The 2023 Open Championship tees off Thursday at Royal Liverpool, and Rory McIlroy will have high hopes -- and a ton of pressure on him -- to break a long major drought. The Northern Irishman enters the PGA Tour season's final major championship off the back of a thrilling victory at last week's Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club.
McIlroy also won the 2014 Open Championship, the most recent of a dozen British Opens played at Royal Liverpool. He won the PGA Championship three weeks later for his fourth career major title. He has yet to win another one but has 19 top-10 major finishes since then, including six of the past seven. That includes a runner-up finish to Wyndham Clark at the U.S. Open a month ago, and he finished second to Cameron Smith in last year's Open Championship at St. Andrews.
Caesars Sportsbook lists McIlroy as the 21-4 favorite in its latest 2023 Open Championship odds. Scottie Scheffler, the top-ranked golfer in the world, is priced at 15-2 while Masters winner Jon Rahm and Rickie Fowler are priced at 12-1. Smith, Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood are 15-1, and 2023 PGA champion Brooks Koepka is 18-1 in the Open Championship odds 2023.
U.S. Open champion Clark (50-1) will be joined by past British Open champions like Collin Morikawa (28-1), Shane Lowry (30-1), Jordan Spieth (30-1), Phil Mickelson (125-1) and John Daly (1500-1). Tiger Woods, the 2006 winner at Royal Liverpool, continues to recover from injury and won't play this week.
Scheffler has continued to scorch courses, but he is seeking his first major title since last year's Masters. The world's top-ranked player hasn't finished outside the top 12 in a tournament since October and just posted his seventh straight top-five last week at the Scottish Open (T-3). Scheffler is having a historic season in terms of ball striking, but his putter has let him down too often.
Eight of the past nine major champions have been in their 20's, with Koepka, 33, the only exception at this year's PGA. At the Open Championship, every winner since 2012 has ranked in the top 40 of the World Golf Rankings.
Royal Liverpool is known as one of the easier courses to host the Open Championship, but it is still a rugged test where wayward shots extract a heavy price. Its seaside location also makes it vulnerable to the wind, which is expected to come into play this week. In lieu of bad weather, the course's defense lies in the pot bunkers, gorse bushes and deep rough that are common to links golf.
McIlroy won in 2014 at 18 under, and Woods went 17 under in his 2006 victory. Woods' victory was particularly memorable in that he hit driver once all week, relying on a stinger and his long iron play to conquer Hoylake.
In this 2023 Open Championship betting guide, we'll take you through what you need to know about the rest of the field of competitors, the course itself and any projected weather considerations before diving into SportsLine's full slate of expert picks for the event. That includes outright winners with top longshot plays, as well as first-round leader, matchup and finishing position best bets.
You'll also find our projected leaderboard, One and Done picks, DFS picks and Fantasy rankings from our stable of experts, including Mike McClure, Sia Nejad, Eric Cohen, Patrick McDonald and Jim Holliman.
2023 Open Championship full picks: Model | Fantasy | DFS | Nejad | McDonald | One and done
So, which players are our experts backing in fantasy golf and betting for the 2023 Open Championship? Who should you be counting on to cash in on outrights, head-to-head matchups and finishing-position wagers? ... Join SportsLine right now to see the best bets and analysis from SportsLine's top experts for the 2023 Open Championship!
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