Ben Coley's golf betting tips: The American Express preview and best bets
It's been a profitable albeit frustrating start to 2024 for our golf expert, who has five selections for the American Express.
Golf betting tips: The American Express
2pts e.w. Tom Kim at 25/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Alex Smalley at 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Brandon Wu at 150/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Patton Kizzire at 150/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Harrison Endycott at 300/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
The PGA Tour enters its awkward 'where is Jon Rahm' period at PGA West, where the Spaniard would have been chasing a third title in an event he also once criticised for being a putting contest – or swearier words to that effect.
Rahm's absence will be felt but this is a strong field regardless, with Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas and a few more top-class players perhaps using it as a final tune-up before signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera, with Phoenix in-between.
They're here to win, of course, but getting some good work done might just be satisfactory and while Rahm's two wins suggest otherwise, it's important to see beyond his name and to what this tournament all but guarantees: the sort of volatility that demands speculation.
Rahm did win last year, but outsider Davis Thompson pushed him mighty close. And he did win in 2018, but needed a play-off to beat Andrew Landry, who then got the better of the well-fancied Abraham Ancer a couple of years later. Brian Gay, Adam Long and Hudson Swafford are other big-priced winners of a three-course shootout where for 15-plus years you needed 20-under or better for a sniff.
Not that this makes it the putting contest Rahm suggested. At the very least we ought to remember that you have to earn your place in such a contest by setting up the required chances, and when I look at the roll-of-honour and those who've narrowly missed out, I see strong drivers. Swafford, Dufner, Rahm, Landry all apply, as do runners-up Thompson and David Lingmerth, and I like players you could call solid off the tee.
Such a description of course applies to the elites but Scheffler's putting fix didn't survive Christmas and that club has seen Patrick Cantlay go through a frustrating 15 or so months, albeit to a lesser degree.
Xander Schauffele isn't to be feared at 9/1, nor Thomas even if he's a far more appealing price, and I'd be more wary of those two Korean winners of the Shriners, TOM KIM and Sungjae Im, who should both give their running.
Kim, at 25/1 generally, rates the most solid each-way bet having won the Shriners for us in the autumn (defending his title) and shown that this event is to his liking with sixth place on his second try last January.
What's notable about that performance is that it came after a fortnight of shocking putting in Hawaii, which eases concerns over a similar effort at Kapalua. For whatever reason, Kim just hasn't figured out those greens yet, but he improved massively when arriving here and will be a big threat if able to do that again.
Accurate off the tee and a quality iron player who before Hawaii had been putting well for months, Kim is a better version of some AmEx specialists like Adam Hadwin and Ancer, and I rate him better value than his less explosive but perhaps more reliable compatriot. Taking both is a viable option, but Kim is the one for me.
Sam Burns is the other interesting one among the bigger names. Burns is yet to win out on the west coast but these greens have a familiar feel and his record here is strong. Burns was so-so in The Sentry but that's been the case on all three visits, and given that he's a five-time PGA Tour winner who can putt the lights out, those seeking an obvious champion should also consider him.
But I would generally prefer to roll the dice, eyes open to the possibility that we've nobody running for us come Sunday evening if Kim disappoints, and will begin that process with the highly talented ALEX SMALLEY.
Here we've a player who looked a winner in waiting last summer and certainly has the talent to progress to the world's top 50 and beyond, having been a world-class amateur and looked comfortable on the PGA Tour from the start.
An excellent driver, he's shown an immediate liking for this event, finishing 25th on debut and then 22nd last year, when closing with a round of 63 on the tougher Stadium Course. Designed by Pete Dye with TPC Sawgrass in mind, it stages two of the four rounds and the fact Smalley was the fourth-best player on it bodes well.
He has some correlating form courtesy of ninth place at River Highlands, another Dye course, and last week's missed cut on his return at the Sony Open isn't a big concern. Smalley had failed to make the weekend in both previous starts at Waialae, and both occasions he found a chunk of improvement for arriving here in California.
The question mark is his putter, which undermined some top-class ball-striking last week, but his best two performances last season came on similar greens and that's a chance I don't mind taking at the odds. Given how well he's performed here so far, and the fact he's got closer to winning since, he looks a live one at a price.
So does California's BRANDON WU, who began the year with a top-20 finish at the Sony.
His best form so far has come by the sea but he's playing well everywhere at the moment, having now made eight cuts in a row dating back to July.
As with Smalley, he might've gone a fair bit closer to winning had the putter behaved but Wu is extremely volatile in that department, which is no bad thing. Three times last season he produced a top-five putting display and when they do drop, he's a big danger.
Shorter courses suit given that he's accurate rather than powerful and having been 19th at Sawgrass, a form line I like, I do think this is a suitable event. Two missed cuts might not show it, but last year he shot 75-68-64 to miss by one, and on debut he'd only missed by two at a time when he was badly out of sorts.
Across these six rounds he's played all three courses to a high standard so while he ruined his chance at the Stadium on Thursday last year, that doesn't worry me unduly. In fact if you look closer he hit three bad shots that day and with his long-game in better shape now, I fancy Wu to limit those mistakes this time around.
Wu has found real consistency off the tee and improvement with his irons, to the extent that I'd say one of his hot putting weeks would make him a serious player, so anything upwards of 125/1 is well worth taking.
It was somewhat tempting to add Dylan Wu and therefore to remove any confusion should one of them find their way to the top of the leaderboard.
Wu number two is another rock-solid ball-striker, who led the field in greens hit last week at the Sony after a couple of months off. Stats-wise he's well above average in approach play and putting, a good combination for this, and he's similar to his namesake Brandon in that his good weeks on the greens tend to be very good.
With some correlating form plus a third-round 61 here last year he's interesting enough, but he's seldom got anywhere near winning at this level and needs a fair bit more improvement than it seems reasonable to expect.
Keep faith in Kizzire
Justin Suh has the right form profile via the Players, Honda, Shriners and so on and is respected after a rare missed cut, but I want to give PATTON KIZZIRE another chance after he narrowly missed the places last week.
As I wrote then, Kizzire might've lost his full status at the end of the FedEx Fall events but it's clear to him and anyone paying close attention that his game is in the best shape it's been for some time.
Off the tee he looks as assured as he's ever been, driving the ball beautifully throughout most of the Sony Open, and ultimately it was a bang-average putting week that kept him from landing us the each-way money.
Put in at the same sort of price here, I'm happy with that given the scope for improvement on his second start of the year, and while that putter has been a problem for a few months it's a club we know has been key to all of his success in the past.
That includes two wins at around the turn of the year and while his AmEx record is so-so, he's been here eight times and never played badly at the Stadium Course, where he was the leading iron player in 2022.
Last year's 11th, where he shot 67-67 at the toughest course having been slow out of the blocks at La Quinta, was his best yet and another step forward is perfectly possible given the state of his game at the moment.
Kizzire has been second and fourth at TPC Summerlin in the Las Vegas desert and 10th in a world-class Phoenix Open, making him a prime candidate to threaten the top 10 for the third time in five starts.
KH Lee's pair of wins at TPC Craig Ranch and flourishes here, including an opening 64 at the Stadium Course two years ago, mark him down as a potential flier after some good stuff at the Sony, while I'd be really sweet on the improving Sam Ryder but for the fact he's making his seasonal reappearance.
Alex Bjork has desert form from the DP World Tour, putts as well as anyone here and might get away with his severe lack of power for once, but winning has been hard for him and you'd likely be playing to sneak seventh or eighth if he steps up a level from last week's quiet introduction.
As you can see it's a week for ifs and buts, with no simple formula to narrow down potential contenders. The only certainties are that Scheffler will hit the ball well and some outsiders will threaten at the top of the leaderboard, so if you like your golf bets rock-solid, you might prefer to sit this one out altogether.
But for those inclined towards speculation, my favourite absolute flier is HARRISON ENDYCOTT.
Here's a young Australian who has bags of talent and has won on the Korn Ferry Tour, but his inconsistencies meant losing his status last year before he earned it back with a pretty dominant win at Qualifying School.
That was played at two Dye-designed courses which definitely interests me but above all else it was fascinating to read about how Endycott diligently worked out what was going wrong, a deep data dive helping him realise how he could save strokes through better decisions.
He now returns in one of the events he played well in last year, ranking 10th in Stadium Course scoring on his way to 22nd overall, and his win on the Korn Ferry Tour came at a course where he'd shown promise a year earlier, too.
One of his other standout performances in a quiet rookie campaign came in the Honda so there's a fair bit of encouragement to be drawn from the profile of a player who was in the mix at halfway in the Sanderson Farms, and whose subsequent Q-School display suggests the best is still to come.
Endycott is bound to take inspiration from the first two winners of the year, having struggled with similar off-course issues, and anything bigger than 200/1 rates arguably the bet of the week.
Posted at 1200 GMT on 16/01/24
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