Open Championship
British Open Round 2 Tips: Big Guns Need To Bounce Back At Birkdale On Friday
A look ahead to the second round of the 2026 Open Championship, with William Hill assessing the British Open golf odds ahead of Friday’s action at Royal Birkdale.
Jackson Suber holds The Open lead at the end of Day 1. It’s a close field after 18 holes at the final major of the year, though Justin Rose (+5) and Rory McIlroy (+2) had disappointing days.
It was a day of two halves. The early tee times were at a significant advantage before the winds picked up, making low scores much more difficult to obtain.
At 11/2, Scottie Scheffler remains the favourite to win The Open. Scheffler sits at -2 after his first round, with a difficult back nine seeing him fall away from the lead after a very strong start.
Shooting three under on Thursday, Cameron Young is the second favourite at 10/1. Also on three under and with a complete performance in the first round, Robert MacIntyre is 12/1 to win the whole thing.
Hot Putters
Suber, Alex Smalley, and Thomas Detry were red-hot with their putters on Thursday. It’s likely to be unsustainable at that level. On the other side of that, Bryson DeChambeau and Henrik Stenson had excellent performances on Thursday despite being below par with their putters.
Putting, as always, is important at Royal Birkdale, but it’s a big ask to ride that sort of flawless putting through all four rounds. Instead, we want to look at golfers that are nailing approach shots, playing accurately off the tee, and getting close around the greens.
Rasmus Højgaard, for instance, checked the around the green and approach boxes. Chris Gotterup shot even par, despite losing -2.37 strokes on the greens.
Best Bets
Keep a close eye on Gotterup and Højgaard after what they showed us on Thursday. William Hill have Gotterup at 33/1 as the outright winner at the time of writing, which is paying five places each way. Højgaard is 13/8 to be the top Dane and 400/1 to win the event.
Ben Griffin and Jon Rahm fall into the bucket of getting pretty much everything right until the putter is in hand. Griffin is more than capable of draining a few putts, as he’s shown over his last few events. We know Rahm has what it takes to win majors.
There’s value taking Griffin for a top 10 finish. Rahm is a player we’d be following closely on Friday.
*Odds subject to change – prices accurate at the time of writing*
