Jon Rahm is the man to beat at the BMW Championship according to Ben Coley, who has four selections for the penultimate event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Golf betting tips: BMW Championship
4pts win Jon Rahm at 10/1 (General)
3pts e.w. Xander Schauffele at 18/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1.5pts e.w. Cameron Young at 40/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1.5pts e.w. Tony Finau at 45/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
Lucas Glover has thrown an almighty spanner in the Ryder Cup works with back-to-back victories as a discombobulating PGA Tour season hurtles towards its end end in a fittingly mad fashion.
Anyone who has seen the deeply endearing video of Glover explaining that playing in Rome is now his ambition would not for a second begrudge him a spot that many feel he now deserves, but blimey has he given Zach Johnson a headache.
Given the two get on well, and that Johnson can only admire Glover's achievements like the rest of us, I can't quite call it an unwelcome one. But no captain really wants controversy, and Johnson is now faced with heaps of it if he really does want to find a place for Justin Thomas – or even one or two others whose form isn't great – at the expense of the form man of the circuit.
If you're bored of Ryder Cup chat, apart from the fact I don't think we can be friends, I'm afraid you'll have to lump it or go and research the Rugby World Cup or something. Because right now, ahead of the USA's final qualifying event, it is the necessary, fascinating subplot; the final stop along a road to something meaningful.
I also think it's should be part of calculations for the BMW Championship.
Time and again, these August events on both tours in Ryder Cup years have been won by those on the outside looking in, like Thomas Pieters in 2016. Matt Wallace emulated him in Denmark two years later only to miss out. Sergio Garcia's Monday victory at the Wyndham in 2012 got him back on the Europe team, too.
For the United States, Hunter Mahan won the first FedEx Cup Playoffs event of 2014 and weeks later was awarded the final wildcard. In 2016, Patrick Reed arrived in New Jersey outside the cut-off, not sure of a pick given his, shall we say, profile. "Coming into the week, we said do what you can do and get the job done," he said after a typically gutsy win.
In 2018, Bryson DeChambeau won twice to earn late qualification, and three years later Tony Finau sealed his selection by doing just as Reed had done at the very same course, Liberty National. DeChambeau and Finau were outside the top 20 when their runs began, Reed was 14th, Mahan had been right down in 42nd.
The odd, non-Ryder Cup years throw up fewer of these wins for those just below the elite.
In 2013, Adam Scott (world number four) won the first before Henrik Stenson (world number 10) took over. In 2015, two went to Jason Day (world number three), with Rickie Fowler (world number nine) winning in-between. In 2017, Dustin Johnson (one) won the first and Justin Thomas (six) the second. In 2020, after the Ryder Cup had been postponed, Johnson (four) took turns with Jon Rahm (two).
The gauntlet has been laid at the feet of those seeking to make the side, perhaps still at Glover's expense, and with the TOUR Championship format in mind this may feel like the week that matters most. It is therefore appropriate that, in returning to Olympia Fields, the BMW Championship promises a serious test of golf and a worthy champion at the end of it.
It was during that 2020 run of alternating with Johnson that JON RAHM won so spectacularly here, holing from almost 70 feet to win a play-off between the pair, and he looks the man to beat.
Last week's decision to back Scottie Scheffler backfired, his long-game in fact keeping him just back of the halfway lead before a hopeless putting day took him out of it, but it's Rahm rather than Rory McIlroy who ought to have taken over at the head of the betting.
That's based not just on what happened here three years ago, when McIlroy's mind was elsewhere, but on the inherent nature of Olympia Fields. It is a long, unrelentingly difficult par 70, one many would describe as serving up a test akin to a typical US Open.
While not one who subscribes to the view that McIlroy can't handle tough conditions – it simply isn't true – I do believe his best US Open performance since he won it came about in part because of wider fairways, the greater freedom they provide, and a slightly lower winning total.
Rahm won at Torrey Pines, whose fairways are devilishly hard to hit, then contended at Brookline before a poor final round. Third at Pebble Beach, again when hitting fairways was difficult, gives him a narrow edge over McIlroy if we rely on that description. At East Lake next week, Rory holds the aces. Here, Rahm does.
And the Spaniard has plenty more to recommend him, not least the fact that he goes back to places he loves and wins again. He's done that at Torrey Pines, La Quinta, the Earth Course and Club de Campo. He would've done it at Muirfield Village but for Covid-19, and has gone 1-2 in Mexico together with 2-1 at Kapalua.
He also has a bit of sneaky history when it comes to winning after a slow start had cost him the previous week, which is very much what happened at Southwind. There, at a course which isn't ideal for him, Rahm went from proclaiming 'I can't play' on Thursday to being the best driver in the 70-man field over the weekend.
It gives him the look of one who is primed, following his mighty Open effort, and there is precedent. Plenty of precedent, in fact. In 2017, he climbed from 79th to 34th, then won his first PGA Tour title the following week. Later in the year he went from 32nd to 10th in France and then won the Irish Open.
The following year, his first La Quinta win came after moving from 12th to second in Hawaii, in a small field remember. Then, in the spring, an opening 75 cost him any hope in the Masters but he stayed on to be fourth, winning next time. In 2020, his Muirfield Village romp came after a closing 64 the week before. Then he won this having climbed from 53rd to sixth at The Northern Trust.
We saw something similar in 2021, when he went from 31st to eighth through the final three rounds of the PGA, then would've won again in Ohio but for having had to withdraw when six clear, putting that to bed with his US Open win a couple of weeks later. And we saw it in 2022, when he went 1-4-1-1-1 after storming from 57th to second at Wentworth.
This was the biggest win of Rahm's career three years ago and he edged out a host of players who are at their best away from bermuda grass: Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Hideki Matsuyama and more. He looks for all the world like he's ready to avoid the slow starts that cost him not just last week but in the Open, and vault to the top of the FedEx Cup standings.
Having put up Collin Morikawa on each of his last two US starts I'm certainly of the view that he's playing well, but Olympia Fields threw up a big-hitter leaderboard last time and will likely do that again. These fairways are so hard to hit, always something that favours longer drivers, and it's a course where that club simply has to be reached for regularly.
That's against him slightly and the same goes for Justin Rose, a top-five finisher in the US Open here 20 years ago. Rose has a phenomenal record in this part of the US, the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states in particular, and was no less an eye-catcher than Rahm last week. It's just a big ask for someone no longer in the top quarter of those distance statistics.
Strictly speaking neither is XANDER SCHAUFFELE on this season's form, but he's plenty long enough to compete anywhere and I suspect that's exactly what he'll do.
Like Rahm, Schauffele seems a potential improver from last week to this. A finish of 24th ranks as his second best in six tries at Southwind, and ranking sixth in strokes-gained approach is by far his standout performance there so far.
Unfortunately, he's been frankly terrible off the tee at the course, which suggests there's something about it he simply doesn't like. But so far in his career, he has hit the ball better the following week after every single trip to Memphis and we should expect him to do it again.
Third place in this event last year came after a lowly 57th in the FedEx St. Jude, a 14-stroke swing in his ball-striking the explanation, and in 2017 he followed 52nd with fifth in the US Open when a PGA Tour rookie. When he came to Olympia Fields in 2020 it was on the back of a negative ball-striking week, but a seven-stroke turnaround again shows that Southwind tells us nothing about his game.
It's fair to say he didn't perform spectacularly on his first try at this course but his overall form wasn't as solid as it is now (three top-10s all year versus eight this time), and having dropped below the Ryder Cup qualification line there might be a little extra incentive – even if we all know he's on that team regardless.
Perhaps the thing I like most is the fact that he owns the best US Open record in the field. To have six top-10s in seven starts and never have finished worse than 14th in the toughest major of them all confirms that Schauffele really ought to be suited to this test, as does the fact he's six-from-six in terms of cuts made at Riviera.
Bentgrass greens are certainly preferred to bermuda and in a field of just 50 players, 18/1 looks a rock-solid investment (bet365 currently offer that price and a bumper eight places, or 20/1 with five). Don't take anything less than 16s, mind you.
The Finau countdown
Siding with those who played well in the first Playoffs event is usually the best approach to the second, but I want to stress how different these two courses are in certain respects, chiefly in what they allow for off the tee. The top eight drivers at Olympia Fields in 2020 were all massive hitters and that club can do a lot of the work.
Cam Davis and Max Homa would be the obvious pair to concentrate on if hoping form does transfer, both theoretically more suited to this. Homa hadn't done anything at Southwind before and, if those Riviera comparisons do play out, then his victory there in 2020 could prove informative.
At close to twice the price though I can't ignore TONY FINAU, runner-up to Homa that year when seriously unfortunate not to win.
Finau arrives with some questions to answer and with his Ryder Cup place massively under threat, but I like that and he just looks overpriced for a player with five wins in two years, who should find this course much more to his liking.
Having gone off shorter for most of his major starts over the past couple of years, and been right up there at around the 16/1 mark for the strongest PGA Tour events early in the season, prices of 45/1 surely place a little too much stock in what's always been a volatile putting stroke.
Finau's putter wasn't the only problem last week, but he was last of 70 and it's worth noting that nobody hit the ball better in round one: he was fourth in strokes-gained off-the-tee, second in strokes-gained approach, and first in greens, the only player to hit 16 of them.
Things didn't get much better than that but bermuda is by far his worst surface and he's produced big turnarounds on a number of occasions. It happened here in 2020 in fact, when he improved by two shots per round on the week before, and that's by no means the biggest swing we've seen from Finau from one week to the next.
Often, these have coincided with moving away from bermuda grass and although it wasn't the strongest of fields, let's not overlook the fact he putted just fine when seventh in the 3M Open – that was his last start before Southwind. He'd also been above average on his previous PGA Tour start, both on greens similar to these.
Finau's record in Illinois shows several excellent putting displays and we know what happens when he produces one of those. This year his results when ranking 30th or better read 7-16-20-19-1-7, and in 2022 he produced 12 such displays from 20-odd appearances and was rewarded with three wins and five more top-10s.
His long-game is seldom far away and, at a course where he was fifth in 2020, one which correlates with Riviera where he's twice been runner-up, and one which screams US Open in which he has two top-10s including eighth at Winged Foot, I can't resist chancing that putter of his. It really might've just been one awful week.
And it's for similar reasons that I have to stick with fellow Ryder Cup hopeful CAMERON YOUNG, runner-up on his Riviera debut then 20th on his return earlier this year.
Young started well at Southwind, stalled in rounds two and three, then finished strongly, and bermuda is a potential excuse for his struggles with putter. In fact his profile is almost identical to Finau's in that respect: Young putted well in the 3M Open before that, just as he did when in the mix here in Illinois at the John Deere Classic.
Bentgrass (with a bit of poa annua thrown in) ought to suit a player born and raised in New York and so it has proved so far, which offers just enough hope that he can at least be competitive on the greens.
If so, we're talking about a player ranked 10th in strokes-gained off-the-tee, whose extreme length should be a massive asset. He has won here in Illinois, albeit under very different conditions, was right in the mix at Southern Hills last year when fairways were seriously hard to hit, and has a 64 to his name on Torrey Pines' South Course.
As referenced last week, his tee-to-green display in the Open was outrageously good and having ranked sixth in strokes-gained tee-to-green on Sunday, I can convince myself that the miss three-footer he signed off with isn't worth dwelling upon.
You have to stick to the process, right?
Posted at 1100 BST on 15/08/23
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