Open de Espana 2026 Betting Preview: 4 Picks

The Open de España is the strongest field the DP World Tour has assembled since Wentworth. Jon Rahm is back on home soil, Ludvig Aberg and Shane Lowry have flown in, Patrick Reed is playing some of the steadiest golf of his year, and the defending champion is 25/1. Club de Campo Villa de Madrid has hosted this tournament six times in our data, which for a DP World Tour venue is an unusually deep record to bet into.

What it takes to win in Madrid

Club de Campo plays to par 71 over 7,112 yards, and the yardage tells you most of what you need. This is not a driving course. Approach play and putting carry the separation here, and the six prior editions bear that out: the same names keep returning rather than whoever happens to be hitting it furthest.

Our projection for the week is 20 under par with the cut around 3 under, from a 132-man field. Eight places from 132 runners is a tighter target than it sounds, roughly the top six per cent of the field, and it is the reason the card below leans on players with a record here rather than on prices alone. If you want the longer argument for weighting course form at a venue like this, our guide on whether course history matters starts from exactly this kind of repeat-visit event.

Who is trending into it

Across this field's last 16 competitive rounds, measured on native DP World Tour strokes gained, Shane Lowry leads at plus 2.21 per round. Patrick Reed is 4th at plus 1.86, Marco Penge 5th at plus 1.73, Jacob Skov Olesen 8th at plus 1.48, Ewen Ferguson 11th and Daniel Hillier 12th. Three of the top five on that list are on our card.

The model agrees at the top. It makes Lowry the favourite at 6.58 per cent to win, Reed second at 6.40, then Aberg at 4.11, Skov Olesen at 3.51, Alex Noren at 3.21 and Eugenio Chacarra at 3.08. The outright book runs 151 per cent over with 127 of 132 runners priced.

One gap worth naming rather than papering over: the European Tour's aggregated odds feed carries no price at all for Jon Rahm, so he is absent from our model-to-market table entirely. bet365 have him at 10/1. He is not a selection here, but a table that silently omits the most accomplished player in the field is worth flagging.

Shane Lowry, 16/1, 1.5pt each-way

The best form in a field containing Rahm and Aberg. Lowry is 1st of 145 ranked players in this field over his last 16 rounds at plus 2.21 per round, and 7th for approach play, which is the skill this course asks for most. He won inside his last five starts and finished T13 here in 2024.

Two things against him, and they matter. He missed the cut here last year, so his record at the venue is one good visit and one bad one. And his form is the least robust of the three main picks on the test we apply to every selection: remove his single best event from the window and plus 2.21 becomes plus 0.99. He is the anchor because he is the shortest price, and at 16/1 a place returns 6.30 against the 8 points this card commits.

Patrick Reed, 22/1, 1pt each-way

The steadiest pick on the card and the best venue record among the main three. Reed was T10 here in 2024 and T16 in 2025, he is 4th of 145 in this field over his last 16 rounds, and he is the only selection whose form barely moves when the best week comes out: plus 1.86 becomes plus 1.74. There is a T2 inside his last five starts.

The caveats are the driver and the most recent result. He is 59th of 145 off the tee, and he missed the cut in his last outing. On a course where driving carries the least weight of the four skills, the first of those bothers us less than it would elsewhere.

Marco Penge, 25/1, 1pt each-way

The defending champion, and not on reputation alone. Penge won here in 2025 and arrives 5th of 145 in this field over his last 16 rounds, 4th off the tee at plus 0.76 per round, with his form holding at plus 1.41 once his best week is stripped out. He has a T6 and a T9 inside his last five starts.

Against him: he missed the cut here in 2024, so two visits have produced a win and a missed cut rather than a settled record, and he is 51st of 145 for approach play at a venue that asks for it. At 25/1 for a man defending a title in this form, we will take that.

Bernd Wiesberger, 90/1, 0.5pt each-way

A 90/1 price on the model's 10th pick of 132, which puts him ahead of Thomas Detry at 30/1 and David Puig at 22/1 on the same board. He has two solid visits here, T12 in 2021 and T16 in 2025, is 14th of 145 in this field for approach play, and has a T4 inside his last five starts.

He is a longshot on the evidence as much as the price, and the card should say so. He is 18th of 145 for strokes gained total, drops to plus 0.70 per round with his best week removed, and missed the cut most recently. He is backed to place at a price where placing pays for the week twice over.

The card

• Shane Lowry - 16/1 - 1.5pt each-way
• Patrick Reed - 22/1 - 1pt each-way
• Marco Penge - 25/1 - 1pt each-way
• Bernd Wiesberger - 90/1 - 0.5pt each-way (longshot)

All four are each-way at bet365, 1/5 odds, 8 places, with dead-heat rules on shared places. Each-way is two bets of the same size, so the card commits 8pts in total. Our guide to each-way golf betting explains why 8 places changes which prices are worth taking.

Prices are bet365's own column rather than the tour feed, because bet365's 8-place terms are what we settle to. The two differ: the feed has Penge at 28/1 against bet365's 25/1, and Noren at 25/1 against 28/1. Quoting a feed price on a bet struck at bet365 would overstate the returns on this page.

Last week at the Alfred Dunhill Links we drew a blank from four picks, with Jacob Skov Olesen closest at T11, two shots outside the places. Every selection is settled in public, win or lose: the running profit and loss is on the DP World Tour tips track record.