Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Genesis Invitational preview and best bets
After a 30/1 winner last week, Ben Coley casts his eye over the strongest PGA Tour event so far this season – the Genesis Invitational.
Golf betting tips: Genesis Invitational
4pts win Dustin Johnson at 18/1 (General)
3pts win Collin Morikawa at 20/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Tony Finau at 50/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Marc Leishman at 55/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Joaquin Niemann at 66/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Doug Ghim at 250/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
The Genesis Invitational has a lot to live up to as the supposed star attraction of a west coast run which has already been magnificent, thanks to two play-offs and three first-time winners. Indeed after Hudson Swafford won The American Express things built up towards a crescendo which might just have come one week early as Scottie Scheffler beat Patrick Cantlay in a drunken, delirious, dizzying Phoenix Open. How exactly do you follow that?
The answer is with more of a purist's test, at a famous old golf course, and with all of the world's best players in attendance, and for all we cannot guarantee the same level of drama, we know for sure this is the best men's golf tournament held anywhere in 2022. Whoever wins it must surely stride into spring as a candidate for further success, with The PLAYERS, the Match Play and the Masters all now tantalisingly close.
When the stars are in town as they are here in LA, it's often difficult to see beyond them, though it must be said that Max Homa was not the first to overshadow them when he broke Tony Finau's heart a year ago. In-form and playing in his hometown event, Homa was by no means a surprising champion, but he was ranked outside the world's top 50 at the time. Twelve months down the line and numbers one to 11 dominate the betting.
Not that anyone comes here with flawless credentials. Jon Rahm's brilliance is such that second gear can still pay, but he has seemed stuck in it for a couple of weeks now and his strike-rate at this level doesn't justify prices which are more a reflection of his reliability. Patrick Cantlay has now spurned three good chances and the spectre of Rahm's top ranking may hinder him, if indeed he's able to go again. Justin Thomas, third in the betting, has a feast-or-famine record here and though cruising to seventh at Scottsdale, I'd be adamant that's a better test for him.
With Rory McIlroy's last victory in a field comparable to this one now three years in the past, and Xander Schauffele flattering to deceive once more at the weekend, I find myself compelled to split stakes between the two biggest threats to Rahm: DUSTIN JOHNSON and COLLIN MORIKAWA.
Johnson is playing at the single most suitable course for him on the PGA Tour, one at which he was a dominant winner in 2017, having amassed five top-five finishes from his previous seven visits. One of those was a play-off defeat to shock champion James Hahn and even last year, when a seemingly non-threatening eighth, he played his way right into it during Sunday's final round.
Riviera is made for his game, as a difficult course which favours those who work the ball left-to-right off the tee. A longtime California resident who has won twice at Pebble Beach, he's very comfortable on these poa annua greens and the ties between this tournament and the Masters were strengthened further when Johnson won a Green Jacket in 2020.
All of this is in the form book, but it's worth digging deeper to highlight just how good his record at Riviera really is, and how much better it might have been. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, he sat 105th, 117th and 65th after the first round, climbing to 16th, ninth and 10th. Last year's eighth was the final bright spot before a serious summer malaise and came despite a balky putter, and he would surely have won this in 2015 but for the same issue. A year earlier, he was beaten only by Bubba Watson's best-of-the-tournament 64.
Despite all this, Johnson is an 18/1 shot, which to my eye puts him two places below where he should be in the market. The reason for this is that there's a view, one which is not unreasonable, that he's a long way below his best. And yet following clear signs of encouragement at the end of last season let us not forget he went 5-0-0 in the Ryder Cup, playing only twice subsequently before returning at Torrey Pines, having failed to qualify for the Tournament of Champions.
At Torrey Pines, a very difficult place to reappear and not an event Johnson has always enjoyed, Johnson's ball-striking was as good as it has been since he bossed the Saudi International last February. And in the only appearance he's made since, when defending that title in Saudi Arabia, I would wager that he took another step forward, finishing eighth having really struggled on the greens. We don't have stats to back that up but Johnson missed countless chances and stressed more than once that he was hitting the ball well.
"I'm happy with where the game is at and obviously looking forward to being in a place I'm really comfortable at and had a pretty good record at," was his pre-tournament remark and it's one that also applies here, in a far more important tournament, one he can definitely win if taking a step forward on the greens. Should he also avoid the slow start which has given him a mountain to climb here recently, I would expect him to be in the thick of things again come Sunday.
Can Morikawa take over at the top?
As far as Morikawa is concerned, similar comments apply: he's priced at 20/1 because he's not necessarily been at his best, and yet we only really have to overlook a modest effort at a windswept, difficult, new-to-the-tour course in Abu Dhabi, after which he knocked things into shape to finish 18th in Dubai.
These aren't results which scream winner-in-waiting but Morikawa has so far danced to a different beat than many, having finished 71st in Scotland before winning the Open, 43rd here before taking a WGC, 20th in a small field before that brilliant PGA Championship breakthrough, and missing the cut at the Travelers and then taking down Thomas in the Workday Charity Open.
He is undeniably more volatile than many of his peers but six wins in something like sixty tries immediately suggests we won't go too far wrong in siding with him at 20/1 at the right course. And there's where I believe lies another misconception: the idea that because he's not contended in two previous appearances here, Riviera is not the right course. It really ought to be.
Shorter than Torrey Pines, where Morikawa nevertheless contended for the US Open, Riviera rewards all-round strong ball-striking, rather than succumbing to brute force, and asks every question there is. Precision approach play is the surest route – it's a strength of Homa's – but I also like the fact that, in contrast to Torrey Pines, accurate driving can translate to high-ranking strokes-gained performances. Last year's top three drivers were Viktor Hovland, Homa, and Matt NeSmith, none of them the type to overpower a course and more likely to pound it, fairway by fairway and green by green, into submission.
Morikawa, who is driving the ball well, could find that he is better rewarded here than he has been so far this season, and if he dials in his iron play, watch out. Encouragingly, he has ranked second in strokes-gained approach in each of his two professional starts at Riviera, a course he's played plenty more times, and he was experimenting with a new putting technique when utterly hopeless on the greens one year ago.
With his putting stats improved, and that field-leading performance at Harding Park having come on the poa annua with which he's so familiar, Morikawa can become the latest hometown winner of an event which will be circled in his calendar, just like it was for Homa, just like it was for Hahn. Born in LA, he says it took him until playing in this tournament to 'fall in love with' Riviera, and player and course look like a match made in heaven.
It would be just like Morikawa to rise to number one in the world in his home state, where he also won his first major.
The player who gave me the biggest headache was Will Zalatoris, a former winner of the Collegiate Showcase at Riviera, for which he was rewarded with a spin in this event seven years ago. Since 15th in his first visit as a PGA Tour member, Zalatoris is a good fit and was unfortunate to finish runner-up last time we saw him up at Torrey Pines.
The trouble is, for all that was an elite tee-to-green display, he relied on putter here last year and I would say Torrey Pines is probably the best course for him on the circuit. He also then missed Pebble Beach through Covid-19 and while unlikely to have affected him badly, the fact he didn't add Phoenix to the schedule surprises me and possibly hints at some kind of interruption to his preparation.
Zalatoris missed his chance in the Farmers and, at the same price in this stronger field, I think we did too.
Don't forget about Finau
By contrast, TONY FINAU and MARC LEISHMAN are both a fair bit bigger in the betting and their greater experience of this demanding course may put them at an advantage.
Finau is risky because he's not been lighting it up this year – indeed, since winning in August he's proven the idea of floodgates opening to be a little ridiculous in this sport.
However, we are undeniably compensated by prices around the 50/1 mark at a course where he'd already been runner-up before losing out to Homa in a play-off, when unfortunate that the latter was able to escape from the base of a tree at the notorious 10th hole.
Finau is similar to Johnson in relying almost exclusively on a power fade from the tee but being able to work the ball whichever way he needs to with his irons, and in both these instances of finishing second, he was the best player in the field from tee-to-green. Riviera is made for him and at his best he'd be half the price.
He is not at his best, but after flying in from Saudi Arabia and making a slow start in Phoenix, his second-round 68 was much more like it: Finau was inside the top 15 ball-strikers in a 132-man field last Friday, and 20th in scoring despite his short-game proving troublesome once more.
It may be that he flatters to deceive again but he got off to a good start at Torrey Pines, progressed throughout the Tournament of Champions and the AmEx after that, and is more than capable of clicking when conditions suit. Indeed, that overdue win in The Northern Trust ended a long run of fairly modest stuff and he's produced three major top-10 finishes on the back of missed cuts.
This is the closest thing to a major we've had in many months and he's a no-brainer at the odds.
Leishman is another I've been keen to side with lately and he really does look to be full of confidence and enjoying his golf again. He hasn't missed a cut since the Open, which was his 10th missed cut in little more than a year, and eight starts since the beginning of this season show nothing worse than 38th.
Last time out he defied a slow start (100th after round one) to finish 28th in Saudi Arabia, shooting an excellent final-round 64 on his first start in he Middle East, and he's now back under familiar, comfortable conditions, the kikuyu rough and poa annua greens very much his wheelhouse.
Victory at Torrey Pines just before the shutdown in 2020 was no surprise given his form in this part of the US and Riviera, where he has two top-fives, shot a closing 65 for 15th on debut and played well last year, is no less suitable on paper. His approach play has been excellent here and when his putter has fired lately it's seen him feature towards the top of the leaderboard. The Aussie should go well.
I must confess, it was tempting to side with the long-game credentials of Thomas Pieters, in the form of his life at 30 and with a long-held affection for this course. Pieters contended here on debut and it's easy to overlook the fact that in just 31 PGA Tour starts, he's managed top-six finishes in the Masters, the WGC-Mexico, the Bridgestone Invitational, the US PGA, and this very event.
That was back in 2017, when Pieters burned up the course with a Sunday 63 to finish second, and he returns now with his game in a brilliant place. The one nagging concern I have is that Pieters is playing on an invite and while that didn't stop Sahith Theegala last week, for the Belgian victory would mean earning a PGA Tour card. It would be an extraordinary achievement to manage it on a rare start here, having found comfort closer to home.
Instead, I'll take the similarly explosive JOAQUIN NIEMANN at the same price.
Niemann spoke of how much he loves this course and this tournament when second at halfway last year, and while poor over the weekend that was the third time in as many starts he'd shown promise here. On debut, the Chilean shot 71-66 to be on the fringes, and his 2020 missed cut was on the number.
It's also worth noting that he was returning from a month off last year whereas this time he's bagged successive top-10 finishes at Torrey Pines and in Saudi Arabia, making an excellent debut at the latter course having finally delivered on long-held promise at the former.
Indeed, his performance in the Farmers offers particular encouragement that he can step up here and so does his pound-for-pound best effort in this kind of field, when third at the 2020 BMW Championship. That came at a tough Olympia Fields, where Riviera form stacked up nicely through the world-class duo in the play-off and the likes of Finau, Matt Fitzpatrick and Jason Kokrak just behind.
Niemann feels like a player who has just been left behind a little since bursting onto the scene a year before Morikawa, but he's still only 23 and has started the new campaign with real intent. Hopefully he can repeat last year's effort over the first 36 holes, and stick around for longer this time.
Course comfort points to outsider
There has been plenty of success in this event for locals down the years, with Californians such as Corey Pavin, Craig Stadler and Phil Mickelson followed by surprise wins for John Merrick, Hahn, and then less so Homa last year. Plenty of other west coast players like Fred Couples, Hal Sutton and Kirk Triplett are also on the honours board and it'd be no surprise were another from the Golden State or nearby to add their name to the list before the Tour moves east.
With this in mind and the run of first-time winners extending to three I did ponder Cameron Tringale, who loves it here, can be forgiven a missed cut at Pebble Beach, and hails from Orange County. Tringale has entered the final round inside the top five no fewer than seven times in the last 12 months and could give backers a run for their money again at 80/1.
However, I'll roll the dice on another maiden who has greater potential, with DOUG GHIM having shown enough to suggest 250/1 represents good each-way value.
It's no secret that Ghim has some Riviera course form to his name having lost the final of the US Amateur here to Doc Redman, but his quality long-game ought to make it a good fit for him as a touring professional, too. He didn't quite show it last year but rounds of 71 and 72 to miss the cut by a single shot were respectable, and the fact he hasn't missed a cut since the first event of this season demonstrates his continued improvement.
He's also a former college teammate of Scheffler and I'm drawn to previous comments made by Ghim, which demonstrate why he's not quite enjoyed the same level of success just yet but suggest he might just be spurred on a little by Sunday's events.
"I’ve always been somewhat of a slow-starter," Ghim said. "I was used to seeing Scottie play well in the beginning and then trying to catch up, as a junior and in college. Experience is an important thing, and he’s got more of it than I do at this point in time. I look forward to being able to gain some of that this year and hopefully mirror a lot of what he did his first year out here and I’ll be kind of in the same boat very soon."
That was a year ago and Ghim went on to bag some of that precious experience when contending in The PLAYERS, where he was alongside the winner, Thomas, in round four. It's true that he's not taken the next step up since, but he's nevertheless marked himself down as a quality ball-striker, and last week in Phoenix his approach play was third behind Bubba Watson and JT.
His previous best ball-striking performance came in his hometown event, the John Deere Classic, and back at the scene of his US Amateur effort I wouldn't be surprised were he to run into a place. Anything 200/1 and bigger looks worth taking for all that focus should be much further up the market in this world-class tournament.
Posted at 1910 GMT on 14/02/22
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