Ben Coley is +50pts with an ROI of more than 100% for the last two Ryder Cups. Get his exclusive verdict on the 2025 renewal, under way on Friday.
Golf betting tips: Ryder Cup
5pts USA to lead after every day and win the Ryder Cup at 3/1 (General)
5pts Scottie Scheffler to be the top USA scorer at 7/2 (General)
3pts Scottie Scheffler to be the top overall scorer at 6/1 (General)
2pts accumulator on all Scheffler matches (to be settled at general prices)
1.5pts Viktor Hovland to be the top European scorer at 11/1 (Sky Bet)
1pt Viktor Hovland to be the top overall scorer at 22/1 (General)
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It's sometimes said that the Ryder Cup isn't a great betting event and there are elements of truth to this. A large part of golf's appeal as a betting medium is surely the opportunity to land a winner at odds any other sport would consider enormous, whereas in pure outcome terms the underdog here will be no bigger than 2/1. Unless you're betting the draw, prices are naturally short.
However, what it does allow for is intuition, guesswork even, and the idea that you might interpret things better or at least differently than a bookmaker. As I see it, there are several opportunities to speculate, to try to arrange pieces of the puzzle as a captain might, and therein lies a unique challenge. There's also some comfort in regarding this as an event where the betting is supplementary to the action, rather than key to it.
First though, let's address the most fundamental question: who is going to win the Ryder Cup? My answer to it is, I'm afraid, the UNITED STATES, though on this I will gladly be wrong.
I will say that they have tried their best to sabotage what are exceptional credentials. Allowing a Netflix documentary to influence the Ryder Cup was a laughably stupid thing to do and, in a cruel twist, it might just have robbed Keegan Bradley of what would've been a dream playing opportunity. Instead, a world-class golfer will captain a side who might have looked even stronger favourites with him in it.
But I doubt it will matter. Bradley's selfless, shrewd decision to commit to captaincy rather than a dual role should have a positive effect on a squad desperate, surely, to deliver for him, knowing how sad it would be were this to all go wrong. Otherwise, there has been no drama at all around selection, which wasn't the case in Rome, and the right players are here for him. All of them are world-class and the weakest of them arrive in career-best form or something close to it.
It will be said that the United States have always had the stronger side yet so often fail to deliver, but there's a mythic element to this. Yes, they were humiliated at Oakland Hills under Hal Sutton's calamitous leadership, but since then they've won at home in 2008, 2016 and 2021, latterly by a record margin. It has taken something astonishing, henceforth labelled the Miracle at Medinah, to beat them on home soil.
Since Sutton's botched attempt, Zach Johnson has been the worst US captain. From the run-up to selection to selection itself, onwards to the way he allowed his team to prepare and the pairings he made for the very first session, it's hard to think of a single thing he got right. In fact, I would even argue that the decision to select a badly out of form Justin Thomas was in the end the easiest to justify.
That performance should have no bearing on expectations here at Bethpage and, in mandating appearance in the Fortinet Championship two weeks ago, won by his star man ahead of one of his rookies, Bradley has already surpassed Johnson's leadership. This squad is better prepared, it has upgraded its sole LIV Golf player without any controversy, and its star man Scottie Scheffler is better than ever.
More on Scheffler later, but it's also worth saying that there are some nagging concerns over the best European players versus two years ago.
McIlroy was a brilliant winner of the Irish Open and remains the second-best player in the sport, but Jon Rahm has definitely been a notch below where he was in 2023, when he arrived in Italy as the Masters champion, and so has his LIV teammate Tyrrell Hatton. Back then, Viktor Hovland had just won the FedExCup and was arguably the best if not second-best player in the world, a level he's yet to return to.
ALSO READ: RYDER CUP HISTORICAL STATS AND RECENT TRENDS
While Robert MacIntyre is a more qualified version of the rookie who went unbeaten, his approach play lately has been very poor. Justin Rose, Ludvig Aberg, Hovland, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry all underwhelmed at Wentworth, where sole rookie Rasmus Hojgaard was exceptionally bad. Sepp Straka, last seen finishing 30th of 30 at East Lake, did not take part in the event.
Some of these questions could also be levelled at some US stalwarts, the likes of Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas, but my sense is that most if not all of the things that were in Europe's favour in Rome no longer apply.
There they had prepared perfectly; their opponents had not. They had home advantage; their opponents didn't know the course. They faced a hopeless captain whose misery was compounded by a bug which hit the side midweek. Despite this, for a time on Sunday the Ryder Cup got somewhat close. And while the winning margin was wide, all of the damage was done on Friday. Thereafter, the scores were tied.
Winning here, in New York, would be an achievement on an altogether different scale for Europe. It is not beyond them, and Luke Donald will get most things right regardless of the outcome. That we can trust him to do so, that he is blessed with three of the finest players Europe has ever produced and another few who certainly qualify as elite, that they've almost the same team, suggests they won't roll over. But I do believe they'll be handing over the Ryder Cup.
Based on the above, USA to win by 1-3 points is a reasonable option, but my favourite bet is USA TO LEAD AFTER DAYS 1, 2 AND 3 at around 3/1. You can find this labelled 'Lead After Day 1 - Lead After Day 2 - Final Result' with and , under 'Exact Result' with , with other firms hopefully set to follow suit or else provide it on request. Fitzdares go 9/4.
In each of the last five renewals, the home side has delivered a winning front-running performance in this market. It will be very difficult for Europe to play catch-up in New York, but I'd also wonder if the crowd could turn on the hosts if they start poorly. In other words, if the USA do win, it's likely on the shoulders of a strong first day. This is the best way to get the favourites on-side at a nice price.
Top United States scorer
The more I look at this market, the stronger the case for SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER becomes.
First and foremost, he is of course the world number one, the best and most prolific player in the sport. The best golfer we have seen since Tiger Woods, and that includes career grand slam-winning Rory McIlroy. Scheffler continues to defy belief and as someone put it on social media recently, if we're not allowed to draw comparisons with Woods yet, when exactly will we be?
Now, some will point to Woods as the cautionary note here and it's undeniably true that his Ryder Cup record was poor: just 39.2% of potential points won, 21 losses to 13 wins and, perhaps most remarkably, only one victory to his name. That came in 1999 which means he spent the best part of the next 20 years on losing sides, latterly in Paris, but also in humiliating defeats at Medinah and Oakland Hills.
I think things are different now, though. Those US crisis years are over and they are strong and worthy favourites. While I feel they've arrived at the wrong captain for the wrong reasons, they do appear to be a more cohesive, balanced unit, one with a bit of a point to prove after defeat in Rome. New York should represent the very essence of home advantage and they'll be hard to beat.
Scheffler, who has faced a standout European player in Rahm in both singles matches without yet suffering defeat, is going to be key to their chances and as I look at this strong US team, what's striking is that the question marks that exist relate more to the other established players within it. I find it hard to nominate any other obvious candidate to play all five sessions.
Bryson DeChambeau is second-favourite at as short as 5/1 in places but there must be a chance he doesn't play foursomes at all. I'd go as far as saying that would all but eliminate his prospects of winning this market and if I'm right about him sitting out the first session before being unleashed in the afternoon, between now and the start of the Ryder Cup that 5/1 is going to drift significantly.
Patrick Cantlay didn't prepare well and his partner Xander Schauffele didn't make the TOUR Championship, so has been absent for a long time having skipped the Procore. They are still a strong pairing on paper and have the potential to fire, but the chance of them playing four matches together is slimmer here than it appeared prior to Rome.
Neither is at their absolute best and although Schauffele's standing in the game has been elevated by those two major wins last year, he's been a long way below that level ever since he got his hands on the Claret Jug more than 12 months ago.
Collin Morikawa's short-game woes continued when last we saw him and Justin Thomas is both a slight foursomes doubt and not playing as well as he was in the spring. All this means that the form players on the USA team are rookies like Russell Henley, Ben Griffin, Cam Young and JJ Spaun, and it could be that one of them enjoys a dream debut, becoming the biggest threat to Scheffler in this market.
Scheffler though is guaranteed to kick things off for the US and it'll be alongside the in-form, reliable Henley, with whom he played well at the Presidents Cup. Should they win and keep winning, while Henley might sit out a session, it would be extremely risky to ask Scheffler to. Then, once it comes to the singles, he would be favourite regardless of his opponent.
I think there's a good chance he top-scores and goes unbeaten and 18/1 about a return of 5-0-0 is big enough to be tempting. It works out at roughly 4/5 per match, which is undoubtedly generous. The caveat is we are also predicting that he plays five matches but rather than view this as a 50-50 between four and five, the question is this: if he wins his first three matches, what odds he plays in a fourth and therefore all five?
Viewed that way the price is probably fair: the only way he loses the chance to win the bet, is if he's already lost the bet. However, there is a better if more laborious way to go about this, which is to begin with a stake of 2pts and keep betting on him to win his match in what amounts to an accumulator.
Doing it this way means a) we still win if he goes 4-0-0 (Bradley having decided to rest him on Saturday evening), b) we could even be paid out at bigger odds should he meet some difficult draws, which is certainly likely in the singles, and c) you can have the bet with every bookmaker going rather than just the few who have priced up a market on players winning five points.
It complicates things, but it's absolutely the right way to go about it, so that's what we'll do. However, for those without the time or flexibility to be placing bets between sessions, the 18/1 offered by Sky Bet, Paddy Power and Betfair rates a perfectly sporting bet.
Ordinarily, I'd advocate for taking the bigger priced player in a potential star pairing, which makes Henley of interest. On day one, session one he will score the same points as Scheffler and from there, it can be argued that at four-times the price he must be a value alternative. However, I suspect he'll sit while Scheffler stands and, combined with their respective singles prospects, that explains the disparity.
The bottom line then is that Scheffler is by far the best player and he's on home soil playing for the favourites. Rewind to 2021 and that description could be applied to Dustin Johnson, who went 5-0-0. Rory McIlroy top-scored by going 4-1-0 in Rome. Scheffler can extend the run of absolutely top-drawer top scorers so we'll have him on-side in both USA and overall markets, and we'll clean up if he does win every time he plays. Golf has felt a bit like that lately and the Ryder Cup may not be immune.
Top European scorer
The equivalent Europe market is more competitive but we know at least six of the names who will play in the opening foursomes. Chris DiMarco (2004) is the last player to top-score for either side despite sitting out the first session and things will have to go badly wrong for Europe if someone who doesn't play foursomes ends the week as their top points-scorer.
It seems reasonable to assume that Donald's plan will be similar to the one used in Rome, where these six players each played four or five matches and everyone else played three. There's a scenario in which Rasmus Hojgaard perhaps only plays two, as Thorbjorn Olesen did in 2018, but while that would mean someone else picks up an extra game, our focus should remain with the big six.
VIKTOR HOVLAND is the biggest priced of that sextet despite playing all 10 sessions so far in his Ryder Cup career and going unbeaten in singles. While he isn't quite the player he was two years ago, I do like his record-breaking partnership with Ludvig Aberg, which we'll see in the opening session, and I also suspect they'll avoid the Scheffler-Henley pairing should those two go out first for the USA.
Hovland is one of the best iron players on the European side and while Aberg is more established now and could feasibly swap roles with him, my sense is that in Donald's eyes it's Hovland who still rates as the senior player in more than an age sense. He kept going while Aberg was given a break in Rome and while if forced I'd guess four matches each, if anyone is to play five I'd favour Hovland.
He showed in Italy that a heavy workload won't stop him winning his singles point, his very recent form is slightly stronger than Aberg's (12-5 vs 21-20) and he has more experience of New York crowds (this will be Aberg's first competitive appearance in the state), so this is one instance where taking the bigger priced player in a certain pairing makes sense.
McIlroy's performance in Rome arguably entitles him to be shorter than Rahm, but we were on him at 9/1 to top-score there and he's the same price away from home. Given Tommy Fleetwood's form and performances in Paris and Rome he's a viable alternative who will begin the week alongside McIlroy, but the gap in price isn't quite wide enough and I'm happy to stick with Hovland.
For all that he hasn't been as consistently in the mix as he'd like, I am a massive fan of Hovland under the gun. He was exceptional two years ago and can step up when it counts in a competition he's absolutely made for.
The other option here is Matt Fitzpatrick, who is playing as well as almost anyone in European blue. I'm not hung up on a poor Ryder Cup record and nor will Donald be, but there is still a doubt as to whether he plays the opening foursomes and whatever the unknown effect on his winning potential, what we can be sure of is that his odds would immediately drift were Donald to name the same pairings as two years ago.
Sepp Straka's preparation and the form of Shane Lowry raises some doubts, with Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose and Robert MacIntyre all viable options should Donald try something different, and it's impossible to take a strong view in advance when it comes to that weakest of the four European pairings for Friday's foursomes.
Regardless, McIlroy and Hovland are the best two options and at the prices, it's the latter who gets the vote, with 20/1-plus worth a small chance in the top overall scorer market too. Generally I've targeted Europeans in this in the past as the best of them are more likely to play five matches. This year, I find the idea of benching Scheffler pretty absurd if he starts well, so he has to be the main selection.
Posted at 1200 BST on 22/09/25
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