We’ve hit the go button on our FRACAS model and it has revealed which players have the best chance to win, make the cut, finish in the top 10 and more at Royal Troon. Let’s take a closer look at the Open predictions.
Every couple of minutes, Rory McIlroy’s quest for a fifth major championship alternates between airs of inevitability and impossibility.
McIlroy has not won one of golf’s biggest individual prizes since 2014, but nobody has been more frequently in the mix. In the last three seasons, he has three solo second-place major finishes and another third-place effort in which he led the Open Championship on the final nine holes.
Players who contend as often as McIlroy tend to eventually get over the hump. But when McIlroy missed two putts from inside 4 feet in the final three holes of the U.S. Open to lose by a shot to Bryson DeChambeau, it was quite easy to tell oneself it would never happen now. (I did!)
Of course, golf isn’t that black and white. McIlroy could continue to fall agonizingly short in these big moments. But he is likely to keep getting looks because of the stellar baseline of his play, and this week’s Open at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland is yet another chance for McIlroy to do the job.
McIlroy, who finished tied for fourth in the Genesis Scottish Open last week, played well at the Open rota’s last spin through Troon in 2016 and tied for fifth at 4-under par. He did not exactly “contend” because champion Henrik Stenson (-20) and Phil Mickelson (-17) finished 11 shots clear of anyone else.
However, McIlroy’s form and history suggest he can make a run at the Claret Jug this week.
Our projections also suggest that – among the many, many majors that have looked good for McIlroy on paper – this week at Troon holds up as an excellent opportunity.
How Likely Is a Rory McIlroy Win at the British Open?
Our FRACAS model, a combination of course-adjusted strokes gained and field rating, is more bullish on McIlroy at Troon than it was for any of the year’s first three majors.
FRACAS gave McIlroy a 3.71% chance at the Masters, a 3.82% chance at the PGA Championship, and a 6.2% chance at that doomed U.S. Open. In all cases, McIlroy was No. 3 or No. 4 on the FRACAS pre-tournament board.
This week, the model is a much bigger believer in the Northern Irishman, and that’s reflected in its Open Championship picks. Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Tony Finau, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton, Sungjae Im, Patrick Cantlay and Hideki Matsuyama also rank in the top 10 in projected win probability.
The tournament favorite is unsurprisingly Scheffler, who has remained dominant despite falling out of contention at the PGA and not playing well at the U.S. Open.
Brian Harman, the 2023 Open champion at Royal Liverpool by six strokes over a runner-up contingent of Sepp Straka, Jason Day, Tom Kim and Jon Rahm, has the 13th-best chance of winning again (1.7%). England’s Tommy Fleetwood is 16th with a 1.3% win probability.
But McIlroy has considerably better shot than he did in the year’s other majors.
The Case for a Big Week From Rory
The short version: He’s playing really well, and the course suits him.
The longer version: McIlroy is one of the longest hitters in the world, and Troon looks like it will favor his style of golf at the margins. The course’s most famous hole is the 123-yard, par-3 eighth, with the tiny green known as “the Postage Stamp.” The hole is a blast because of the tiny landing area golfers must hit to prevent the ball from rolling into a brutal bunker.
But the fame of the Postage Stamp belies that Troon, for the most part, is a distance test. It will play at just under 7,400 yards, which is a touch shorter than Augusta National Golf Club and U.S. Open site Pinehurst No. 2 but still a meaty, major-worthy length.
It’s not just the total yardage, but how the course arranges itself. The course is loaded with long par-4s (of more than 449 yards), which tend to be the strongest separators between elite drivers and ball-strikers and everybody else.
Those include all of the par-4s on the back nine. On those longer par-4s, FRACAS expects McIlroy to gain 0.20 strokes on the Open Championship field on those that score easier to par (by far the best in the field) and 0.24 on the long par-4s where the field scores higher (second behind Scheffler).
It always helps to hit the ball farther than everyone else. And it especially should help McIlroy at Troon. He leads the PGA Tour in driving distance at about 319 yards. He’s just 25th in strokes gained on approach, though.
The difference between contention and victory may come down the sharpness of McIlroy’s irons. That was the case at the U.S. Open, where McIlroy’s short missed putts in the final round were the story, but a relatively mediocre iron week on and off the fairway was a more consistent setback.
The Open Predictions: Who Else Looks Good at Royal Troon?
Scottie Scheffler, No. 1 in our FRACAS world rankings, commands attention any time he picks up a club and he’ll be one of the best bets to win once again. He has impressive FRACAS Open Championship odds with a 73.5% probability of a top-10 finish.
LIV golfer Bryson DeChambeau has all of McIlroy’s distance and hasn’t finished worse than second in the last two majors. In case you’re wondering, Tiger Woods has a 29.9% chance of making the cut and a 1.54% chance (120th in the field) of putting together a top-20 finish.
All of the world’s most elite players have their own reasonable cases to be in the mix as the week progresses, but the FRACAS model is intrigued by a few players in particular – perhaps more than the average sportsbook, sports betting market or expert picks.
Keegan Bradley, fresh off his appointment as Team USA’s 2025 Ryder Cup captain, is no longshot as he looks like an especially strong course fit at Troon. FRACAS expects Bradley to gain 0.15 more strokes on the field per round than he would on a standard PGA Tour setup.
Other players FRACAS believes will get at least a 0.1-stroke benefit per round include Scheffler, Tony Finau, Viktor Hovland, Brooks Koepka and Hideki Matsuyama. (For his part, McIlroy gains .05 strokes per round over his baseline.)
You may notice a theme there: All of those players are among the best tee-to-green players on Earth. The Masters is the major that usually subjects players to the most rigid putting test.
The 152nd Open at Royal Troon may not quite be a U.S. Open test of mashing, but it will not be a tournament in which finesse alone provides a major advantage.
Be sure to check out our MLB, NBA, NFL, college football and golf coverage. And follow us on X and Instagram for more!