate for all of those events played in that span.
The Comparison
At this point in Scheffler's run, everyone will obviously start to compare Scottie to Tiger Woods. Which means it is probably worth doing just a small comparison to show collectively how ridiculous Tiger was overall.
After the Open Championship, Scheffler has been listed as at least the co-betting favorite in 36 consecutive PGA TOUR/Major Tournament events, dating from the 2024 Sentry to this weekend's Open. He was listed behind Viktor Hovland in the 2024 Hero World Challenge and the 2023 BMW behind Rory McIlroy.
With consistent tournament odds data since 2008 from Jeff Sherman, the Vice President of Risk at Westgate SuperBook, we have Tiger with 32 straight events as the favorite starting in that season, but pretty sure he was favored before that as well. Tiger had another streak of 18 straight in 2013 as well.
The Streak
Looking at just Major Tournaments specifically, which I have data for Tiger in his entire career he was favored to win 21 consecutive majors between the 1999 Open Championship and the 2004 Open Championship — which is the longest streak of the last 40 years.
The streak that may never be broken. Tiger was either 1st or 2nd in betting odds in 55 consecutive major tournaments between 1997 and 2011. At the moment, Scheffler has been favored to win 12 consecutive majors, with him already installed as the favorite to win The Masters next year.
The Path
In terms of profit on outright odds, Scheffler has played in 25 major tournaments, not winning until his 10th major start, and a $100 bettor would be up $1,050 just taking Scottie. Just since 2022, when he won The Masters, that bettor would be up $1,950.
With Tiger, it would be a bit unfair since he has played in over 200 major tournaments with lots of ups and downs, especially recently (he is 1/41 winning majors since 2009) — overall, a $100 bettor would be down $2,150 in total — which is -$2,800 since 2009 and +$650 before that.
The comparison is a bit tough, but here are two angles:
Angle one…
Since Scheffler started playing majors consistently in 2020, which is a 6-year span and is about his age 23 to age 28 years for him (born in June). Tiger's age, 23-28, is about 1999 to 2004 (he was born in December).
In Scottie's 22 majors in that span, his bettors are up $1,350, winning four majors at 16-1, 5-1, +450, and 6-1.
In Tiger's 24 majors between 1999 and 2004, his bettors were up just $50. Tiger's bettors won seven majors, but five of which were at 2-1 odds or shorter.
Angle two…
Just take Tiger's prime. Between 1999 and 2008, a $100 bettor would be up $1,150 taking Tiger outright, winning 13 major tournaments in 38 total tries.
Looking Forward
Looking forward, Scheffler is currently listed at +350 to win The Masters in 2026 — the next major on the calendar. No golfer has closed at 4-1 odds or shorter to win The Masters since Tiger in 2013, and he is the last to win The Masters at 5-1 odds or shorter back in 2005.
If Scottie closes under 5-1 to win The Masters, he would join just Tiger and Greg Norman to do that in 6+ major tournaments in the last 40 years.
Scheffler would have done it 6 times with 1 major win so far.
Norman also did it 6 times with no major wins of those six tries.
Tiger did it … 39 times with 11 major victories.
