How quickly time flies. The final major of 2026 is finally upon us, as 156 of the best golfers in the world will take on Royal Birkdale in search of glory.
As is always the case in major championship tournaments, there are often many "value" options on the board. Does that mean we figure out all the correct paths to success? Of course not. However, let's try to talk about a few of the names I am targeting this week in the article below.
Let's dive into my The Open picks and PGA Tour best bets for this week's event.
The Open Outright Picks
Tommy Fleetwood 21/1
I really liked the comparison Geoff Fienberg made on the show that I did with him on Tuesday when we were talking about Tommy Fleetwood. I'll paraphrase this for the sake of the article, but the overall sentiment was that this spot is very similar to what we saw from Xander Schauffele before he won his first major in 2024 at the PGA Championship.
Think of a golfer who the public has labeled as someone who can't win when push comes to shove. Expand that thought and think of all the disdain that comes any time his name is mentioned on an outright card. And once again, increase that feeling you get from the idea of betting him and look at how differently he is treated at sharp books versus square ones. The public mostly hates this viewpoint. It doesn't mean it won't look correct on their end come Sunday, and Fleetwood is nowhere near this leaderboard. However, sharp locations continue to crash this price on Fleetwood and have moved him into the 16/1 range and the third-favorite on the slate because of what the "math" says when diving into the data.
I placed a ton of weight on tee-to-green performance in my sheet. I wanted to see how players fared when merging the statistics to fit Royal Birkdale. Fleetwood, specifically, was one of the largest increasers in that area, ranking first overall when off-the-tee and around-the-green are combined, and eighth when you add in approach play to those two categories. The recent condensing of those areas over the last 24 rounds kept the Englishman second in my model, and I found this highly intriguing, as it also made Fleetwood the third favorite for the week. While that is behind Scheffler and Fitzpatrick, it did land above McIlroy, which tells me what my numbers thought of a golfer who is due for some fortune in a big event.
Matthew Fitzpatrick 21/1
I can't drop the statement above that my model has Matthew Fitzpatrick as the second favorite and not place a wager on him inside this 20/1 zone.
I don't love where some of this movement has shifted over the last 24+ hours. Fitzpatrick at a high of 17/1 is not quite the same wager when you add an extra 1% to what is needed for him to be proper from 21 to 17, although we still have a little meat left on this bone for the Englishman.
My math placed Fitzpatrick second in Weighted Strokes Gained Total, third in the category where Fleetwood ranked first after including only off-the-tee and around-the-green, and second in Weighted Approach, with a clean third-place mark when taking all approach shots from 2026.
Yes, this will be a community win to a degree that makes it scary, but it is not as if this price hasn't moved to account for much of the publicity he has in the sector. What you never want to see is tons of popularity and a price enhancing. That isn't the case here.
Tyrrell Hatton 40/1
Tyrrell Hatton disappointed many people last week with his 17th-place finish. However, that result doesn't explain why the 34-year-old sank to the very bottom of the leaderboard after his opening-hole triple-bogey and then proceeded to play his next 71 holes at 11-under par. We can make that math look even better when we realize he was still three over after nine on Thursday.
Hatton's Links pedigree is world-renowned. Three Alfred Dunhill Links Championships. Eight total European victories. This is a golfer who has found himself with nine top-10 showings in his career during grand slam events, with two of those coming this season at the Masters and U.S. Open.
In my opinion, it takes resolve and experience to win an Open Championship. Will Hatton's resolve hold for four rounds? We will see. But the experience at 34 does put him in the prime window to get his first major.
The Open Matchup Pick
Maverick McNealy +105 over Brooks Koepka
It is a weekly struggle to find one of these matchups with limited enough movement to fit within this article. I don't love posting content where all the value is gone. Everything I am on this week has severely shifted, but I will give one where I thought just above -150 was the proper going rate, which means you might be able to find value in the market if you shop around.
Consider this another major where I am higher than most on Maverick McNealy. His lack of high-end finishes continues to keep his price in check, but six straight majors of posting a top-40 finish, including what should have been three top-20s in a row if it weren't for his weekend collapse at the U.S. Open after sitting within the top-10 after the cut, is looming large for me in all iterations of my model.
As Kyle said on our Action Network show, injury reports in golf have a long way to go. I don't know what is going on with Brooks Koepka and his hand injury, but what I do know is that the markets decided to focus more on Koepka's historical pedigree in majors and ignore the trending form and buzz around what might be wrong with his hand.
I am going to try to create safety at this volatile tournament by backing a top-40 machine and hope it comes with one of Koepka's recent volatile showings. That does mean there is increased upside for him to put the pieces together for a top finish, but any of the negative buzz isn't being baked into the totals here.
