2025 Ryder Cup odds: Team USA favored over Europe, bettors all over Scottie Scheffler

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If you love sports, you know we are nearing one of the year's marquee events on the golf calendar: the Ryder Cup.

The biennial event tees off on Friday at Bethpage Black, featuring the best players from Team USA and Europe competing for the opportunity to bring glory to their respective homelands.

It's an intense rivalry, with bragging rights and legacy on the line. I don't know why, but I always picture Ryder Cup captains giving Bill Pullman from "Independence Day"-type speeches along the lines of, "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight," at some point during the event.

Team Europe is the reigning winner, while Team USA is looking to avenge the loss from two years ago. The United States opened as -140 favorites on the three-way market at BetMGM to take down Europe in the highly anticipated matchup, with Europe listed at +150. You can also bet on whether the Ryder Cup will end in a tie -- in which case Europe would retain its title -- with the odds currently at +1200.

Jeff Sherman, who operates the golf markets at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, explained how his book came up with the odds for the big event.

"The price on this Ryder Cup has a lot to do with a) which team is home, and b) the fact that Europe returns its team from the last Ryder Cup, just changing one Højgaard [Nicolai] for another [Rasmus]," Sherman explained. "There was very little price movement upon the announcement of the wild card picks."

And there has been no shortage of bettors getting involved with this event, with early action looking like it is all over the United States to triumph over Europe when the dust settles.

"Bettors continue to bring support for Keegan Bradley's team USA to reclaim the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black," Senior BetMGM trader Matt Wall said. "The Americans are now at -150 as they face arguably the strongest European team ever."

Fanatics Sportsbook customers are also backing the Stars and Stripes squad. "Team USA To Win currently has eight times the handle of Team Europe," Fanatics Vice President of communications Kevin Hennessy emailed The Athletic.

Can you blame bettors for backing the U.S., given Scottie Scheffler's dominance? He's currently the best player in the world, and it isn't even close when digging into the numbers. I can probably take up the following 500 words to list out all of Scheffler's accolades, or you can check them out here, nicely displayed on The Athletic's Ryder Cup Big Board.

If you only want to bet on Scottie, or any other player for that matter, instead of the teams this week, there are also markets for that, like "Top Points Scorer Overall," "Top USA Points Scorer" and "Top Europe Points Scorer."

To no one's surprise, bettors are all over Scheffler in the individual betting markets, with 31.3 percent of tickets on him to be the "Top Points Scorer Overall" and 28.6 percent of tickets on him to be the "Top USA Points Scorer."

"Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Young, who grew up only 50 miles from Bethpage, are getting action in the player points market for America while Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood lead the way for the Europeans on their end," Wall stated.

From a historical perspective, Team USA has been a bigger favorite in the past, especially during the prime of one guy named Tiger Woods.

How do the USA's odds right now compare historically to the US during Tiger's prime?

1999 (in Massachusetts): USA -270, Europe +230

2002 (in England): USA -170, Europe +145

2004 (in Michigan): USA -185, Europe +155

2006 (in Ireland): USA +100, Europe -130, Tie 800

The Scheffler-Woods comparisons are not going away anytime soon, so I had to ask Sherman, who is known in the industry for his golf knowledge, how the two great players compare from a betting perspective.

"I would guess Tiger would have had slightly shorter odds (+250 or less) to be the top American points scorer when he was at his peak," Sherman said.

But Scheffler has a chance to do something that Woods never did: help win a second Ryder Cup. Team USA only claimed one of the eight Ryder Cups in which Woods played (1999), while Scheffler was part of the 2021-winning squad in his Ryder Cup debut.

(Photo of Scottie Scheffler: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)