Scheffler at +260 for the 3M Open Is the Strangest Line in Golf

Scheffler at +260 for the 3M Open Is the Strangest Line in Golf The world No. 1 showed up to a tournament he has never played, and the odds board broke. Here is what bettors need to know before Thursday's first round. The week after a major is usually dead air on the PGA Tour. Top players rest, the field thins out, and the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities quietly hands out a trophy to whoever gets hot. Not this year. Scottie Scheffler entered the event for the first time in his career, and his presence has warped the entire betting market. An Odds Gap You Rarely See Scheffler opened as a +260 favorite at DraftKings. The second choice, defending champion Kirt Kitayama, sits all the way down at +2250. That is not a gap, that is a canyon. Scheffler is -154 just to finish top five and -290 for a top 10, while no other player in the field is shorter than +415 for a top five. The betting public has noticed. BetMGM reports 44.1% of the total handle is riding on Scheffler to win, nearly four times more than the next most popular pick. He arrives off a tie for fourth at the Open Championship, his tenth top-four finish of the year. The odd wrinkle in his season is that all of that consistency has produced just one victory, back in January. The History Working Against Him There is a genuinely fun angle here for contrarians. Scheffler will be only the fifth world No. 1 to play a PGA Tour event in Minnesota since the rankings began in 1986, and none of the previous four managed to win. The 3M Open has also never had a repeat champion, and TPC Twin Cities is a birdie-fest where 15-under is usually the minimum to contend. Kitayama won last year at 23-under after firing a 60 on Saturday. Low-scoring shootouts flatten the talent gap, which is exactly how longshots stay alive. A few other notes for your card. Ryan Fox, who just won the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, was originally in the field but withdrew, which nobody can blame him for. Hideki Matsuyama brings the longest active made-cut streak on Tour at 28 events and is +2800 to win. Kitayama is the +1800 favorite in the "without Scheffler" market, and an American winner is priced at -295. SBA Takeaway Short-priced golf favorites are historically tough to cash because even the best player in the world wins maybe a quarter of the time in any given field. Scheffler at +260 requires him to beat variance, a birdie-heavy course that compresses skill edges, and a 40-year trend of world No. 1s coming up empty in Minnesota. The more interesting plays this week live in the placement markets and the "without Scheffler" market, where Kitayama's course history and last year's 60 make him a live look. If you do back Scheffler outright, understand you are paying a premium the market built from name recognition as much as from math. Related Reading - Ryan Fox Stuns Royal Birkdale With Clutch 18th Hole Birdie to Win The Open - 2026 Open Championship Betting Preview: Royal Birkdale Awaits - Sam Burns Chases First Major at Royal Birkdale After Record-Tying 62