Free golf betting tips: Quicken Loans National preview and selections from the in-form Ben Coley
Our expert golf tipster Ben Coley has enjoyed great success this season, including a 10/1 winner last week, meaning his regular followers are well in profit in 2017. Here, he has five picks ranging from 66/1 to 250/1 for the Quicken Loans National.
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Recommended bet 1 of 5: 1pt e.w Daniel Summerhays at 100/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)
Click here to back Summerhays with Sky Bet
After an electric finish to the Travelers Championship, in which the standout player from the 'Class of 2011' saw off an old college rival with a touch of wizardry so few in this sport possess, the Quicken Loans National has much to live up to.
Now in its 11th year, this event has produced an eclectic mix of quality champions including host Tiger Woods, where-is-he-now Anthony Kim, hip-hop fanatic Nick Watney and nice-as-pie major winner Justin Rose.
Throw in K.J. Choi and Bill Haas and it would be fair to say the first eight editions went roughly to the form book: these were high-class players producing high-class golf at two high-class courses, namely Congressional and Aronimink.
But as Tiger's star began to fade, so too did this tournament's ability to attract the very best and that, in part, explains shock winners in both 2015 and 2016.
First, Troy Merritt produced an assured Sunday performance to hold off Rickie Fowler, before a poignant victory for an inspired Billy Hurley III just last summer when veteran Vijay Singh took second. Both were first-time champions; both showed remarkable poise in the face of stiff opposition when it came to the back-nine.
Fowler is back to head the betting and is followed closely by Justin Thomas, but Patrick Reed is the only other member of the world's top 25 in attendance and that adds to the belief that we could be in for another surprise.
Reed played superbly for three rounds last week and is by some distance the most tempting win-only option, but his propensity to throw in a shocker is enough to look elsewhere.
As well as a weak field, this year's renewal heads to TPC Potomac for the first time, a course which has undergone expansive and expensive reconstruction since Ben Curtis shot 20-under to win the now-defunct Booz Allen Classic in 2006.
Evidence of its impact has already been seen via the Web.com Tour, which came here in both 2012 and 2013. Sixty-four players broke par in the 2004 Booz Allen won by Adam Scott; just 12 managed to do so when David Lingmerth won here in 2012, and come 2013 and Michael Putnam's seven-under success, the figure was down to nine.
The first of these two champions is particularly notable, as Lingmerth has since backed up his lower-grade success by beating the aforementioned Rose to win the Memorial Tournament in 2015 and therein lies the most appealing angle as we attempt to solve a difficult puzzle.
The Memorial Tournament is held in Ohio, and this one in Maryland. In other words, northern states. And year in, year out, the same players pop up in this part of the US, if such a phrase can be used to tie together events played 400 miles apart. The Barclays, the Memorial, Quicken Loans, Greenbrier, the John Deere, the Travelers - study enough of these leaderboards and it'll become clear that one so often points to another.
Examples are far too many to list exhaustively, but even in the most simple terms, Rose, Choi and Woods have all done the Memorial/Quicken Loans double, and Fowler probably should've. Given how young this event is in PGA Tour terms, that's an enlightening trend.
Other factors must include scoring. This course was labelled the most difficult on the Web.com Tour in 2012 and while it'll be immaculate, and these players are better than any to have tackled it before, I don't imagine this will be a shootout. Players who've shown they can grind are the most appealing.
Finally, this mid-length par 70 does feature some hints of golf in Scotland, not least in the bunkering. It's probably nothing, but the 2006 Booz Allen saw Open champion Curtis beat Open champion Padraig Harrington and 2004 winner Scott is as good a Scottish links golfer as you'll see. Open champion Justin Leonard has won here; so too has Open champion Mark O'Meara, who won the Claret Jug at Birkdale in 1998 and the Senior PLAYERS at TPC Potomac some 12 years later.
By far the most compelling starting point is geography, however, and that's where the case for Daniel Summerhays is made.
To be quite honest, it had passed me by how much better a player he is in the more northerly part of the country until I began researching this event. The evidence, once you start digging, is pretty overwhelming.
Every top 10 finish Summerhays has produced over the last two years - and virtually every big performance across his entire PGA Tour career - offers serious encouragement as to the prospect of him popping up at a price this week.
Summerhays was 10th at the Memorial earlier this season, when leading into the final round. Last season he finished third at Baltusrol, New Jersey, in the PGA Championship. He was eighth at Oakmont, Pennsylvania, and he was 11th in Cromwell, Connecticut at the Travelers. These were his best three finishes of the 2016 campaign.
In 2015, Summerhays finished sixth behind Jason Day in The Barclays at Ridgewood, New Jersey, before taking ninth in Boston, Massachusetts at the Deutsche Bank Championship. He'd earlier been eighth in the John Deere Classic, played in Illinois. Three of his best four performances, the fourth coming in the Texas Open.
In 2014, he was consistent and played well most weeks, but only twice did he better his T13 in the John Deere and one of those was again Texas, an event for one reason or another he almost always plays well in.
Go back to 2013, and Summerhays finished fourth in the John Deere one week after he'd taken ninth at the Greenbrier Classic, played in West Virginia. Fifteenth at The Barclays was pound-for-pound an even better effort and that came at Liberty National, again in New Jersey. Again, his standout efforts of the year.
In 2012, Summerhays finished fourth in the Memorial and fifth in the Greenbrier, and if we keep going back further to his Web.com Tour days, Summerhays' sole victory came almost exactly 10 years ago when, as an amateur, he won the Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational in Ohio, just a short drive from the host site of the aforementioned Memorial Tournament.
Now, all of this would be rendered largely irrelevant were he a) poor value and/or b) incapable of winning given the current state of his game, but I don't believe either of those to be true.
As mentioned, Summerhays was bang in the mix when finishing 10th in Ohio, and after two so-so efforts there was a definite upturn last week as he opened 66-68 at the Travelers Championship to sit just two off the halfway lead.
Some average putting has held him back all season but Summerhays, who says he's a better player in summer (yes, really), has shown some positive signs on the greens and said at the Memorial that his performance there had been coming for a while.
The 33-year-old has three top-30 finishes from five starts in this event but there's scope for him to benefit hugely from the switch in course, with Congressional probably a shade too long, and at 100/1 is a hugely appealing each-way proposition. His major performances last year speak of a player who can tough out a score.
Recommended bet 2 of 5: 1pt e.w Harris English at 100/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
Click here to back English with Sky Bet
Summerhays is one of just a handful of players to land a Web.com Tour event as an amateur and another of them, Harris English, gets the benefit of considerable doubt.
English is, for my money, best under demanding conditions and the prospect of some wind whipping across this golf course wouldn't bother him in peak form. Quite the opposite - it would put him at an advantage.
Now, it'll be obvious to anyone who follows the PGA Tour closely that English is not in peak form. In fact, 2017 has been close to a disaster - he's dropped 35 places in the world rankings, missed twice as many cuts as the previous season and managed just one top-10 finish.
However, that top-10 was just three weeks ago in Memphis, a course at which he's comfortable, and it came immediately after he'd qualified for the US Open. For what it's worth, English finished nine-under for his two rounds to secure a place at Erin Hills, sharing second with last week's shock European Tour winner, Andres Romero.
All of which suggests that there are green shoots of recovery if you want to see them, and that was the case at the US Open, too, as he started 71-69 to sit four-under at halfway before unsurprisingly struggling at the weekend. A major championship is no place to go searching for form.
Even last week, when missing the cut at the Travelers, there was much more to his effort than a cursory glance at the leaderboard might reveal. English shot 67 in the first round, four shy of Jordan Spieth's lead, only to make an eye-watering 11 on the par-five 13th in round two, his fourth hole of the day.
Making such a score can destroy confidence, but English played the remainder of the round under-par to suggest that he was able to manage his emotions. What's more, absurd though it may seem there is some quite interesting evidence for players responding like the professional athletes they are to such devastating blows.
Most famous would be Kevin Na's 16 at the Valero Texas Open six years ago. Na regathered himself, played the rest of the round in three-under and then finished ninth and sixth in his following two starts, having shown little in the run-up to Texas.
In 2012, Charlie Wi made a 13 at the Transitions Championship. Like English, like Na, he played the rest of the round under-par. One week later, Wi got himself into the final group of the Arnold Palmer Invitational only to understandably struggle alongside a rampant Tiger Woods. Still, it was some bounce-back.
Even John Daly, the wildest of the wild, has shown the mettle of a top-level sportsman, a two-time major winner no less, when making a mess of things. He was ninth in the Canadian Open on his next PGA Tour start after taking 13 at TPC Deere Run in 2011, while after a whopping 18 at Bay Hill in 1998, he tied for 16th in the PLAYERS next time. That remains his career-best at Sawgrass.
This might be anecdotal at best but it does show that elite golfers tend to be good at laughing off embarrassment, and in some instances might even use it to fuel a big performance at the next opportunity. That could just be the case this week.
Of course, I'm not backing English because he took an 11 at River Highlands. I'm backing him because this may well prove to be a suitable test if he can keep it in play off the tee, with the short game really sharp and the forecast difficult conditions perhaps enabling him to focus on getting the ball in the hole rather than worrying about the technical aspects which have dogged him for months.
He can take confidence from both US Open qualifying and the St Jude Classic, while just like Summerhays, he first came to prominence by winning in Ohio on the Web.com Tour and is therefore proven in this part of the world.
English has also watched his closest friend on Tour win this year, plus a couple of former Georgia team-mates more recently, and in an event of imponderables gets the vote at 100/1.
Towards the head of the market, Kevin Chappell would make plenty of appeal but for the fact that we're entering the unknown to some degree when it comes to the golf course.
Chappell finished third in the 2011 US Open at nearby Congressional, also went close at Muirfield Village and has held his form really well since seeing off subsequent major winner Brooks Koepka to land a breakthrough success in the Texas Open, a tough event I've mentioned already.
He's a similar price this week, but I don't think he'd have been any shorter were this at Congressional, a course we know he loves, therefore no allowance appears to have been made for the change in venue which definitely brings the field closer together.
Recommended bet 3 of 5: 1pt e.w Kevin Streelman at 66/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)
Click here to back Streelman with Sky Bet
As such, I'm compelled to go with the less sexy profile of Kevin Streelman.
This two-time PGA Tour winner provides straightforward appeal thanks to his current form, which reads a progressive 18-13-8. It's very similar to last year, when he went 8-13-12, the latter in this event.
His record in the Quicken Loans National is strong virtually throughout, with other finishes of 27th, 11th and 15th across a variety of courses, and clearly the timing of the event is ideal considering the roll he's been on of late.
Streelman's putter had previously been cold, but after ranking 29th for strokes-gained putting in the Memorial, he's been third and ninth since, so it's a case of keep that going and there's every chance he can perform really well once more.
Like Summerhays, he's also a fine player in this part of the world. Streelman was 12th in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill, New York, he's won in Connecticut, finished 13th at Oakmont last summer and seventh in the Memorial six years ago to go with eighth in 2015. He also took a shock third at Liberty National in 2010 and was fourth in the same event at Ridgewood in 2008.
With all of this in mind, it's an easy decision to side with a player who will bring confidence to a course which is new to virtually every player in this field.
Smylie Kaufman could take to the challenge, having no doubt enjoyed watching pal Jordan Spieth win the Travelers.
He was T20 at the Memorial last year, played three solid rounds himself last week and has also gone nicely at TPC Boston, but on balance he's short enough given that it's not so long ago we were on him at 500s when he shared fourth in North Carolina.
Luke List was tied for 13th here in 2012 despite shooting 39 over the closing nine holes - he was right up there in a quality finish for the St Jude Classic last time and has looked for a while now like a winner-in-waiting.
Recommended bet 4 of 5: 1pt e.w Jason Kokrak at 85/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
Click here to back Kokrak with Sky Bet
However, I'd rather wait for a course more obviously suited to his power-packed game and instead will side with Jason Kokrak.
Also a big hitter, Kokrak has also shown an adaptability that's taken him into contention at Harbour Town, a golf course which offers no advantage whatsoever to the bombers.
That means we can be confident he can rise to whatever challenge TPC Potomac provides and he'll certainly be raring to go, as it's likely that a good few family members and college friends could make their way across from Ohio, where he grew up playing the game.
Kokrak has been frustrated with his performances on home soil in the Memorial, but he was third in this event at Congressional when enjoying plenty of support, while he also boasts a couple of top-10 finishes at The Barclays.
This season has been a tad frustrating but fourth place in the Byron Nelson last month was much more like it and after a missed cut at Colonial, he's gone T35-T53-T26 to hint that he's not far away once more.
Kokrak is another who has putted really poorly this season but some work with Dave Stockton has started paying off. He ranks 193rd for the year, yet was sixth at the Nelson and 13th at the US Open, which represents a notable turnaround even if he's not managed to find consistency just yet.
He's certainly hitting the ball well having been seventh in strokes-gained: tee-to-green last week and the hope is Kokrak can marry these two elements and secure what would be a deserved breakthrough success.
Recommended bet 5 of 5: 1pt e.w Ricky Barnes at 250/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
Click here to back Barnes with Sky Bet
And finally, while CT Pan is tempting at three-figure odds and Morgan Hoffmann boasts some encouraging course form, Ricky Barnes is preferred at a bigger price.
Barnes plays tough courses really well, as regular followers may remember after he placed having led through 54 holes of last year's Texas Open, when put up at 200/1.
He's around the same price here despite a weak field and having made eight cuts out of nine to hint at a return to form, including when leading after round one of the Nelson before finishing 18th at Colonial and 22nd in the Memorial.
His best regular PGA Tour finish came in an earlier renewal of the latter event when tied for third, while his career-best finish full stop came when tied second in the US Open at Bethpage, New York, to underline another player who is comfortable in the northern states.
Barnes said at the Nelson that he'd been "having signs of brilliancy (sic)" while his strong history in this event includes leading at halfway in 2014, when he confirmed: "I do like it when you have to grind out pars and you're either keeping pace or picking up a shot."
A good wind player whose game looked close to its best when teeing up in Ohio a few weeks ago, Barnes could surprise a few and extend the run of first-time champions at a difficult event to weigh-up.
Posted at 1820 BST on 26/06/17.