U.S. Open Golf Betting Trends: Four Picks to Win at LACC in 2023
Follow along as PGA DFS & betting expert Derek Farnsworth walks you through 2023 US Open golf betting trends to narrow down a foursome of possible picks for this week’s major at Los Angeles Country Club.
2023 U.S. Open Betting Trends Preview
The year’s third major, the 2023 U.S. Open, is upon us and I can’t remember another major where there’s been more buzz about the golf course.
After I got my little one to bed last night, I was thinking about what to do before I dozed off myself. I could finish Ted Lasso, I could finally get around to watching the movie Air, I could finish the book that I started weeks ago, or I could watch videos on Los Angeles Country Club. I think you know where I am heading with this one. I have already watched the hole-by-hole fly-over videos on the U.S. Open website, the Fried Egg course preview on YouTube, and a match at LACC between the No Laying Up crew on YouTube.
It’s safe to say that I have fallen in love with the golf course, and the tournament hasn’t even started yet. Now, the purpose of this article isn’t to rave about the course or even to give you the specifics of the course. The purpose is to use trends from past U.S. Opens to help us identify the winner of this U.S. Open. I’m a big believer that trends are made to be broken and that they shouldn’t be the only part of our analysis, but they are fun to sift through and often leave us with a good list of golfers to bet on potentially. The Masters betting trends article earlier this year narrowed it down to four golfers, and one happened to be Jon Rahm. This isn’t a victory lap given the fact that he was one of the favorites, but hey, at least he was one of the finalists.
The big difference between the Masters and the U.S. Open is that the latter is held at a different venue every year. It’s harder to find reliable trends when the data from the course changes each year, but the USGA does tend to set up their events similarly to one another. The other tricky part of the equation is that the LIV golfers don’t have any statistics from this season outside of the two majors. Regardless, this is supposed to be a fun exercise and if it helps us spot a winner or it helps you narrow down your list of potential bets, it was worth it. You can check out my full US Open golf betting card at ScoresAndOdds.
And as always, if you don’t live in a state with legal sports betting, you can still get in on the U.S. Open action via DFS Pick’em and our PrizePicks promo code GRINDERS. You can also get in on the Best Ball action with our Underdog promo code.
U.S. Open Golf Betting Trends
- Seven of the last eight winners were in the top 20 of strokes gained tee to green in the year they won
- Seven of the last eight winners were in the top 15 of strokes gained total in the year they won
- Each of the last 10 winners had a previous top 25 at the U.S. Open
- Each of the last eight winners finished in the top 15 of their previous major
- The last 10 winners averaged 1.92 strokes gained total per round the three months leading up to the event
Let’s dive right in!
Trend #1 – Top 20 in Strokes Gained Tee to Green
I will start with this trend because it will immediately cut our list of golfers from 150 to 20. Seven of the last eight winners were in the top 20 of strokes gained tee to green in the year that they won the U.S. Open. This makes a lot of sense. This event is typically very demanding off the tee, on approach shots, and around the greens. Golfers that haven’t been very good tee-to-green are unlikely to “find it” the week of the U.S. Open. Here are some of the big names that aren’t currently in the top 20 of strokes gained tee to green this season:
- Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth, Cameron Young, and Matt Fitzpatrick
Trend #2 – Top 15 in Strokes Gained Total
There is going to be a lot of overlap between the first and second trends, but this does help us narrow down our list a little bit. Being in good form is obviously key, as we don’t see many surprise winners at the U.S. Open. You could say that Matt Fitzpatrick and Gary Woodland were surprises, but both were having excellent seasons before claiming their first major titles. Out of the 20 golfers remaining from the first trend, here are the names that are currently outside of the top 15 in strokes gained total:
- Si Woo Kim, Justin Thomas, Shane Lowry, Corey Conners, and Sungjae Im
Trend #3 – Previous Top 25 at the U.S. Open
Even though the venue changes each year, there is a lot of correlation between finishes year-to-year at the U.S. Open. Each of the last 10 winners had a top-25 finish at a previous U.S. Open. Of the 14 golfers that remain on our betting list, only one doesn’t have a previous top 25 at the U.S. Open:
- Max Homa
Trend #4 – Top 15 at the previous major
We have officially narrowed down our list to 14 golfers — Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Tyrrell Hatton, Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, and Justin Rose.
The last trend didn’t narrow down the list as much as I had hoped, so let’s hope this one will do the trick. Each of the last eight winners finished in the top 15 of their previous major. All 14 of the golfers listed above played in the PGA Championship last month and only six of them posted a top-15 finish at Oak Hill. Here are the names that did not make the cut (in terms of the trend) this time around:
- Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood, Tony Finau, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, and Collin Morikawa
Trend #5 – Averaged at least 1.92 strokes gained total
We are officially down to our final six — Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland, and Justin Rose. Now, I will mention that Brooks Koepka fits all of the criteria if you want to include his statistics from the first two majors. He doesn’t have enough rounds to qualify for the official stat rankings on the PGA Tour, but he does check all of the boxes that we are looking for. For our purposes, we will leave him out, but know that he’s certainly live to win again this week.
As for this trend, the last 10 winners averaged at least 1.92 strokes gained total per round the three months leading up to the event. This isn’t too different from the other strokes gained total trend that we looked at, but this one is specifically for the last three months of play. This emphasizes the importance of good form heading into the U.S. Open. Now, this trend is an average, but we’ll use the 1.92 strokes gained per round as our cut-off point in order to narrow down our list.
Here are the strokes gained per round over the last three months for our final six golfers:
- Scottie Scheffler +2.79
- Tyrrell Hatton +2.14
- Patrick Cantlay +1.96
- Viktor Hovland +1.94
- Justin Rose +1.75
- Rory McIlroy +1.56
2023 U.S. Open Betting Trend Finalists
Just like the Masters’ trends piece, we have narrowed it down to four possible selections for the U.S. Open.
- Scottie Scheffler +700 (DraftKings)
- Patrick Cantlay +1700 (FanDuel)
- Viktor Hovland +1700 (FanDuel)
- Tyrrell Hatton +3500 (PointsBet)
This doesn’t mean that you have to bet on all or any of these golfers (I’m likely betting one or two of them), but they do fit all of the trends that I picked out from prior U.S. Open winners. I hope this was a fun and easy read heading into one of the year’s best events. Good luck with your bets this week and make sure to check out all of our great premium content for DFS as well as my final betting card, which can be found at ScoresAndOdds.com