PLAYERS Championship betting preview and tips from Ben Coley
Rory McIlroy is favourite to defend his title at the PLAYERS Championship, where our golf expert is eyeing up bigger prices.
Recommended bets
2pts e.w. Patrick Cantlay at 28/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Sergio Garcia at 80/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Shane Lowry at 80/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Russell Henley at 200/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
0.5pt e.w. Jimmy Walker at 250/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
0.5pt e.w. Jason Dufner at 350/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6)
It seems to me that the PLAYERS Championship is the most competitive tournament of the year, and therefore among the hardest to win. Granted, the majors provide better quality from overseas - there are a number of European Tour players ranked outside the world's top 50 who could in theory make this field even stronger - but the PGA Tour is stacked, and aside from Tiger Woods, everyone else is here.
Then there's the course. When the PGA Championship went to a sodden Bellerive and then over to a brutal Bethpage, it seemed fair to assert that hitting the ball miles was a prerequisite. In the end, it was even more straightforward than that: to win, it turns out your name had to be Brooks Koepka. Here, at TPC Sawgrass, there's no such power divide. Pete Dye's most famous and dramatic course forces defensiveness for the most part and if you want to win here through the driver, you'd better make it count when you are allowed to flex.
Combine the field and the course - specifically, the course - and you get a remarkably open tournament. Even the spectre of the world number one and defending champion, priced at 7/1 because of how likely he is to play well, can't change that. Any shortlist here probably stretches beyond 20 players and whoever does come out best on Sunday, their path to success is very difficult to plot in advance.
Take last year as an excellent example. Yes, McIlroy led the field in strokes-gained off-the-tee, as we might have predicted, but runner-up Jim Furyk outscored him across the 16 par-fives. In the end, the difference between the two was minute, these two diametrically opposed players doing much to underline what makes golf great and, by extension, what makes Sawgrass so intoxicating. Golf is sport's ultimate meritocracy and few tournaments demonstrate that better than the PLAYERS.
As such, winners vary greatly but having someone on-side who does everything to an excellent standard seems sensible, and that man is PATRICK CANTLAY.
The current world number six arrives slightly beneath the radar, and the same could be said of his form in this event. So far, Cantlay has finished 22nd, 23rd and then missed the cut last year, but that by no means tells the full story.
On debut in 2017, his fifth start back after a three year absence, Cantlay sat seventh after round one, fifth at halfway and seventh through 54 holes, before a disappointing Sunday saw him tumble down the leaderboard. A year later, he led after the opening round, and it's little wonder he speaks highly of Sawgrass and his suitability to it.
"I really like this golf course," he said two years ago. "It reminds me a lot of Hilton Head, and I like that golf course as well. So I feel really comfortable around here."
Cantlay touches on an interesting point there - Hilton Head, and Dye's other PGA Tour venues. His record at the aforementioned course reads 3-7-3, and he's been 15th in each of the last two years at TPC River Highlands. Go further back, and he was fifth in the Jacksonville Open at the Valley Course here, another of Dye's designs.
I've absolutely no doubt he has the patience and skill-set required for Sawgrass, and he's playing well enough. Last time out, he was 17th despite a quiet week with the putter, and before that he was 11th at Pebble Beach. He's played every weekend since last year's PLAYERS, a run of 18 events (five of which had no cut) and a third PGA Tour victory should be on the agenda in the coming months.
Here at Sawgrass, I really like the way things set up for him. Last season, Cantlay was third in the PGA Tour's bogey avoidance stats, behind the last two winners of the PLAYERS. In fourth was Tommy Fleetwood, who boasts the best scoring average here of those to have played three times or more, in sixth was another former winner in Matt Kuchar, and in eighth was 2019 runner-up Furyk.
It's a category 2016 winner Jason Day has led before, one Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia have been second in, one Furyk has led more than once, and at 20th in the still formative stages of this season, it's one in which Cantlay features regularly.
At Sawgrass, being willing to hit it to 40 feet and two-putt is important, as is scaling back from the tee, and Cantlay's meticulous approach appears perfectly suited to it. Fast greens aren't an issue - see his victory at Muirfield Village - and any improvement on the greens now he touches down in Florida should make him a big player here.
Speaking of Florida, you'd think that those playing in either the Honda Classic or at Bay Hill last week would be at an advantage. And yet with the breeze forecast to ease off a little this week, I just wonder whether that will prove to be the case. We may see some of those who've been buffeted around at PGA National and Bay Hill find that they've been blown out of sync.
I certainly wouldn't want to have played both, like Sungjae Im has, and Fleetwood's missed cut could prove a blessing in disguise. He's very much a European Cantlay and cases can be made for both, but the American is a bigger price yet strikes me as a marginally more likely winner.
Xander Schauffele was runner-up here on debut and arrives on a sequence of top-25 finishes. That was the case last year, when he disappointed, but having ranked first in strokes-gained tee-to-green on his first try at Sawgrass he's very much respected. That said, he was flattered last week, when failing to strike the ball anywhere near as well as he had in Mexico, and that's just about enough to cast the net wider.
I feel similarly about most of the big names, in truth. McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas are the three men most likely, but taking into account the competitive nature of the event I'm not keen to get stuck into any of them. Rahm would earn narrow preference, but that's all it would be and it's over two years since he won a solo PGA Tour event, and three since he won one of anything close to the quality of this.
That's a cynical way to view the profile of an incredible talent, but at 12/1 you have to dwell on the negatives for a while. They are too many for the Spaniard to be supported on this occasion.
Dustin Johnson stood out a mile at first glance - I don't remember when last he was a 28/1 shot, and he's bigger on Betfair - but his iron play isn't good at the moment and that's likely to cost him. As for Rickie Fowler, I like him a lot, but I can't for the life of me understand how he can hold his price from last week when those above him have generally been eased to reflect the significantly increased field strength.
As such I'll jump right down to SERGIO GARCIA, who has it in him to join an elite group of players to have won this title more than once - one that includes his old rival, Tiger Woods.
Garcia overcame really tough conditions to beat Paul Goydos in a play-off here in 2008, and either side of that he's twice finished runner-up. He was also third in 2014 and fourth back in 2002, while a more recent view reveals that he's made 16 Sawgrass cuts in succession. In a big field, with little in the way of genuine deadwood, at a course where one bad shot can be ruinous, that's a simply phenomenal record.
Of course, he's 40 now and there's a chance that his days of winning top-class events are in the past. It has after all been three years since he took the Masters, four since his most recent PGA Tour win outside the majors, and the four titles he's collected since becoming a major champion have all been decidedly low-key.
Still, the tendency is to forget all too quickly what type of player we're dealing with, and Garcia is good enough to remain competitive at the highest level - even if he hasn't exactly shown that in majors. And, if he is to prove that sentiment correct, we should probably expect him to do so this year, as he looks to extend his remarkable Ryder Cup record by appearing at Whistling Straits.
We saw Henrik Stenson beat Woods and co in December, we've seen Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell win on the European Tour since, and Garcia is in the same phase of his career now having turned 40 in January. For all that he's let everyone down at some stage, my expectation is that he remains focused and competitive throughout summer knowing that a wild card call from Padraig Harrington is, shall we say, no certainty.
All of this is speculative, very much my opinion, but there's been quantifiable substance to his play of late, too. Garcia's form in 2020 reads 8-23-6-37-37, and each aspect of his game has at some stage fired. Key to his chances here will be marrying the superb, field-leading driving display he produced in Mexico last time with the approach work of Saudi Arabia, with his short-game healthy enough to support those strengths of his game.
Here at Sawgrass, where he enjoys the challenge of working the ball to pins in a way so few are able to, there's a good chance that it all comes together. Four times he's led world-class fields in strokes-gained tee-to-green, and on seven occasions he's entered the final round inside the top 10, again testament both to his longevity and consistency, and how well this place sets up for him.
I expect this will also prove an ideal venue for an on-song SHANE LOWRY and, in the hope that he's also capable of piecing things together, he's added at a similar price.
With respect to others in this bracket, Lowry stands out a mile as both playing well - which Jordan Spieth is not - and having the credentials which the likes of Joel Dahmen, Daniel Berger and Abraham Ancer lack. That's not to underestimate any of the trio, but two of them are seeking their first PGA Tour titles and doing so at TPC Sawgrass in the PLAYERS Championship would be rather against the grain.
Lowry, who had won a World Golf Championship at Firestone before he became the Open champion last summer, is significantly more decorated - a fact reflected by his world ranking of 20th. The only players in the world's top 25 who are 66/1 or bigger are Lowry, Matt Fitzpatrick, Louis Oosthuizen and Justin Rose, and the Irishman is the biggest of the lot.
Perhaps that's because there's still some scepticism around his status as a major champion, or an assumption that he's only elite when playing links golf. Even acknowledging how well suited he was to Portrush, that argument is a little simplistic, and I really like the fact he demonstrated what he can do on a Dye design with third place in the RBC Heritage last April.
It is Lowry's Sawgrass form which presumably puts people off, but there's more to it. In 2016, on his second start here, the Irishman shot 65-68, the former bogey-free, and sat second after each of those two rounds. A Saturday 78 ended his hopes, but he responded well with a final-round 71 which saw him hold his position inside the top 20.
That was a very good effort, especially considering a cold putter, and two years later he defied a dreadful start to shoot 68-69-71, adding further depth to his course form which his finishing positions hide. He does still have to prove he can string four rounds together here, but with his elevated status in the game this is his best chance to do so.
Lowry's form is solid, too. He spent the entire week inside the top 25 in the Honda Classic last time, improved on his previous Mexico form to finish 29th before that, and was a little unfortunate when 13th in Saudi Arabia. Earlier, he began the year with second place in Hong Kong and finished 11th in Dubai, with the sole blot on his copybook a clumsy missed cut as defending champion in Abu Dhabi.
Added up he has six top-30 finishes in his last seven starts and around a course like Sawgrass, where his touch around the greens can keep big numbers off the card, he simply looks overpriced. He wouldn't be the first Open champion to win here and I don't think it's beyond him.
With as many as 10 places on offer, I would love to be making rock-solid cases for world-class players and sitting back in expectation of the very best in the sport battling this out between them. Only, I don't quite see it panning out like that and there's no denying the fact that not only have there been some big-priced winners here, but the list of nearly-men is hardly a who's who of the sport's elite.
Last year, it was notable that both Furyk and Jhonattan Vegas (T3) were merely improving a little on some strong recent form, despite their big prices, and this is the sort of venue where arriving with your game in good shape is particularly important.
The last nine winners of this had been 22nd or better on their previous start - Lowry sneaks in as a qualifier with a tie for 21st, whereas Garcia doesn't quite - and 16 of the last 22 had been 25th or better. You have to go all the way back to 1997 for a winner who had missed the cut before bouncing back at Sawgrass, and that's bad news for the likes of Fleetwood, Stenson, Adam Scott, Rose, Oosthuizen, and a handful more.
I don't like relying on trends, but when an event has the same dynamics year after year, they tell us something. What's more, they might help to identify the outsiders who can massively outrun their odds, and one such candidate is RUSSELL HENLEY.
Even allowing for the depth here, I was a little surprised to see Henley's odds more than double from the Honda, where he was eighth, to this week's PLAYERS Championship.
That effort at PGA National came on the back of a career-best top-20 at Riviera, and it was striking that despite a late trip to the water guarding the 15th green, Henley's sole big mistake that week, he led the field in strokes-gained approach.
We're still waiting for the putter to catch fire - it used to be his biggest weapon - but quality ball-striking will take him a long way and Henley is one of those with a strong body of Dye form, including a win at the aforementioned Valley Course here, plus sixth at both Harbour Town and River Highlands, the latter a course at which he's also been 11th.
With his biggest win to date having come over at PGA National, where he defied 300/1 odds to beat McIlroy and others in a play-off, we know Henley is tough and he has three victories in the locker - all with some kind of useful correlation. Without question, he's at his best on the east coast and if he builds on the Honda Classic, he has a chance.
Henley is another of my selections with somewhat hidden form in the event, having opened with a round of 65 in 2014 and sat third at halfway, and climbed through the field in 2017 when an opening 75 cost him. With his game arguably as good now as it was then, he's worth adding to the staking plan.
There are plenty of younger, more progressive players for whom cases can be made, but I'm completing my staking plan with a couple of major champions at huge odds.
First, JIMMY WALKER has finished 21st in the Honda and 24th at Bay Hill and any fears as to a gruelling fortnight are mitigated by odds around the 250/1 mark.
This former winner of the PGA Championship was second here in 2018 and while that was a little surprising, a look at his first few years at Sawgrass confirms that he plays the course really well. On debut he was 26th, he shot a second-round 69 despite missing the cut a year later, and then came a run of 35th, 15th and sixth, the latter courtesy of a final-round 65.
It's a while now since he was a genuine force on the PGA Tour, illness contributing to a loss of form, but the fact his iron play has seriously improved over the last fortnight is really encouraging. It was a similar step up with his approach shots which saw him go fourth, second and sixth in May 2018, and having ranked fourth last week there are signs he could have another run in him.
Walker was 59th in putting last week, but for which he'd have been right there in the mix, and he's typically putted these greens really well. I couldn't tell you he's by any means solid, but that blend of course form and definite signs of improvement lately put him on the radar.
The same is true of JASON DUFNER, another former PGA champion and one who also has a pair of top-six finishes here.
Dufner has made eight cuts in 11 at Sawgass, and his wider Dye record is impressive. His first win came at TPC Louisiana, he's since gone in at the CareerBuilder, where two rounds are played on Dye's Stadium Course, he's been solid at Harbour Town, played well on his sole start at Crooked Stick, and even finished 27th at Kiawah Island on his only appearance there.
At his best, his tee-to-green game was enough to get him round Sawgrass with far less drama than most, and there were signs in the Honda Classic last time that his game is coming around. Over the weekend there, Dufner played 34 of the 36 holes in par or better, two big mistakes costing him a few spots as he settled for 27th place - still his best performance for a while.
Dufner has made his last five cuts, seemingly bedding in well with some new Cobra equipment, and he's playing better now than when fifth here in 2018. He'll need to build on the Honda, and his record there is strong it must be said, but the odds are a little insulting for a player who hit the frame on two championship courses - Quail Hollow and Muirfield Village - last spring.
Finally, I must mention Jason Day. He withdrew from Bay Hill last week, citing back trouble, and it's clear that the career of this major champion and former world number one is being seriously damaged by ongoing physical issues.
He's hard to make a case for even at 70/1, even as a former winner of this with a strong overall record, in light of those health issues. And yet, he's a three-figure price on the exchanges, and there's precedent for a swift recovery. In fact, four times he's withdrawn and then finished in the top 15 a week later, including across the same two events last year. One of those top-15s was in a major, another the high-class TOUR Championship, and a saver on the Australian is worth considering for those able to access the biggest win-only prices.
And so there we have it. Six selections, five of them speculative, for an event most will assume goes to one of the world's best. Perhaps that will be the case. Yet, with several of them struggling for form, others for fitness, and Sawgrass having thrown up some strange yet explainable results, there could just be more to it than that.
Sky Bet specials
Find these specials here, by scrolling to 'Tipster Picks'
14/1 - any of these six to win the tournament
14/1 - all six selections to make the 36-hole cut
25/1 - any two selections to finish in the top five
40/1 - any three selections to finish in the top 10
50/1 - any four selections to finish in the top 20
300/1 - any three selections to finish in the top five
Posted at 1830 GMT on 09/03/20
PLAYERS Championship previews
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