Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Charles Schwab Championship preview and best bets
Christiaan Bezuidenhout can bounce back from a narrow missed cut in a major to contend at this week's Charles Schwab Championship.
Golf betting tips: Charles Schwab Challenge
1.5pts e.w. Christiaan Bezuidenhout at 50/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Justin Rose at 50/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Keegan Bradley at 55/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Aaron Rai at 60/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Adam Svensson at 150/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Scottie Scheffler departed the PGA Championship 'running on fumes', a wonderful if accidental nod to his Friday trip to a Kentucky jailhouse, and it's surprising in some ways that the world number one appears set to tee it up in the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Anywhere else and he'd surely have withdrawn, but this is a home game for the Dallas resident, which means he's not sacrificing too much time with his newborn baby. He's also going to be bursting with freedom, a feeling perhaps best captured by Morgan Freeman in outlaw classic Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and like Azeem his loyalty may be rewarded.
In fact providing he doesn't nod off or fire Ted Scott at any point during the tournament, it's hard to see Scheffler finishing outside the top 10. He hasn't done that in Texas in two years, he hasn't done it anywhere since January. Second and third on his last two visits to Colonial Country Club, latterly when ranked 70th in putting, his shadow covers the field in an event he's desperate to add to his fast-growing collection.
Scheffler is an outlier, a golfer who showed at Harbour Town that he can and will win anywhere, but on paper this is a course where players like him might be slightly more vulnerable than elsewhere.
First and foremost, Colonial is a mid-length par 70 where driver has typically been the least important club, one or two exceptions aside. Quality approach play and a deadly short-game are typically the requirements around an old school layout, where old school statistics like fairways and greens haven't totally lost their relevance.
It's ideal in some ways for 2020 runner-up Collin Morikawa, who might be able to shake off Sunday's putting woes, and it's ideal in others for Jordan Spieth, still nursing a bit of an injury and one way or another, not producing his best. Spieth though is more likely to click into gear here than he is almost anywhere and he certainly believes that good golf is around the corner.
"My game feels actually really good," he said on the eve of the PGA. "It wouldn't surprise me if I found my way into contention any week right now." It wouldn't surprise me, either, and all three of this year's top-10 finishes have come at courses he knows like the back of his hand, which is why I have found him more difficult to overlook than perhaps I should.
With seven top-eight finishes from 11 starts in the event, and his reassurances that the wrist is not affecting him, Spieth is the pick of the favourites at the prices. However, the bottom line is that his performances don't match up to his words or my expectations and having missed the cut here in 2023, he probably doesn't merit the benefit of the doubt. If anything, back him win-only on the exchanges at around 28/1.
Money for Harris English makes sense but means he has to be left out of calculations now and I'd be more inclined to side with Brian Harman, who has been unable to keep up on long, soft courses over the last fortnight. Prior to that he was able to gain strokes off the tee at the Heritage and if he can do that here, one of his better putting weeks would put the Open champion in the mix.
He's respected but at a bigger price this looks a good opportunity for CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT, who can do as Emiliano Grillo did and bounce back immediately from a major missed cut that is of no concern whatsoever.
In fact I'd be encouraged by Bezuidenhout's performance at Valhalla, as he carded a second-round 68 to miss the weekend by a single shot after failing to convert a 10-foot birdie chance at the 18th hole on Friday. His only bogey during that round was a three-putt from long range and his game looked to be in excellent shape, gaining strokes through the bag and bouncing back impressively.
That's actually been the case for a while now with six top-30s in a row prior to the PGA Championship, his approach play and short-game typically powering his best stuff. Bezuidenhout is adding distance all the time but for now his strengths are what he does after the tee shot, which makes him an ideal Colonial candidate.
Following a missed cut on debut, that being the 2020 edition which was stacked and came after a three-month break from professional golf, Bezuidenhout has finished 15th and 21st in two subsequent appearances. On all three visits his approach play has shone and he's yet to really light up the greens, with his work around them also costly at times.
That department of his game has been in good shape for the last couple of months and he's certainly one of the best putters in this field on his day, so everything looks in place for the breakthrough which would effectively seal his return to the Presidents Cup later this year.
AARON RAI is another PGA Tour maiden who has been banging loudly on the door, a player who goes about things similarly to Grillo and is one of the best ball-strikers in this field.
Rai has placed in Texas twice already this spring and after finishing down the field on his Colonial debut, no surprise given that experience is generally required here, he played some really good stuff for 12th place upon his return.
That was despite a shoddy week on and around the greens but he'd been putting badly at the time, whereas he now returns having gained strokes on three of his last four measured starts, all of them nearby. On balance, bentgrass greens like these ones probably do represent his best surface and he certainly isn't lost on the greens as he was this time last year.
Ranking 16th off the tee and second on approach showed us what he can do at this tough, classical course, one which he's far more suited to than last week's rain-softened shootout. In the circumstances, Rai did just fine to finish mid-pack in the PGA having had a good chance to win on his previous start in the Byron Nelson.
With big-hitting by no means a prerequisite this time and scoring sure to be more difficult, he's one who like Bezuidenhout should feel much more comfortable. Rai has been knocking on the door and given that his top-15 last year followed a run of missed cuts, there's a good chance he's among the contenders come the weekend now that he arrives in good form.
Sepp Straka was among my selections last year at 100/1 following a top-10 finish at the PGA Championship, and I can't quite bring myself to accept half the price after a missed cut this time. His approach play is right where you'd like it to be and his near-miss at Southwind plus that win in Florida both rate handy pointers, but on balance he can be left out.
Rose in bloom and worth following
Far more difficult to omit is JUSTIN ROSE and I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt given that he's a past champion who has always loved coming back to Colonial.
Rose has returned five times since his dominant win in 2018, the highlights being third, 12th and 20th, and that middle result came 12 months ago when he led the field in strokes-gained approach just as he had when holding off Brooks Koepka five years earlier.
But for a misbehaving putter he'd have hit the frame again and while arriving on the back of a strong PGA Championship isn't new, I'm hopeful that his performance last weekend, alongside two Ryder Cup teammates, will have lit the fire ahead of what's often been his best part of the season.
Certainly, the fact that it earned him a US Open spot, right after his exemption for winning that event had expired, will be a massive boost to a player who really does believe he can double his major tally before coming to the end of a fabulous career.
Unlike Morikawa, I doubt there will be any real sense of regret following sixth place at Valhalla, where he refused to go away but was never quite close enough for it to feel like a big opportunity, and having been on a generally light schedule it could set him up nicely for one of his favourite PGA Tour stops.
It's fair to say that his performance in Kentucky looks like the outlier of a disappointing spring, but Rose has only played three times below Signature Event level this year and none of them since the first week in February. This drop in grade comes right after his best performance since the Ryder Cup and he might make the most of it.
Certainly, he felt that last week's effort had been coming and when he's struck form in the past, he's tended to run with it. For my money that makes him an irresistible candidate at 40/1 and upwards in what is a winnable event.
Daniel Berger's long-game is moving in the right direction and he's of some interest at 150-plus on Betfair along with the volatile but capable Cam Davis, who often pops up at shorter, more technical courses, and the enormously talented Davis Thompson, who might just benefit from this first look around.
Instead, I've been lured into ADAM SVENSSON at 150/1, a player who I think is capable of a lot more than he's been able to show lately.
Svensson was 10th at Riviera back in the spring but rather than set him up for a Presidents Cup push, it preceded a poor run of form. However, after a caddie change prior to the Valspar Championship he's started to catch the eye, with his long-game certainly improved.
Ranked 84th in strokes-gained approach prior to that event, he's climbed to 31st over the course of his six subsequent starts, while last week in the PGA Championship he also drove it well and looked good around the greens en route to four under-par rounds and a mid-pack finish.
That course was too long for him really but it was the putter that did the damage, as it had at the Wells Fargo, and that's a risk we'll have to accept. That said he ranked 20th at the Heritage and has always been volatile, something he capitalised upon when landing the RSM Classic in 2022.
Sea Island isn't the worst guide to Colonial by any means and having been 40th here when badly out of form earlier the same year, his sole start in the event, I do think this is a good course for Svensson. If he can putt like he did last Friday or on Sunday for all four rounds, he can threaten the places.
Beau Hossler has gone closest to winning in Texas, first Houston then San Antonio, and was in the mix a fortnight ago. He knows this course extremely well and has several low rounds to his name, but on balance he's not built on a hugely encouraging end to 2023 and his long-game remains suspect.
The opposite is true of Doug Ghim, a former University of Texas teammate of Spieth's, and I like where his game is. Ghim has one top-15 finish to his name at Colonial and can add another if his fairways-and-greens game is complemented by an above-average week with the putter.
My final selection though is back in that 50/1 range where KEEGAN BRADLEY remains a little underestimated.
Winner of the Travelers Championship a week after last year's US Open, Bradley could well repeat the trick if he builds on last week's top-20 finish, which included an improved putting display.
That's far from out of character on bentgrass greens, his preferred surface, so I'm glad he's decided to add Colonial to his schedule again having only played it twice before. First was 2016, when he was without a top-20 finish all year year and missed the cut, then he was mid-pack in a strong field in 2020, both times striking it well.
Speaking of strong fields, Bradley's last four starts have come in either Signature Events or majors, and three of them have been top-25s. For the first two that was in spite of some strangely poor driving, but he was back on track with that club when leading the field at Valhalla, and his approach play remains of a high standard.
At 16th in the Presidents Cup standings, which he's climbed over the past month, I hope Bradley can earn the next best thing following last year's Ryder Cup snub. To do so he'll probably have to win, and there won't be many better chances unless Scheffler does turn up with his A-game and pulverise them.
That is eminently possible but with five quality iron players against him, perhaps we can stumble into the sort of putting display that helped Grillo to victory last year.
Posted at 1030 BST on 20/05/24
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