As Major League Baseball breaks for the Midsummer Classic this week in Atlanta, it is a great reminder, as the song goes, to “root, root, root for the home team” this week at the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush, Northern Ireland.
Hometown hero Rory McIlroy (+200) is the favorite in the Top U.K. and Ireland nationally prop bet section at DraftKings Sportsbook, a market that spans 29 players out of the 156-man field. The Holywood, Northern Ireland native, returns in form after a close call at the Genesis Scottish Open and as a gallery icon. With the Masters title and career Grand Slam secured, he can let it rip without remorse and repay the home crowd for missing the weekend by a shot in 2019.
Rory McIlroy’s remarkable year and Royal Portrush homecoming
Shane Lowry (+700) is the last man to win on the Dunluce Links of Royal Portrush. Winning by six shots in 2019, the Irishman blew through rain, wind, and the field on the weekend and secured his first major championship. The lack of recent results for the Irishman will push investors to England’s Tommy Fleetwood (+600) or Tyrrell Hatton (+700). Both players will have the thought of winning a first major championship at the front of their minds if they are in contention on the weekend, but I still think McIlroy deserves to be the chalk pick in the U.K. and Ireland prop.
Swerving Fleetwood and Hatton for Top English finisher, I’m all-in on Matt Fitzpatrick (+600). The flicker began with T8 at the PGA Championship, his first top-10 payday of 2025 on TOUR. Entering the week on seven consecutive weekends, the fire is fully ablaze during a three-event run of T17, T8, and T4 last week. Harry Hall (+1000) and his red-hot recent results make for an excellent outsider who needs further inspection. The 27-year-old has produced seven consecutive results of T25 or better, including T19 at the PGA Championship at his second career major championship.
Shifting to the seniors, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington (+200), twice a winner of this event, including back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008, is my choice to win this six-man market of players over 50. The grinder, who made the cut last week in Scotland, has cashed in three of his previous four visits to The Open Championship. Phil Mickelson (+260), a winner in 2013 who has missed the cut in all three majors this season, cashed at Royal Troon in 2024, his first visit to the weekend since 2018. Neither Harrington nor Mickelson advanced to the weekend in 2019, but Harrington is especially seasoned to handle the elements. Stewart Cink (+300), who did not play the event in 2019, has produced nine top-10 paydays from 12 PGA TOUR Champions events, but has not played a TOUR event this season. Northern Irishman Darren Clarke (+850) would be the best story, but he has qualified for the weekend just once, T75 in 2024, in his last eight tries.
Canadian Taylor Pendrith (+400) caught my eye in the Top 20 market. Entering the week, he’s cashed in 15 of 19 this season, including the last seven events he’s entered. Cashing T5 at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow and T9 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a Signature Event last February, are the highlights. Making his debut at The Open, he tuned up with a T13 at the Genesis Scottish Open and finished the week T7 Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, matching his season-long ranking.
Swinging to the veteran side of the top-20 market, it is hard to ignore Justin Rose (+280) after closing with 63 at The Renaissance Club for solo sixth, converging with T2 at the 2024 edition at Royal Troon. Debutant Kristoffer Reitan (+750) is churning his way up the Official World Golf Ranking after an excellent few months on the DP World Tour. The last six weeks for the Norwegian produced a win at the Soudal Open, a T2, a T4, and a pair of T13 results. Last week at the Genesis Scottish Open, he ranked ninth in SG: Tee to Green and was fourth in Proximity and earned T13 money.
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