Why these 9 Golfers can win the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush 💪

CBS Golf analyst Patrick McDonald joins CBS Sports HQ with 9 golfers he believes can realistically, win the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

(0:00:00) Xander Schauffele
(0:02:20) Scottie Scheffler & Rory McIlroy
(0:04:14) John Rahm & Tyrell Hatton
(0:07:16) Ludvig Åberg, Viktor Hovland, Matthew Fitzpatrick & Adam Scott

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Just hours away now from the start of the open championship. Scotty Sheffller the plus450 favorite though he has not won on a link style course. Rory Mroy at his home course Royal Port Rush a 7 to1 favorite. And then we have John Ram at 12 to1 and everybody else 20 to1 or more including Bryson Dambo. Let’s get Patrick McDonald in here who just wrote an article that dropped on CBSports.com listing the nine golfers who can realistically win this thing. And we’ll start with Xander Schoffley who hasn’t won a tournament since he won the Open Championship a year ago, but just a year ago proved that he can win at a place like this. Why do you think he could do it again? Well, you look at Xander Schoffley major championships, Chris, and it seems like he is there on Sunday on the first or second page of the leaderboard just about every single time. The CBS Sports Research team, they put together a stat since World War II. Xander Schoffley has the second most top 25 finishes in his first 33 major championship starts. He has 26 of them, which is an absolutely bonkers number. And you look at his statistics this year, why is Xander Schoffley not winning? And I think a lot of people look at the driver. I I think the driver numbers are actually kind of skewed negatively. Remember, he came back from that injury in the state of Florida. He leads the PGA tour unfortunately in the stat uh most water balls off the tea. He put a new driver in the bag when he first came back too. A lot of variables then, but the driver’s gotten a lot better. The iron play was terrific there last week at the Scottish Open. Led the field in terms of strokes gain approach. And if he can just make putts, Xander Schoffley will be a factor in this major championship. He’s going through the worst putting season of his career. But I think he’s going to take to these Royal Port Rush Greens, which aren’t your typical Lynx golf greens when it comes to an open championship test. For the remaining eight golfers who you say have a realistic shot to win it, we’re going to kind of group them or tier them, so to speak. This next tier is the Well, yeah. No bleep and bleep. Okay. Sheffller and Rory have a chance to win this. Convince us that that is the case, Mr. McDonald. I know I really went out on a limb here. If I wanted to get the clicks, Chris, I probably should have omitted them if I’m being honest. But you look at what Sheffller has done the last handful of years. He has the lowest score in relation to par in major championship history. People say his Lynx golf record isn’t great. Well, he has four top 25 finishes in four open appearances. He ranks fourth in terms of score cumulative par in open championship history. I think for Sheffller, this championship is going to come down to two things. One, it is that putter because he has not putted well in Scotland, in the UK throughout his career. He’s never gain strokes putting on a Lynx golf course. And two, what is going to happen in between the ears when he gets a bad break, when there’s a little bit of misfortune for Scotty Sheffler? cuz he’s someone who really prides himself on golf courses that reward good shots and penalizes poor ones. But Royal Port Rush is a little bit of an unorthodox lynx golf course where I actually think it suits Scotty Sheffler. These greens are pretty undulated and I think that’s going to help Scotty Sheffller on the greens. And as for Rory Mroy, we all know what happened in 2019, the opening quadruple, the opening 79, but the battle back in the fight, the resilience he showed on that Friday trying to make the cut. His game’s in good enough shape. I think the mentals are in good enough shape, too. Chris, we talked about that last week. Rory seems to be confident when he’s poking fun at someone. Whether if that’s healthy or not is a completely different conversation, but he pokes fun at the PG of America. Poked fun at some media members earlier this week, too. My question for Rory though, Chris, is that driver? He struggles in left to right wins in particular. I don’t think you need a ton of drivers this week, but the rest of the green uh rest of the game fairway in looks really sharp for Mroy. His punching bag used to be the folks over at Liv and Liv Golf has not had a major championship this season. Got to go back to to last year for that. But you have two guys from Liv who can win this week. Who are they? I do. Legion 13 teammates. Wouldn’t that be a a great feat for that young franchise? Would uh would really push them up into the upper echelon. But I have John Rom of course in Turl Hatton. John Rom is a tremendous length golf player. He’s won the Irish Open before. He’s won twice in this part of the world. He’s playing great golf. We’ve seen him factor in I would say his last five biggest tournaments, the last four major championships and the Olympics. Remember, John Rom had a five-stroke lead with 10 holes to go in the Olympics before squandering a chance not only at the gold but at even podium. And so I think Rahm is rearing and ready to go. He hit the ball so well at Oakmont. I was so impressed with his game. Just did not get anything to fall on the greens. So all this chatter about Scotty Shuffler, I think Rahm takes that personally. Almost a forgotten man at 12 to1. And then Turtle Hatton was my preseason pick over the winter. So I got to stick to my morals here. factored at Oakmont before that bogey bogey finish to drop to a T4. Great links pedigree as well. He’s won the Alfred Dunhill links three times on the DP World Tour. Finished T6 here in 2019. So Hatton at 33 to1. I think some great value and is the quote unquote official pick to win the open. Quickly, I think this is just an obvious question. Why not Bryson Dashambo? Why don’t you think he can win this week? You know, you look at Bryson’s game and it’s very robotic, very numbers driven, and there’s some creativity that’s required around Lynx golf. His record in this championship is not good. His lone top 10 came at a benign St. Andrews. You’re not going to get benign conditions this week. And so, I think it’s unfortunately too many variables for him to calculate. His punching bag used to be the folks over at Liv and Livolf has not had a major championship this season. Got to go back to to last year for that. But you have two guys from Liv who can win this week. Who are they? I do. Legion 13 teammates. Wouldn’t that be a great feat for that young franchise? Would really push them up into the upper echelon. But I have John Rom of course in Turl Hatton. John Rom is a tremendous Lynx golf player. He’s won the Irish Open before. He’s won twice in this part of the world. He’s playing great golf. We’ve seen him factor in, I would say, his last five biggest tournaments, the last four major championships and the Olympics. Remember, John Rom had a five-stroke lead with 10 holes to go in the Olympics before squandering a chance, not only at the gold, but at even podium. And so, I think Rahm is rearing and ready to go. He hit the ball so well at Oakmont, I was so impressed with his game, just to not get anything to fall on the greens. So, all this chatter about Scotty Sheffler, I think Rahm takes that personally. Almost a forgotten man at 12 to1. And then Terrell Hatton was my preseason pick over the winter. So, I got to stick to my morals here. factored at Oakmont before that bogey bogey finish to drop to a T4. Great links pedigree as well. He’s won the Alfred Dunhill links three times on the DP World Tour. Finished T6 here in 2019. So Hatton at 33 to1. I think some great value and is the quote unquote official pick to win the Open. Quickly, I think this is just an obvious question. Why not Bryson Dashambo? Why don’t you think he can win this week? You know, you look at Bryson’s game and it’s very robotic, very numbers driven, and there’s some creativity that’s required around Lynx golf. His record in this championship is not good. His lone top 10 came at a benign St. Andrews. You’re not going to get benign conditions this week, and so I think it’s unfortunately too many variables for him to calculate. Okay, one more tier, two more players who you believe can win it, and they are one-time major winners, though one has waited a lot longer for his latest. Yeah, it’s Matt Fitzpatrick and Adam Scott for me. Adam Scott’s lynx golf record is unbelievable. He probably should have a Clair Jug when you think about 2012, that loss to Ernie Ells at Royal Rhythm and St. Ans making bogey on those final four holes. But of course, he bounced back the next year and won his Mast’s title. But he has nine top 25s in his last 13 open championships. A quiet top 10 in last year’s championship as well. And it’s a misleading T12 at the US Open. We know he was in that final group alongside Sam Burns. didn’t go his way, but he’s continued to play some very good golf. Had a top 20 there at the Scottish Open. And these two just are professional golfers. And I say that in the sense of they know the exact shot, when to play it, exactly how to play it at the exact right moment. And Fitzpatrick, you looked at his trend really ever since the PGA Championship. He was a bit of a surprise there at Quill Hollow and it was like, “Oh yeah, remember this guy, the 2022 US Open champion? He still has some game.” And the trend has just been going up and up and up. A nice finish there at the Travelers. Contended at the Rocket and again again at the Scottish Open. His Lynx golf record or should I say his open championship record not great. Only one top 20. Luckily that did come here in 2019. But he’s won the Alfred Dunhill links as well. He’s a major champion and he’s just trending towards the top of his game right now at the exact right moment. Yeah, he was one of our picks from our early edge crew earlier this week around 50 to1 to win this tournament. Pretty uh pretty good value there for a guy who has won a major before. Patrick McDonald with the nine players who could win this week’s open championship, including the man you see right there, Scotty Sheffller, the favorite. We will have highlights of the open championship each and every night here on HQ. We hit every highlight.