Xander Schauffele broke the narrative that he couldn’t win a major earlier this year by winning the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.
Well, he’s now only the 89th golfer in history to win multiple majors after capturing The 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. He's also only the the 15th golfer to ever win multiple majors in a single year with one of them being the British Open. He's also just the ninth player since 2000 to win more than one in the same year.
Schauffele had the third-best odds entering the tournament at +1200 and won by two strokes by finishing at -9. He had a legendary back nine, finishing 4-under while the field as a whole averaged +2. He shot 65 on Sunday, joining Jack Nicklaus as the only player to shoot 65 or better twice in the final round of a major. Remarkably, he did it in the same year. Schauffele's final-round 65 was the lowest of the day by two shots.
Schauffele's win also means an American won all four majors for the 11th time and the first time since 1982. Scottie Scheffler won the Masters while Bryson DeChambeau captured the U.S. Open.
Sportsbooks are likely pleased with the result that didn’t include Scheffler or Rory McIlroy lifting the Claret Jug. The two top-ranked golfers in the world had far and away the most bets and money backing them. Scheffler at +500 was the by far the bigger liability with 16.2% of tickets and a crazy 25.9% of the money backing him to win. Next up was McIlroy at +800 with 7.9% of all tickets and 9.45% of the money.
Overall, this year's British Open was a bit of a bloodbath as five of the top-10 ranked players in the world didn’t even make the cut. McIlroy was the most notable victim, meaning the books needed to dodge a Scheffler win to avoid the two worst-case scenarios. They got their wish as he tied for seventh at 1-under.
The other top-10 ranked golfers who had early exists included No 4. Ludvig Åberg (+1600), No. 5 Wyndham Clark (+6600), No. 7 Viktor Hovland (+3300) and No. 9 Bryson DeChambeau (+1400). Several other notable names forced to watch the rest of the weekend from their couch included Tommy Fleetwood (+2500), Tyrell Hatton (+2500), Tom Kim (+4000) and Tony Finau (+4500), among others.
