With or Without You: The Bearded Talisman's 2025 US Open bets

1. Scottie Scheffler to WIN +275, 1.5 units – Best player on the PGA Tour right now by a wide, wide margin.     Motivated to complete the 3rd leg of the career grand slam; and, we can talk about Scottie’s 142 weeks as the World Number 1 all day, but what gets overlooked is the fact that none of the elite players on the PGA Tour are playing well right now.   Rory has looked awful his last two starts.   Xander can’t find a fairway to save his life.   Morikawa and Hovland have been erratic, and while Aberg and JT were playing well early in the season, they are not playing all that well right now.   Sepp has been solid, but even he missed the cut at the PGA Championship.   That leaves the LIV guys and Scottie has owned Rahm since Rahm won the Masters in 2023; and Bryson has really struggled the last two Sundays in majors.   Gun to my head, Scottie is again my top pick.    Is he tough to make any real money on?   Unless you parlay him with something else – which I highly, highly do NOT recommend – the answer is yes.    And that’s because he really IS “the next Tiger Woods”

2. Jon Rahm to WIN WITHOUT Scottie Scheffler +900, 1 unit – The real money to be made on this year’s US Open is in the WINNER without bets, and Draftkings offers them.   Rahm has 21 straight Top 10s on the LIV Tour.   Oakmont is a bit of a bomber’s course and Rahm can bomb with the best of them, plus he can putt.   In his last 4 big ticket events, he finished T-7th at last year’s Open, T-5th in last year’s Olympics, T-14th at the Masters and T-8th at the PGA Championship.   Sometimes when players get married and start a family, their golf game regresses.    With Rahm, his play has actually improved since tying the knot.  I think he’s going to give it a really good run this Father’s Day weekend, and while he will probably come up short to Scottie again, he will beat everyone else.

3. Sam Burns to WIN WITHOUT Scheffler, Rory,  Bryson and Rahm +4000, 1/2 unit – Burns ranks number one on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting, and as we all saw over the weekend at The Canadian Open, he is really driving the ball well.   Of the players on the PGA Tour, you can make the argument that outside of Scheffler, Burns has played the best golf since the Masters.   Burns is Scheffler’s best friend on Tour and this seems like a “whoever walks with the wise becomes wise” season.     Sam plays quite comfortably around Scottie – and he actually beat Scottie in a playoff at the 2022 Colonial.   But to win this bet, you don’t have to beat Scottie or Rory or the 2 big guns of LIV.   40-1 on Burns to do that?   Full send.

4. Shane Lowry for Top 5 all players included (+650) 1/2 unit – At age 38, Lowry knows his window to win majors and play at a very high level is closing.   He alluded to this after finishing 2nd to Rory earlier this season at Pebble Beach.    Lowry has (4) Tops 10s is 2025 and has seen his world ranking surge from 28th at the start of the year to 12th currently.   He finished T-2nd the last time the US Open was at Oakmont so he has proven he can compete in this setting.   Lowry has exceeded expectations in his career, and his six stroke victory in the 2019 Open Championship is one of more impressive feats in professional golf over the last 25 years.   The setting is right, and the moment is not too big for him, especially just for Top 5.

Editor's note: The Bearded Talisman (BT) is one of the most successful golf gamblers in the world. He has won eight majors pre-tourney, including the 2025 PGA Championship, the 2024 Open, the 2023 Masters and the 2023 PGA Championship. BT is the only sports gambler known to have completed the COVID Slam, winning all 4 golf majors within a 12 month period. https://www.mylifeontheline.com/post/the-covid-slam   He resides in Kansas City, and is often seen in The Woodlands, Texas area with his two close friends Kaylee and Charlee Kay.