What constitutes a ‘longshot?’ Longshot and ‘sleeper’ are always tricky, especially when trying to cater to those among us who follow the professional game so closely. It’s unlikely that I can deliver on names that are foreign to you, but for the sake of this exercise, I’ll focus on golfers who are down the odds board, hovering around triple-digits in the outright market.
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The Champion Golfer of the Year title could absolutely go to one of these players–it just takes some weather variance and good ole links luck of the draw to catapult up the leader board. These players could do it at Royal Portrush.
This article was published in partnership with Betsperts Golf, one of the leading data-analyzing tools in the industry. The Rabbit Hole is a tool that allows users to utilize strokes-gained stats and any other metric from the PGA Tour for their own modeling purposes.
Golf Digest readers can get access to Betsperts’ leading data tool, the Rabbit Hole, for just $5 this week by using the promo code GDWEEKLY. Now’s a great time to use it—so you can cash your British Open bets with some advanced stats!
British Open 2025: 3 longshot bets (plus other markets) Hideki Matsuyama (90-1)
Winston Churchill once famously said that Hideki Matsuyama is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma.”
(My editors are saying that Churchill wasn’t referencing Matsuyama when he said it, but the quote still applies.)
Matsuyama is one of the more challenging handicaps each week, at least relative to the other elite golfers on the planet, a category in which I still believe he belongs.
While his recent form isn’t something that’ll catch your eye at first, we’ve seen Matsuyama thrive on courses that demand similar skills to Royal Portrush. Wins at TPC Southwind, Waialae and Accordia Golf Narashino all jump to mind. Courses where there’s a premium put into accuracy off the tee, that feature smaller greens and increase the value of Matsuyama’s short game. Now, accuracy off the tee has been the main issue for Hideki for much of 2025, but I believe we’ll see a lot of the field club down to ensure they stay in the fairways this week, which is good news for Matsuyama.
I used Betsperts Golf’s Rabbit Hole to look at who’s performed best tee-to-green (last 50 rounds/two years) when club selection was mixed off the tee and there’s a high rough and missed fairway penalty, and Matsuyama came out among the top six in this week’s field. This price is simply too long, and I’d play it down to 60-1.
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Our partner Keith Stewart, CEO of Read the Line, joined the crew from Five Clubs on Golf Channel for a special Open Championship betting episode. Watch the full show here.
Nick Taylor (175-1)
Another previous winner at Waialae Country Club, Canada’s Nick Taylor is playing the best golf of his career right now. Taylor has finished inside the top 23 in seven of his past eight starts, a run that includes two major championships and three signature events. He’s up year-over-year in every strokes-gained metric, and his recent run of strong approach play rivals the elite golfers in this week’s field.
It appears that he’s intentionally sacrificed distance off the tee to improve his accuracy, which is what I’m looking for this week at Royal Portrush. Over his past 50 rounds played, Taylor ranks 14th in distance from the edge of the fairway, a far superior stat to the binary results of driving accuracy, which is just a yes or no answer to the question, ‘did the ball land in the fairway?’ Distance from the edge of the fairway does a better job of displaying accuracy over a larger sample.
His outright viability might not be for everyone, but Taylor has won an event each of the past three seasons, and each of them, while not signature event status, has come against an above-average field. He’s also available at nearly 4-1 to finish inside the top 20.
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Andrew Novak (200-1)
Despite stepping up in weight class this season, we’ve seen Andrew Novak hold his own against the toughest fields. Almost all of his best finishes this season have come in signature events, and the others have come on tracks that demand similar things to what I expect from Royal Portrush this week.
A T-3 finish at the Farmers earned him a spot against the world’s best at Pebble Beach, where he responded with a T-13. He posted another T-13 at Torrey Pines South, this time against a much stronger Genesis Invitational field. Then came his April run. A T-3 at TPC San Antonio, followed up by a playoff loss to Justin Thomas at Harbour Town and then cracking the code the following week alongside Ben Griffin in Louisiana.
Novak has slowed a little bit, but he’s continued to play well against tough fields (T-17 at the Truist) and on courses that demand accuracy off the tee (T-11 at Colonial). His short game, on and around the greens, is also a strength. If he’s able to spike with his approach play, he’s very interesting at 11-1 in the Top Debutant markets.
Golf Digest readers can get access to Betsperts’ leading data tool, the Rabbit Hole, for just $5 this week by using the promo code GDWEEKLY. Now’s a great time to use it—so you can win your British Open bets with some advanced stats!
More British Open preview coverage 
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
