It’s going to be hard to focus on the actual golf this week, but that’s what we’re here to do.

While the rest of the sporting world will be spilling ink on the PGA Tour’s merger with LIV and the PIF, that stuff doesn’t really come into play much when it comes to handicapping.

Perhaps you could argue that the noise will distract some of the central figures like Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson or Dustin Johnson, but that’s probably reading too much into it.

Instead, let’s take a look at the betting odds for the 2023 U.S. Open and try to make sense of what’s to come at the Los Angeles Country Club.

We’ll start at the top of the board, where Scottie Scheffler is the betting favorite ahead of Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka.

At +700, Scheffler is the only golfer at FanDuel with single-digit odds.

Rahm and Koepka, the two players with major championships in 2023, are joint second-favorites at +1100, just ahead of Rory McIlroy, who is sitting at +1300 after three consecutive top-10 finishes in the PGA Championship, Memorial and Canadian Open.

Koepka’s play at the first two majors has been one of the stories of the season, as the 33-year-old has a runner-up and a win at the Masters and PGA Championship, respectively.

Koepka was +4000 to win at Augusta and +1800 when he cashed at Oak Hill. 

Like Koepka, Viktor Hovland has also seen his odds come down quite a bit from what they were at the first two majors.

Hovland was +3500 at Augusta and +2800 at Oak Hill, but he’s now +1700 after a win at the Memorial and T2 at the PGA Championship.

As always, there are some eye-popping prices at majors and there’s no doubt what the most surprising number on the board is at the time of writing.

Justin Thomas, a two-time major champion and 15-time winner on the PGA Tour, is currently sitting at +4800, making him the 19th-favorite to win the U.S. Open. 

It will be fascinating to see how much support Thomas, the second favorite at +1100 at the 2022 U.S. Open, receives at this kind of price.

The 29-year-old is having a down year by his standards, with no wins and two top-10 finishes in 12 starts.

Thomas missed the cut at the Memorial in his last outing and was T65 at the PGA Championship. 

2023 U.S. Open odds