Best Bets
U.S. Open 2023: Our 7 favorite prop bets at LACC
Andrew Redington
Last time out, the boys went a respectable 3-for-8 on PGA Championship prop bets, with two of the winners coming at +190 and +280. We won't say which one of us went 2-for-3 and and which one of us went 1-for-5 because this is a team game. Positive vibes only.
This week's goal at LACC for the United States Open? We want to go 7-for-7, a borderline impossible task unless you believe in the wise words of the legendary Kevin Garnett - anything is possibo. Even two dopes from New Jersey winning all their bets despite having zero historical data or past tournaments to glean from at this brand-new venue.
Let's do it.
Will there be a hole-in-one? Yes (+100, boosted from DraftKings) – LACC’s five par 3s are all varied in length—you’ve surely seen that some of them could play more than 280 yards. But the 11th in particular features a kicker slope front and left of the green that should funnel onto the green. In reality, the hole should play well under the yardage on the scorecard. More so, though, is the ultra-short par-3 15th hole. I understand there’s mostly zero room to miss there, but we’re talking about the best players in the world. If the hole plays under 100 yards, which it sounds like it could on the weekend, this bet has serious life. --SH
Viktor Hovland Top-10 Finish After Round 1 (+340, DraftKings) — I made this bet at Oak Hill, and my only regret was not putting it in writing on this here website, because it hit with relative ease and I couldn't properly brag about it. This has become the lock of all locks in majors, and they're giving it to you at +340! Just look at this insane run in the last three majors, courtesy of ESPN stats guy and our friend David Gordon:
Hovland literally owns beachfront property in the top 10 at the majors. And his first-round prowess goes back even further than that, too. He shot a Thursday 68 in the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park and he was tied for second after 18 holes at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. Hot starts are all he knows, and while he's learning how to finish now, too, I'd prefer to only have to trust him on Day 1 this week. -- CP
Denny McCarthy Top-10 Finish After Round 1 (+850, DraftKings) – These are some of our favorite bets—the placement markets focused only after the first round. You could go higher up on the board, sure, but I’d take a look at McCarthy, who was edged in the playoff by Viktor Hovland but played fantastic golf at another really difficult venue in Muirfield Village. He’s also got a pairing with two of the nicest guys on the PGA Tour, Joel Dahmen and Adam Hadwin, so the SG/vibes should be immaculate here. --SH
Harris English Top-40 Finish (+155, FanDuel) — Lot of folks were high on Harris English at Oak Hill and that proved to be a tad premature, as he went on to missed the cut. He responded by contending the following week at Colonial and finishing in a tie for 12th. He's been hitting the crap out of his irons of late and hasn't missed consecutive cuts in majors since 2014. This has been a bit of a transition year for the former Georgia Bulldog after missing a bunch of time with an injury early in 2022, and he's finally appeared to return to the guy that made the 2021 Ryder Cup team. After two poor performances at Augusta National and Oak Hill, I think he'll be highly motivated to get off to a good start this week and, at the very least, cash this top-40 ticket. --CP
Sean M. Haffey
Placement Parlay: Top-30 finish: Shane Lowry; Top-40 finishes: Patrick Reed, Min Woo Lee, Sepp Straka and Russell Henley (+4693, FanDuel) — This is just a fun pizza money bet. I like all these guys to at least make the cut, so hopefully you can sweat them out to make the weekend—then you’ll have a great sweat on Saturday and Sunday. --SH
Brooks Koepka Top LIV Golfer (+200, DraftKings) — This one feels too easy, which is always scary. But Koepka is clearly back to his old, ruthless, pre-2022 self. The same guy who, between the 2015 U.S. Open and the 2021 Open Championship, finished T-21 or better in 20 of the 23 majors he played in that span, 14 of those finishes coming in the top seven. He's a different animal on these weeks. His real competition in this bet is obviously the trio of Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, and the only one that really scares me on this course is Smith. I don't have any Koepka bets because of his odds this week, but this is a fun game-within-the-game type play I can back him on. --CP
Day 1 three-ball matchup: Thomas Pieters (+130, FanDuel) over Aaron Wise and Gordon Sargent – Give me the proven U.S. Open player in this one at plus-money. Pieters has posted consecutive top-30 finishes in this event, the first at Winged Foot and the second at Brookline. This will be a different test, but an equally-difficult one as those previous two. Sargent was a popular sleeper at Augusta before going 77-76. And Wise is just a few events back into playing post-WDing from the Masters to attend to his mental health. --SH