- Scheffler is +280 at Bovada, the only golfer inside +2500 on the 3M Open’s 144-man outright board.
- The 144 implied probabilities sum to 143.4 percent, putting the number under his +280 nearer 18 than 26.
- Scheffler has won once in 16 starts this season, and that win came in January.
- Tom Kim is +3000 nine days after winning the Genesis Scottish Open and ranks fifth in approach play.
BLAINE, Minn. – Scottie Scheffler is +280 to win the 3M Open at Bovada as of July 21, the shortest outright price on a 144-man board on which no other golfer is shorter than +2500.
Strip The Margin And +280 Reads Like 18 Percent
A price is what the bet pays, never what the event is worth. At +280 a winning $100 ticket pays $280 in profit, and that payout implies about 26.3 percent. That figure is not Scheffler’s chance of winning. It is the assumption the book is selling.
The full board shows how much of that is margin. Add the implied probability of all 144 runners and the total comes to 143.4 percent, the overround a full-field golf market usually carries. Strip that margin out proportionally and the number underneath Scheffler’s +280 falls to roughly 18.4 percent. Every price behind him takes the same haircut. Kurt Kitayama’s +2500 implies 3.8 percent raw and about 2.7 percent clean.
Full-field outrights carry some of the widest margins in legal sports betting, and the gap between 18 and 26 is what a one-line ticket on the world No. 1 costs. The bet is good only if his real chance beats the cleaner number.
What Scheffler Has Actually Done In 2026
He has won once in 16 starts, at The American Express in January at 27 under par, and has not won since. He has four runner-up finishes, 10 top-10s and seven top-fives in his last 10 events. He still leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained: total, greens in regulation, bogey avoidance and par breakers, a combination nobody else on this board matches.
The soft spot is the club that used to separate him. His approach play sits at +0.545 strokes gained, 14th on tour, a season after he led every player in the category. He remains elite with an iron. He is no longer in a tier of his own, and one win in 16 starts is what that looks like on a scorecard.
He arrives off a T4 at Royal Birkdale on Sunday, the major our The Open Championship betting analysis previewed. This is his first career start at TPC Twin Cities.
The Course Pays Birdies And The Greens Flatten The Field
TPC Twin Cities plays to a par 71 over 7,431 yards, an Arnold Palmer layout built with Minnesota native Tom Lehman as player consultant, and water is in play on 15 holes. Kitayama won here last year at 23 under, and the field scoring average of 68.84 was a tournament record by almost a full stroke.
The bentgrass greens average 6,500 square feet and run up to 13 on the stimpmeter. Approach shots into targets that size act as an equalizer rather than a separator, and the winning score reflects it.
The easy fade of Scheffler here is that he needs a hard golf course. The data says otherwise. His lone win this year came at 27 under, and he breaks par on 26.61 percent of his holes, the best rate on tour. What cuts against him is structural. A 144-man field that cuts after 36 holes carries far more variance than the 72-player signature events where he has spent much of the season finishing second.
The Best Number Is Not The Second Favorite
Behind Scheffler, the PGA outright board misprices in the usual direction, paying for course history and name recognition rather than current ball-striking.
Kurt Kitayama
- Price at Bovada
- +2500
- SG: approach, 2026
- +0.600 (10th)
- The read
- Defending champion, 8th in greens in regulation, but 102nd putting
Hideki Matsuyama
- Price at Bovada
- +2800
- SG: approach, 2026
- +0.370 (34th)
- The read
- 125th off the tee and 122nd in greens in regulation
Maverick McNealy
- Price at Bovada
- +2800
- SG: approach, 2026
- -0.103 (113th)
- The read
- 18th putting and a T3 here in 2024, but missed the cut last year
Tom Kim
- Price at Bovada
- +3000
- SG: approach, 2026
- +0.656 (5th)
- The read
- Won the Scottish Open on July 12, 8th on tour in bogey avoidance
Tom Kim is the longest price of the four and the strongest of the four on the numbers that matter this week. He ranks fifth on tour in approach play, 33rd in greens in regulation and eighth in bogey avoidance, and he has gained more than two strokes per event on the field across his last five starts. That is a player peaking at a venue that pays clean cards.
Kitayama’s case is real and narrower than his price suggests. He shot 65-71-60-65 to win here last year, including a third round of 60 that matched the course record, and he is eighth on tour in greens in regulation. He is also 102nd in strokes gained: putting, which is why he ranks 73rd in par breaking despite hitting more greens than almost anyone.
Matsuyama at +2800 is the weakest of the group. He is 125th off the tee and 122nd in greens in regulation this season, and his only meaningful 3M start was a T30 in 2023 after a first-round withdrawal in 2022.
McNealy’s price is bought entirely with his putter, 18th on tour, and a T3 here in 2024. His approach game ranks 113th, and he missed the cut at TPC Twin Cities last year.
The 3M Open runs July 23-26 and is the third-to-last event of the FedExCup regular season. Kitayama is trying to become the tournament’s first back-to-back champion.
