In a relatively short period of time, Scottie Scheffler has established himself as the best player in men’s professional golf, with his current run of 95 weeks atop the Official World Golf Ranking already the fourth-longest streak ever behind only Greg Norman (96) and two different runs by Tiger Woods (264 and 281).
Among his numerous accomplishments over the past few years is a unique one: Scheffler is the only player to ever successfully defend his title at The Players Championship, winning the tournament in 2023 and 2024. That combination of course pedigree and recent success made Scheffler a popular pick among bettors for last year’s Players.
“Last year was bananas because he came off the Arnold Palmer win to back it up with a Players win,” Caesars Sportsbook’s lead golf trader Anthony Salleroli told ESPN. “That was super impressive … so the public was just smothering that.”
Scheffler will again try to defy precedence this weekend by notching a third consecutive Players Championship win, which would make him the first player to win any PGA Tour-sanctioned event three years in a row since Steve Stricker did so at the John Deere Classic from 2009 to 2011. Since 1950, there have been only 16 instances of a player winning the same event in three consecutive years, with Woods accounting for six of those, according to ESPN Research.
Rare history aside, Scheffler missed several tournaments at the beginning of this year after injuring his hand in December. Since then, he has played only four events and did not win any of them — a somewhat uncharacteristic start to his season, albeit with a small sample size.
Still, he finished third in one of those events and ninth in another, so sportsbooks are still giving him the respect he’s earned: ESPN BET lists him at +475 to win The Players, well ahead of the next closest player, Collin Morikawa (+1100), and a slight improvement from the approximately +550 odds he showed ahead of last year’s tournament.
“We take it on a week-by-week basis. Not unlike the Kansas City Chiefs when they weren’t covering this season, he’s still one of the best in the world and we know he can produce incredible performances at any time, so he has to be priced accordingly,” ESPN BET’s vice president of sportsbook strategy and growth Adam Landeka said via email. “If he continues to go without a win this year, his price may open bigger, but it will be a long time before we see a week where Scottie is in the field and not the favorite.”
Scheffler is still the most-bet player at the sportsbook with 18.6% of the tickets, but his relatively short price makes him inherently less of a liability. BetMGM similarly reports Scheffler as its bets and handle leader but does not count him among its biggest liabilities.
“We don’t really have a hazard on Scottie, and I don’t think we will unless it’s going to be from in-play wagering,” DraftKings head of sportsbook Johnny Avello told ESPN, alluding to Scheffler’s penchant for slow starts. “In-play wagering has been really huge for us. Once the tournament starts, our handle for the next four days on in-play has just been off the charts. So it’s possible that you catch him at a better price.”
Scheffler’s pricing also varies from book to book, with some as short as +400 and others lengthening to +500 from openers at +450, implying more balanced action across the field.
“The public always loves who’s hot right now,” Salleroli said.
Morikawa, the world’s fourth-ranked player and fresh off a runner-up finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, has taken the second-most money (14.2%) at ESPN BET, with BetMGM reporting him with the third-most handle (10.6%) to be its third-largest liability.
The 2025 Arnold Palmer champion, Russell Henley (+3000), is seeing considerably less action, with BetMGM saying he has garnered only the 14th-most bets thus far.
Three other early-season Tour winners in good form — Ludvig Åberg (+1500), Hideki Matsuyama (+2500) and Sepp Straka (+3000) — have generated considerable tickets and handle at various sportsbooks.
Salleroli said public bettors love past champions of the current event, and one in particular who is getting a lot of love is Rickie Fowler (125-1), who has not won on tour since July 2023; he has taken 1.4% of wagers at BetMGM to lead all golfers at 100-1 or longer.
Bookmakers believe that the biggest factor in potentially shaking things up — and perhaps knocking Scheffler off his perch — is the weather. The forecast is calling for windy conditions at Sawgrass for at least part of the weekend’s action, which could harken back to the wild weather that heavily affected 2022’s tournament.
“By the time the later [tee time] guys got out there, on hole 17, they were clubbing up like five clubs just to get it to the green and the wind was just atrocious. So many balls into the water, it was a madhouse,” Salleroli said. “So if stuff like that happens with the wind and it kicks up, especially over the weekend, it’s going to be a seesaw event.”
