Ben Coley's golf betting tips: 3M Open preview and best bets
Tony Finau can stamp his class all over the 3M Open for a second time according to Ben Coley, who has five selections at a range of prices.
Golf betting tips: 3M Open
4pts win Tony Finau at 12/1 (bet365; 14-14.5 via Betfair Exchange)
2pts e.w. JT Poston at 35/1 (Paddy Power, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Cam Davis at 40/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Austin Eckroat at 66/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Justin Suh at 175/1 (Paddy Power, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
There are few more jarring transitions in golf than the one from the Open Championship to the 3M Open and not even the subtle threat of wind throughout the final three rounds of this week's run-of-the-mill PGA Tour event can help to smooth it.
Still, this is a serious time of year for many players, just two weeks now remaining to reach the FedEx Cup Playoffs. With only 70 invited to take part in them, more than three-quarters of this field still have something to play for, even if the pressure of making the top 125 is now delayed (or prolonged, depending somewhat on your disposition) until the end of November.
Such things are immaterial to the four big names at the head of the market, although each of TONY FINAU, Sahith Theegala, Akshay Bhatia and Sam Burns will be thinking about the Presidents Cup, for which none has yet qualified. Victory here might just seal the deal and much may depend on who among them can respond to what were difficult weeks in different ways at the Open Championship.
Burns got closest thanks largely to one excellent round in the best of the weather and with no top-eight finishes since February, albeit on a high-class schedule, he can be left well alone. Bhatia may not be too downbeat after his Open debut but he wasn't a factor and, like Burns, had a good draw; Theegala meanwhile struggled badly in both rounds albeit he did have to tackle Troon at its most fearsome.
Finau, though, looks the standout – and while Friday's round of 81 was miserable viewing, he did also face the worst of the draw and had played very nicely despite difficult weather on Thursday. But for that one round we might be looking at a 7/1 chance and at double-figure prices, my view is that bookmakers are underestimating the 2022 champion, who has never played badly in five trips to Twin Cities.
The very fact that Finau keeps returning to an event which he need not play probably tells us something and that Presidents Cup point is significant. He missed out on last year's Ryder Cup and at ninth in the standings at the time of writing, will know that there's work to do in order to avoid a repeat. This is the best course remaining on the schedule and he'll be heading out on a mission.
Finau won this convincingly two years ago and he did it without putting especially well. That club is improved lately and was one of the positives from his Open performance, while the fact that he's coped well with the travel previously is another plus, particularly as it wasn't the first time – he was a close fifth in Canada following the 2017 Open and was seventh here last year, too, which followed a missed cut at Hoylake.
There really is only one negative and that's a single round of golf in foul weather. The best player in the field, with the best course form, who went 18-17-8-3-5 prior to Troon, is worth the benefit of one small doubt at the prices.
This is the sort of company Finau has outclassed a few times now.
Postman to deliver
It should be said that while wins for Finau, Cameron Champ and Matthew Wolff suggest power is a prerequisite, that's not the case. Lee Hodges, Martin Laird, JT POSTON and Kevin Streelman were last year's first four while Tom Hoge, Emiliano Grillo, Greyson Sigg and James Hahn were among those in pursuit of Finau two years ago.
There's certainly an argument that accuracy in fact trumps power here and Champ's win can be largely accredited to the second-best putting performance of his entire career, so players like Poston, one of the straightest-hitting, deadliest-putting players in the field, have to come under strong consideration.
He was admittedly disappointing from a decent set of tee-times in Scotland, but Poston's links record is poor and he did at least fire an improved 72 on Friday, making five birdies. It was from a similar platform that he was 11th here behind Finau and he stepped up on that last year, when a closing triple-bogey cost him solo second as he went in search of the eagle needed to put pressure on the runaway leader.
Form figures of 28-11-2 at Twin Cities advertise his suitability and he explained why that might be, saying: "I think it fits my eye. I think you've got to drive it well. The greens are really good. They're bentgrass, what I grew up on, so very comfortable on these types of greens."
Another point he didn't make is the time of year, with Poston's wins having come in July and August, as well as both play-off defeats. He and his caddie have both spoken about it separately and Poston admits that he's often tended to take a while to come good, before ending the season on a high. With two of his favourite courses still to come before the Playoffs, he may feel like he can do so again.
Poston's form prior to last week was solid and he's missed just two cuts all year in the US, first by a shot in Phoenix, then on a long, soft course in a major championship. When he's gone somewhere suitable he's often played really nicely, such as when fifth in the RBC Heritage, 10th at Riviera, sixth in the Sony and 12th at Colonial, the latter giving us some more recent form.
I'd put his share of 30th at the John Deere Classic down as a tad disappointing but with his approach play improved in his one start since then, and having kept himself fresh for these courses that he loves, he looks a strong each-way player.
Davis set for quick-fire double?
The same description applies to CAM DAVIS, who recently won the Rocket Mortgage Classic for a second time.
Fifth in strokes-gained tee-to-green that week, Davis would've been an unfortunate loser even if in the end he was handed the title by Bhatia's three-putt. Afterwards he talked about the mental work which had helped him turn a corner, and in one start since he produced a similarly promising tee-to-green display only to struggle on slow, Scottish greens.
With 17 rounds of par or better in 18 spins around Twin Cities, where his form figures read MC-12-28-16-10, Davis is something of a course specialist. He's driven it well each time and on four occasions, his approach play has been about as good as it gets from the Aussie. As of yet he's never lit up the greens, but nor has he putted poorly, not since that debut missed cut at least.
The icing on the cake is that, for the third year running, he arrives here highly motivated after another horrible experience at the Open Championship.
In 2022, Davis was an alternate who was told he probably wouldn't get in the field so headed to the Barracuda instead, yet he would've been able to play St Andrews had he stayed.
In 2023, he waited all week as first alternate, to no avail. And then at Troon, something worse happened: he was on-site as first alternate but the R&A refused to replace any withdrawals until the field fell below 156 players.
Given that he's now comfortably inside the world's top 50, and that two groups went out as two-balls, Davis was pretty furious to be back where he'd been a year earlier, playing practice rounds but only able to hang around all day on Thursday in hope, rather than expectation. Doing that two years in a row must've been very difficult.
"I’m having a hard time handling it," Davis said, biting his tongue somewhat. "I feel like it is not super fair treatment of someone who has made their way out here and a tee time has opened up. It’s a frustrating situation considering I’ve been in good form."
The interesting thing is that a year ago, he seemed to use that to fuel a fantastic end to the year, his next eight starts yielding form figures of 10-7-6-40-3-7-12-7. It was some of the very best golf of his career.
With the Presidents Cup also a factor – he would seem a likely wild card but he's still only ninth and the presence of four Canadians right behind him is a worry given that it takes place in Montreal – Davis, like Poston, will be eyeing up a strong end to the year. This course plus Sedgefield Country Club might ultimately be key to getting that place on Mike Weir's team.
Max Greyserman's last five starts read 21-31-26-21-13 and he's a player I'm really warming to. It might also be significant that, while he was ultimately down the field in the Cognizant Classic, he was close to the places for a while – host course PGA National has often been a good pointer to this event and Greyserman was selected at huge odds that week on the basis that he knows it really well.
First in strokes-gained off-the-tee in his last two stateside PGA Tour starts (long and straight), the rookie now has a chance to make the Playoffs if he can find one big performance over the next fortnight. Failing that, he'll be one to keep close in the FedEx Cup Fall and he's left out begrudgingly on price grounds, with the general 66/1 as low as I'd have wanted to recommend.
Instead, Cognizant winner AUSTIN ECKROAT could build on a decent if unspectacular fortnight on links golf courses in Scotland, first narrowly missing the cut before hanging around in the middle of the pack on his Open debut.
Certainly, if he can improve again with the putter, something he's done through each of his last four starts, then Eckroat may very well get back into the sort of form which saw him capture that first win, then go on to finish 17th in the Heritage and 18th in the PGA Championship, both in elite company.
Strong off the tee largely because he hits plenty of fairways (18th for the season), Eckroat is a quality iron player and showed as much when 16th here in 2021. That was just his fifth PGA Tour start and he was without status at the time so it was a highly promising performance which demonstrated what he might be capable of when the putts drop.
Last year's missed cut was part of a miserable run after what had been a good spring and my suspicion is he's in a better place now, so with that link to PGA National also in his favour, prices of around 66/1 look to represent value. He's a classy young player well capable of doubling his tally in the near future if he can make it five straight weeks of putting improvement.
Justin time
Were the top 125 bubble as significant now as it was before the system changed then Hayden Buckley (128th in FedEx Cup points), Patton Kizzire (124th) and Chesson Hadley (127th) might have made more appeal.
Buckley has been better of late and will probably feature if he can putt well, Kizzire's long-game might be as good as it's ever been, while Hadley has been in the mix on his last two starts at Twin Cities.
All have to be respected on form grounds anyway while Sam Ryder's brace of top-10 finishes at PGA National, combined with last year's seventh place here at Twin Cities, mark him down as a potential outsider of note. He's started to show signs of something like his best form and at 116th in the FedEx Cup standings, he too has work to do before November.
Neal Shipley continues to defy expectations and should prefer these more familiar greens to those which foxed him in California so he could upstage some youngsters with bigger reputations, but the outsider I want to chance is the talented JUSTIN SUH.
While 11th place last week came back home in California and in a quirky event, it might just be the shot in the arm that this one-time amateur star needs as we near the end of a difficult second season. Suh was an excellent PGA Tour rookie last year, bagging four top-10 finishes and only twice missing the cut, but he's made just six in 20 starts so far in 2024.
Nothing has worked consistently well and when one aspect of his game has fired, another has let him down, which explains why that 11th place in the Barracuda was his standout result all year. As a consequence, even after climbing 16 places in the FedEx Cup he remains a very lowly 171st, not even a place in the top 200 yet guaranteed.
Still, he's putting well now, his last two driving displays have been good, his approach play last week was among his very best of the campaign, and his around-the-green issues appear less significant than they were a few months ago. He's started shooting scores again, too, opening with a round of 65 in the ISCO and then shooting 63 (albeit translated to points) in round two last week, before a pair of 67s to finish.
Narrow missed cuts at the Charles Schwab, Rocket Mortgage and ISCO all offered much more promise and he's missed a whole host by a shot or two throughout the year. One of those was at PGA National and that course is the kicker for me, as he was the halfway leader there last year and went on to finish fifth.
With 3M Open champions Hodges and Michael Thompson helping connect it with Twin Cities, plus various others who've gone close at both, perhaps Suh is coming to the right place as he seeks to build on that staying-on 11th in the Barracuda. He already has rounds of 65, 67, 68 and 69 to his name here, twice starting well, and the first of those came five years ago when he was fresh out of college.
Given that last year's return came during a generally quieter period (he'd been 34th in the Barracuda and had cooled since a solid US Open), Suh's course form suddenly looks quite promising, and I also wonder if this place might be a little reminiscent of Victoria National, where he won the Korn Ferry Tour Championship. Hodges went 15-29-4 there before he graduated to this level.
Speculation aplenty then but in this company that seems reasonable, even if Finau looks like he could take a bit of beating.
Posted at 1000 BST on 23/07/24
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