The dynamic of all the pre-tourney hype at the 2015 Open Championship completely changed over the past week. The favorite, Rory McIlroy, showed up on Instagram last Monday in a walking boot and on crutches, telling the world he had completely ruptured an ankle ligament. Just a couple days later, he'd make it official and announce he was out of The Open. A few days after that, world No. 2 Jordan Spieth would add yet another 2015 title to his collection, taking the John Deere Classic in a playoff and becoming the first player with four wins in a season before the Open since Tiger Woods in 2000.
McIlroy may have stayed the favorite if he started the week 100 percent healthy, but Spieth's win definitely would have made it close. While Spieth currently holds the first two majors of the year, it's not as if Rory has been slouching around since he won the PGA last August. He's also got two wins, at two of the deeper and more competitive events on the schedule, and he's had a sizable lead as No. 1 in the world rankings even with Spieth's major titles. Now, with another Tour win, that No. 1 spot is actually within reach this week at The Open and it's hard to argue that anyone other than Spieth has been the best player in the world since December.
With Rory down and Jordan coming off yet another win, Spieth starts the week as a 9/2 favorite to continue his Grand Slam chase. The guy who three-putted his 72nd hole at Chambers Bay to aid in Spieth's U.S. Open title is a distant second at 12/1. This course, much like Chambers, is a layout that Dustin Johnson can carve and bomb his way to a couple low-60s rounds. He's alway got an advantage with the way he hits it off the tee, but it's accentuated at St. Andrews. It will be surprising if DJ is not in the hunt come Sunday afternoon.
Behind Spieth and DJ is another post-Tiger American talent, Rickie Fowler. We've seen the Scottish Open serve as a perfect bit of prep work for the The Open in past years -- most notably with Phil Mickelson's back-to-back wins in 2013 --and Fowler is hoping that's the case this year. He posted three birdies in his final four holes at Gullane on Sunday to beat Matt Kuchar for his second significant win this season. Fowler has always said the links style courses suit him well and his track record at The Open backs that up. Now he and Spieth roll into St. Andrews off a couple more statement wins and a ton of hype filling the Rory vacuum.
If you're curious about Tiger Woods, the two-time winner at St. Andrews, he's now 20/1 and among the handful of favorites. His odds dropped significantly after that above-average performance at the Greenbrier two weeks ago. It was not the complete disaster we watched at Memorial or the U.S. Open and Tiger actually had the best "proximity to the hole" mark of any PGA Tour event in his career. That was an easier course but the ball-striking looked very different -- that's enough to bump the always public-favorite Tiger up to a place that's incongruous with his 2015 record.
Here are full odds to win the 2015 Open Championship:
| Player | Odds to Win |
| Jordan Spieth | 9/2 |
| Dustin Johnson | 12/1 |
| Rickie Fowler | 16/1 |
| Justin Rose | 18/1 |
| Henrik Stenson | 20/1 |
| Tiger Woods | 20/1 |
| Adam Scott | 22/1 |
| Louis Oosthuizen | 22/1 |
| Jason Day | 28/1 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 30/1 |
| Bubba Watson | 33/1 |
| Paul Casey | 33/1 |
| Phil Mickelson | 33/1 |
| Sergio Garcia | 33/1 |
| Martin Kaymer | 35/1 |
| Shane Lowry | 35/1 |
| Branden Grace | 40/1 |
| Brandt Snedeker | 50/1 |
| Brooks Koepka | 50/1 |
| Matt Kuchar | 50/1 |
| Patrick Reed | 50/1 |
| Jimmy Walker | 55/1 |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 66/1 |
| Victor Dubuisson | 66/1 |
| Bernd Wiesberger | 70/1 |
| Jim Furyk | 70/1 |
| Billy Horschel | 80/1 |
| Charl Schwartzel | 80/1 |
| Danny Willett | 80/1 |
| Graeme McDowell | 80/1 |
| Ian Poulter | 80/1 |
| J B Holmes | 80/1 |
| Kevin Kisner | 80/1 |
| Lee Westwood | 80/1 |
| Luke Donald | 80/1 |
| Zach Johnson | 80/1 |
| Byeong-Hun An | 90/1 |
| Francesco Molinari | 90/1 |
| Alexander Noren | 125/1 |
| Bill Haas | 125/1 |
| Charley Hoffman | 125/1 |
| Ernie Els | 125/1 |
| Gary Woodland | 125/1 |
| Graham De Laet | 125/1 |
| Jamie Donaldson | 125/1 |
| Jason Dufner | 125/1 |
| Keegan Bradley | 125/1 |
| Marc Warren | 125/1 |
| Padraig Harrington | 125/1 |
| Rafa Cabrera Bello | 125/1 |
| Ryan Moore | 125/1 |
| Ryan Palmer | 125/1 |
| Andy Sullivan | 150/1 |
| Brendon Todd | 150/1 |
| Danny Lee | 150/1 |
| David Howell | 150/1 |
| Geoff Ogilvy | 150/1 |
| George Coetzee | 150/1 |
| Harris English | 150/1 |
| Hunter Mahan | 150/1 |
| Joost Luiten | 150/1 |
| Kevin Na | 150/1 |
| Marc Leishman | 150/1 |
| Miguel Angel Jimenez | 150/1 |
| Ross Fisher | 150/1 |
| Stephen Gallacher | 150/1 |
| Webb Simpson | 150/1 |
| Alexander Levy | 200/1 |
| Ben Martin | 200/1 |
| Eddie Pepperell | 200/1 |
| James Morrison | 200/1 |
| John Senden | 200/1 |
| Kiradech Aphibarnrat | 200/1 |
| Retief Goosen | 200/1 |
| Robert Streb | 200/1 |
| Russell Henley | 200/1 |
| Russell Knox | 200/1 |
| Thomas Aiken | 200/1 |
| Thomas Bjørn | 200/1 |
| Thongchai Jaidee | 200/1 |
| Tyrell Hatton | 200/1 |
| Brian Harman | 250/1 |
| Daniel Berger | 250/1 |
| David Lingmerth | 250/1 |
| Jaco Van Zyl | 250/1 |
| Jonas Blixt | 250/1 |
| Kevin Streelman | 250/1 |
| Pablo Larrazabal | 250/1 |
| Soren Kjeldsen | 250/1 |
| Steven Bowditch | 250/1 |
| Carl Pettersson | 300/1 |
| Greg Owen | 300/1 |
| Marcel Siem | 300/1 |
| Matt Jones | 300/1 |
| Matteo Manassero | 300/1 |
| Mikko Ilonen | 300/1 |
| Morgan Hoffmann | 300/1 |
| Paul Lawrie | 300/1 |
| Anirban Lahiri | 350/1 |
| Bernhard Langer | 400/1 |
| Cameron Tringale | 400/1 |
| Darren Clarke | 400/1 |
| David Hearn | 400/1 |
| Marcus Fraser | 400/1 |
| Stewart Cink | 400/1 |
| Anthony Wall | 500/1 |
| Edoardo Molinari | 500/1 |
| Gary Boyd | 500/1 |
| Greg Chalmers | 500/1 |
| James Hahn | 500/1 |
| Jordan Niebrugge | 500/1 |
| Koumei Oda | 500/1 |
| Matt Every | 500/1 |
| Ollie Schneiderjans | 500/1 |
| Rod Pampling | 500/1 |
| Romain Wattel | 500/1 |
| Ryan Fox | 500/1 |
| Scott Hend | 500/1 |
| Tadahiro Takayama | 500/1 |
| Tim Clark | 500/1 |
| Wen-Chong Liang | 500/1 |
| John Daly | 600/1 |
| Brett Rumford | 750/1 |
| Justin Leonard | 750/1 |
| Tom Watson | 750/1 |
| Adam Bland | 1000/1 |
| Ashley Chesters | 1000/1 |
| Ben Curtis | 1000/1 |
| David Duval | 1000/1 |
| David Lipsky | 1000/1 |
| Hiroyuki Fujita | 1000/1 |
| Jonathan Moore | 1000/1 |
| Mark Young | 1000/1 |
| Pelle Edberg | 1000/1 |
| Robert Dinwiddie | 1000/1 |
| Romain Langasque | 1000/1 |
| Scott Strange | 1000/1 |
| Taichi Teshima | 1000/1 |
| Todd Hamilton | 1000/1 |
| Tom Lehman | 1000/1 |
| Yuta Ikeda | 1000/1 |
| Alistair Balcombe | 1500/1 |
| Ben Taylor | 1500/1 |
| Mark O'Meara | 1500/1 |
| Paul Dunne | 1500/1 |
| Paul Kinnear | 1500/1 |
| Scott Arnold | 1500/1 |
| Shinji Tomimura | 1500/1 |
| Gunn Yang | 2000/1 |
| Mark Calcavecchia | 2000/1 |
| Nick Faldo | 2500/1 |
| Sandy Lyle | 2500/1 |
SB Nation video archives: Urban golfing with a U.S. Open champ (2012)