Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Fortinet Championship preview and best bets
Ben Coley ended the last PGA Tour season with two winners in three weeks. Get his best bets for the first event of the new one, headed by Maverick McNealy.
- Ben's recent tips include a winners at 8/1, 25/1, 28/1, 28/1, 33/1 and 200/1, a 400/1 each-way return, and profits of almost 600pts for the year. Click here for his tipping record and here to follow on twitter
Golf betting tips: Fortinet Championship
2pts e.w. Maverick McNealy at 28/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Gary Woodland at 66/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Cameron Champ at 66/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. J.J. Spaun at 90/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Patrick Rodgers at 110/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Charley Hoffman at 125/1 (bet365, Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Before we begin, some housekeeping. The reason that the field for the Fortinet Championship is weak is not because the other lot are at it again. Dustin Johnson never made it to Silverado, home of this event since 2014. Cam Smith last visited six years ago, Joaquin Niemann four, and Abraham Ancer hasn't been back since a 2019 missed cut. Even Patrick 'I take time off golf by playing golf' Reed had never managed to schedule a trip to wine country with his family, which is a shame for those who like their twitter drunk and disorderly.
The reason is the same as it so often is when we ponder why they go here and not there: scheduling. Elite players finished the previous season little more than a fortnight ago. Those among them who are European were in England last week, and there's little incentive to fly half way around the world even if a bottle of Luke Donald is being uncorked. Those who are not European have next week's Presidents Cup to prepare for, and have generally chosen to follow the assumed path rather than the one trodden by Jon Rahm a year ago.
We come to Rahm by design, for he serves as a cautionary tale. When 23 of the 24 Ryder Cup team members were preparing for that event, Rahm was here, ticking one of the boxes he needed to tick and doing so as a dare I say disinterested 9/2 favourite who would go on to miss just his second cut of the year. I can't remember the precise words he used, but Geoff Ogilvy once said you're kidding yourself if you think every player gives everything every time they play, and that's fine. They are Independent Contractors™, are they not?
The circumstances aren't identical, in that it's easier to understand why Max Homa, Corey Conners, Cam Davis, Hideki Matsuyama and Taylor Pendrith are here. The gap between season's end and the Presidents Cup is one week wider, for starters, and the International rookies might do well to get rid of some nervous energy. Homa is of course the defending champion and in keeping with his reputation as one of the sport's good guys he has kept his promise to sponsors. As for Matsuyama, perhaps he wants to see how fit he is.
It is possible to argue that contending all week can only be seen as a positive for each of these men, but the margins at this level are fine and taking a risk as to someone's motivation, at short prices, is no way to begin the new season. The only one of the five who merits so much as a second glance is Matsuyama and that's because a peak version of the 2021 Masters champion would be half the price. It seems likely that something less than that, through fitness or through focus, turns up on the tee.
Silverado isn't much of anything as far as profiling it goes. I've always felt it to be a good place to focus on strong drivers, among whom Brendan Steele, Cameron Champ, Kevin Tway and Homa are all past champions, but that description is necessarily broad here. Short hitters can compete if they find fairways and those thrashing the ball indiscriminately can sometimes be caught out, especially when the fairways roll firm as they ought to given the hot and dry weather of the last few weeks.
Driving does remain at the top of my list of criteria and we must also nod to the local connections of three of those four, plus several runners-up down the years. Californians so often capitalise on the chance to play at home, as we've seen at big odds from James Hahn and John Merrick as well as some of the bigger names in the sport. Here, four of the last six renewals have gone to a Californian and it could so easily have been five from seven had Kevin Na won a play-off in 2015.
The other angle of note, I believe, comes from comparable courses, chief among which are TPC San Antonio for reasons that aren't especially clear, and Riviera Country Club for reasons that are. Steven Bowditch and Andrew Loupe were wild golfers who popped up at both Silverado and San Antonio, Steele has won both and Tway was third in Texas. As for Riviera, ties with an aesthetically similar course emerged from the very first renewal here and they were strengthened by Homa in 2021.
All of this circles back around to the man who finished runner-up to Homa, MAVERICK MCNEALY, and this is a fine chance to get off the mark.
McNealy will have to face some demons upon his return to Silverado having made double-bogey at the 71st hole, responding with an eagle which saw him lose out by a shot. Now, there's cause and effect at play here – I doubt he'd have made eagle to win had he made par at the 17th – but clearly he was in the mix for a PGA Tour breakthrough and came unstuck.
It should be remembered that he was bogey-free to that point having played beautifully for the most part, and anyone who recalls his finish at Pebble Beach earlier in the year will be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. McNealy didn't win on the Korn Ferry Tour and does still have that question to answer, but it's far too soon to dwell on one bad swing.
These two near-misses both came in California, where he's from, and he added that Riviera top-10 to strengthen the case for Silverado being a good fit. It's also a course he knows better than any other on the PGA Tour, having played here as an amateur and been invited along to several renewals of this tournament before earning it himself. This will be his sixth appearance.
A long driver who is inside the top quarter of players in strokes-gained off-the-tee, McNealy's weakness can be his approach play but that's less of a concern here than it would ordinarily be. It's driver that may prove the difference-maker and that's a key advantage over Sahith Theegala, another local with experience of the course and vying for that title of best player on tour without a win, one currently held by Cameron Young.
Theegala was firmly on the shortlist having advertised his credentials with 14th place here two years ago, well before becoming a force at this level. Getting all the way to East Lake made for a fine rookie campaign for the likeable youngster who could've won twice and seems to prefer these classical courses, but I do worry about the way he drove the ball towards the end of an exhausting season.
Perhaps he'll return refreshed but while he grabbed all the headlines, McNealy held the upper-hand in all measures bar FedEx Cup points, which reward those who make the most of their good weeks. McNealy has yet to do that in quite the same fashion but I give him the nod here as a superior driver and superior putter who is fancied to capitalise on what's a really good opportunity to contend.
Such is the absence of depth that you have to consider former winners Emiliano Grillo and Brendan Steele at their respective odds. In fact if you flipped them, and we could take 50s the former, he'd have made the staking plan having clearly found improvement on the greens. Marry that with his consistently excellent driving and a repeat of his 2015 success becomes highly plausible.
At the odds we have rather than the odds we'd like, ready preference has to be for 2019 winner CAMERON CHAMP.
Another from California, Champ landed a popular and emotional victory thanks to his imperious driving, leading the field in strokes-gained off-the-tee as he had a year earlier. It seems then that Silverado appeals to the skills of a volatile player whose dips in form have to be set against the fact he's already collected three titles at this level.
I'm surprised then that he's as big as he is in the betting, because he was a similar price at the Wyndham Championship when last we saw him. Sedgefield Country Club would right towards the top of the list of unsuitable courses for Champ, and in shooting 71-71 he was only confirming what we'd seen when he shot 71-76 on his previous start there.
Before that, Champ had bagged back-to-back top-20s in fields stronger than this one, each time undermining all the good work with one round of 75. That tells us he really was playing well when last seen, without doing what he can do with the driver, and among this trio of events only at the Wyndham did he struggle with his irons.
These are good signs if he can get back to work off the tee and that's a chance worth taking given that he ranked ninth for the season, and everything we know about this freakish talent who is deadly when playing in weak company and getting that driver fired up.
Perhaps the price comes from the fact he didn't play well here last year, his return to the course having missed the 2020 edition. But we should remember that after departing early he revealed that he'd been carrying a wrist injury, soon deciding to draw stumps for the year so that he could get the treatment he needed.
Only in the spring did he reach full health again, finishing 10th in the Masters and sixth in Mexico, and I expect he'd be a good bit shorter had he simply skipped the Wyndham Championship rather than missing the cut. That could work in our favour and while he's always prone to an early exit, the upside is plain to see.
Which fading stars have more still to offer?
The start of the new season not only demands that we assess the strength of the new members, but that we take time to ponder those more established – particularly those who have been on the decline and find themselves here in search of an early-season confidence boost. Three names standout among the latter category, and each of them made a degree of appeal.
Starting with Rickie Fowler, he's split with coach and caddie and is taking advice from Butch Harmon again, news which will presumably be welcome among his army of supporters. It was around this time last year that Fowler consulted with the famous coach and then contended for the CJ Cup, so with driver probably his best club at the moment, three-figure odds are certainly tempting.
Fowler opened with a round of 65 at Southwind when last we saw him, having scraped into the Playoffs in fortunate fashion, and the Harmon news alone will be enough to tempt some. Then again, this is one Californian who has seldom played well in California, not for a long time anyway, and four good rounds are probably beyond him for the time being.
The same might be true of Jason Day, though there are more positives here, chief among them some good approach work. That's often a weakness which means Day can capitalise when something clicks, and his record in this part of the USA is exceptional. Earlier this year he shared the 54-hole lead at Torrey Pines and some firms made him second-favourite to Patrick Cantlay a week later, which underlines how far down the pecking order he's deemed to have fallen.
I've almost talked myself into the Aussie on debut here but the case for GARY WOODLAND is stronger and he might really enjoy Silverado.
Woodland has been gradually piecing things back together having struggle for large periods since winning the 2019 US Open, and I suspect he might take a little something from seeing Shane Lowry end a similar drought at the BMW PGA Championship.
Whether that's crossed his mind or not, five top-10 finishes last season, beginning in the west at the CJ Cup, made it a comeback campaign and it would be fair to say he did everything well in patches. Most of all it would've surely pleased him to get his main strength back, climbing from 157th in strokes-gained off-the-tee to back inside the top 50, where he belongs.
There's a bit more to do until he's reaching the heights which took him to the US Open title but he's definitely capable of contending at this level already, the fact we're in California being a clear positive. As well as that Pebble Beach win he's been a regular contender at Torrey Pines and finished second in the Match Play in San Francisco, with wins in the Barracuda and Phoenix Open also coming out west.
Riviera doesn't feature as he's yet to crack the code there, but he does have correlating form at TPC San Antonio, where he's been inside the top 10 on each of his last two visits. It's that which encourages me to believe he could really take to Silverado and it's also similar to CordeValle, where he was ninth a decade ago.
Perhaps the main negative is the way he closed out the season but he's driven the ball well on every US start since the first week of May, and Southwind, where he ended the campaign, has never been his thing. Seven visits to Memphis have yielded one finish of note, that only after a flying final round, and to shoot three sub-70s capped off by a 66 was a decent effort in the grand scheme.
Before that he missed the cut on the number in Detroit, where his record now reads MC-MC-MC, and prior to the Open he contended when 10th in Scotland, form which is of a very high standard. In other words he's like Champ in that there are plenty of positives to take from summer, and like Champ he might fall for this place.
Spaun preferred to star-in-the-making Suh
Back to those Korn Ferry Tour graduates and Justin Suh stands out a mile among them. A dominant winner of the final event of the season just a fortnight ago, this former amateur star has the world at his feet and he also has experience of this event, having come through qualifying last year. Suh played pretty nicely, too, and benefited no doubt from the fact he'd played Silverado throughout his junior career.
Another Californian, it wouldn't have taken much more on the price but 50s is probably short enough. He did after all win as a 33/1 shot in much calmer waters and while Grillo completed the same double seven years ago, and Smylie Kaufman won the following week, it remains rare for rookies to bed in quite so quickly.
Instead I'll return to that San Antonio link to back J.J. SPAUN, who won the Texas Open there in April.
Spaun was deeply impressive in the way he went about capturing his first PGA Tour title and he looks to be underestimated here, having started to show signs of his best form again after an understandable adjustment period.
Eighth in the Rocket Mortgage Classic, he then went MC-42-23 over the final three events of his season, but that doesn't quite tell the whole story. Spaun was in fact in front after 18, 36 and 54 holes of the FedEx St Jude Championship, and it was only one poor round which kept him from qualifying for East Lake via the BMW Championship which followed.
Spaun will therefore need to win again or enter the world's top 50 if he's to earn a second crack at the Masters, where he played so well as an 11th-hour invite to finish 23rd, and this looks a nice fit for the LA native who is the third most famous alumni of San Dimas High School (behind Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan).
A regular visitor to Silverado, Spaun showed what he could do at the course when ninth in 2020. That was his only top-30 finish of a miserable year and saw him rank fifth in strokes-gained tee-to-green only to struggle a little with putter in hand, which has always been a nagging concern.
On all six starts he's driven the ball well and for the most part his approach play has also been good here, so returning as a PGA Tour winner he looks a potential each-way player having definitely recaptured something towards the end of a breakthrough season.
Beau Hossler looked for a long time like he would triumph in Texas and ties things together nicely having played well at Riviera, and in his last two starts here. He's a similar player to former runner-up Patton Kizzire and if producing a solid ball-striking week could figure back close to where he grew up.
Hoffman in last-chance saloon
That's a big if, however, and I'd rather chance CHARLEY HOFFMAN producing a good putting week, which admittedly requires a leap of faith too.
That said, the 45-year-old was back driving the ball to an extremely high standard towards the end of last season, and in the Rocket Mortgage Classic married that with field-leading approach play. It was his best tee-to-green performance since finishing second in the Texas Open 18 months earlier.
Off the tee he improved again at the Wyndham where I chanced him despite a poor course record but again his putter was an issue and that has continued to hold him back. There have been occasional good weeks but no more than that and there's no escaping the fact he does need to find improvement for a month away.
However, I can't escape the fact that as well as going close at Riviera he has a fine record at San Antonio, and he has started to hint that he can complete the triangle here. Hoffman missed his first two cuts but only narrowly, and then started well in 2020 before four solid rounds for 22nd place last year.
His long-game has categorically improved since then and there's one other factor, aside from the fact he's Californian, that I'm intrigued by. Hoffman will presumably tee off here in his first start under a career money exemption, something he can use only once. Such a scenario can spark a player into life and it did the very same to his longtime friend Nick Watney, who finished 30th and second in the first two events last season when in a similarly perilous spot.
Given that he's been hanging around close to the lead at some stage in each of his last four starts, and was eighth at halfway in the high-class Canadian Open three months ago, Hoffman should have faith in himself to win back his full playing rights. And, like Watney, it's possible he wastes no time in doing it.
Joseph Bramlett is another local who could threaten if his short-game holds up but I'll fall into the trap of chancing PATRICK RODGERS at a course he loves.
By now you ought to know that Rodgers enjoyed a fabulous college career at nearby Stanford University and while still a PGA Tour maiden, he is only 30 and has time on his side.
In strokes-gained terms there's a good case to argue that he comes here on the back of his best ever season, the first in which he gained strokes with his approach play, and he was comfortably inside the top 100 in FedEx Cup points to avoid a return to Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
A year ago, he was about the same price for a stronger edition of this event based on form he'd shown in those finals, so I can't help but feel he's in effect being downgraded for avoiding them this time.
He was sixth here last year, too, playing bogey-free golf across the weekend to earn his second top-10 finish in eight starts at Silverado. He's always gained strokes off the tee here and it's certainly one of the handful of courses at which he should be of interest almost regardless.
As it happens, he's made 10 cuts in 13 starts since April, competed at a very high level in Canada and at the US Open and signed off the season in decent form before Southwind, where he missed the cut for the second time in three starts having been away for five years.
Back close to where he made his name, Rodgers can demonstrate that while the lofty ambitions of a decade ago remain distant, he is very much capable of rubbing shoulders with anyone in this field.
Posted at 1910 BST on 12/09/22
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