PGA Tour: Shriners Hospitals for Children Open betting preview and tips from Ben Coley

Recommended bets

3pts e.w. Collin Morikawa at 22/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2pts e.w. Rickie Fowler at 35/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Louis Oosthuizen at 40/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Zach Johnson at 66/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. James Hahn at 150/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas: debauchery, marriage, tigers in hotel rooms, and goings on at TPC Summerlin, where the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open has barely made sense.

How else can you digest Rod Pampling, aged a hundred, beating Brooks Koepka as if it was the most normal thing in the world? Or Ben Martin bouncing back from shooting 78-79 the week before? Even some of the results which appear obvious were built on sand, such as Patrick Cantlay winning a play-off against Whee Kim and Alex Cejka. Penance for that came in 2019, when Cantlay tasted playoff defeat. Kevin Na winning the tournament is hardly a surprise, but this should be: he did so losing strokes from tee to green.

A stacked field for the 2020 edition dramatically increases the chance of something logical happening, not least a second win for Bryson DeChambeau, the aforementioned Cantlay, or Las Vegas resident Collin Morikawa. First though we have to acknowledge that, in the City of Sin, anyone can win.

Perhaps that’s the best way to digest things after all. It’s not that things here are totally random, totally unpredictable — at least no more than anywhere else. It’s that Summerlin, for all its resort-style nature, thinnish rough and myriad opportunities, actually does something old-fashioned: it rewards hitting fairways.

Every single winner since 2009 has ranked inside the top 25 in driving accuracy, and in turn most have driven it well in the modern vernacular. It’s a remarkable trend in some respects, because driving accuracy seldom matters, and when it does, most would expect it to be at a course with narrower fairways and thicker rough. Not so. In order to access pins on undulating greens, to create the necessary birdie chances, you simply need to have full control as often as possible. Once you do, you can be Rod Pampling or you can be Bryson DeChambeau or you can be Ben Martin, and that makes for anachronistic golf on an otherwise modern and unremarkable course.

You might at paragraph six be yelling ‘get on with it’ — fine, you’re new. Otherwise you might be inclined to wonder why there’s been no mention of the putter, especially given Na’s mind-blowing numbers of 2019 (Cantlay gave him 13.5 strokes on the greens). That’s because Na’s performance is an outlier, and the previous three winners actually ranked outside the top 30 — Pampling included. It’s not the sort of tournament where you’d expect someone who really struggles on the greens to win, but a repeat of last week, where Sergio Garcia did enough but triumphed because of his ball-striking, is far more likely than might appear at first glance. Not always — not often, actually — do low-scoring events turn into putting contests.

A final point of order concerns the weather, which is glorious to begin with before the threat of a seriously strong wind emerges. That’s interesting because so often this has been played in ideal conditions, and when things turned nasty in 2017, scoring was dramatically affected; 20-under became nine in terms of the champion. This time expect something between the two, and consider siding with those who you know can handle it should those 25mph gusts arrive.

Such analysis led me to LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN, in-form, driving it straight and well, and third in the US Open last time.

The South African makes his debut here, but there's nothing especially complicated about the requirements and I suspect it'll suit him. First and foremost he really has been good off the tee since switching to an old driver before Southwind, and as I wrote there his success depends on it; I feel like he needs to generate confidence off the tee and let that flow through the rest of his natural game.

That's what appeared to happen at Southwind and it was only a bad putting week which confined him to a relatively low-key 33rd in the following week's PGA Championship. Since then he's been 13th at The Northern Trust, 25th at the BMW Championship and third at the US Open; he's played in exclusively high-class fields all year now and despite being slow out of the blocks in June, he's performing to something like his best.

It's fair of course to state that he's always been a player for the big occasion, that third place at Winged Foot the latest in a long line of strong major performances. All told he's been inside the top 25 more than half the time since winning The Open back in 2010, building a record which makes it all the more difficult to comprehend the fact he's not yet won a PGA Tour title.

All of that is valid, and would've been reason enough to oppose him if he'd taken his place in the field for the Safeway Open last week when set to go off among the favourites. However, he's back out to 40/1 here in a high-class field, and while towards the lower end of the acceptability scale, it's at around this point where concerns over an absence of silverware are outweighed by the likelihood he plays well.

And I do think he'll play really well, here in the desert. That's what he did when third on his debut at TPC Scottsdale in the Phoenix Open, and when reaching the quarter-finals of the Match Play at Dove Mountain. And it's what he's done throughout his Middle East appearances on the European Tour, with nine top-10 finishes including bests of second in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, third in the Dubai Desert Classic, and fifth in the DP World Tour Championship.

That form does correspond well with the desert out here — see Branden Grace leading the Barracuda recently, and Ben An contending in Phoenix more than once — and Oosthuizen, who won't mind the weekend wind one little bit, is fancied to pick up where he left off in New York.

It's a similar line of thinking which takes me on to another former Open champion, with ZACH JOHNSON next on the list.

Again, Johnson appears really well equipped for what's forecast at the weekend, and like Oosthuizen he's been playing much better lately. We first saw real encouragement with a strong first round at Harding Park, and since then he's managed two top-10 finishes in four, playing well in the other two events, too.

Last week saw him finish strongly for 23rd at the Sanderson Farms Championship, where his iron play was excellent just as it had been at the Wyndham. On both occasions he might have gone close to ending a five-year winless run but for solid yet not extraordinary putting stats, whereas in the US Open he led the field on the greens and was therefore able to compete at a course made for longer hitters.

Marrying up these departments will be key, and there's hope courtesy of bentgrass greens — the type he grew up on, and a feature of so much of his success across events like the John Deere Classic, Texas Open, Charles Schwab and, most famously, the Masters.

Here at Summerlin he's been a rare visitor, which isn't all that surprising for a consistent member of the world's top 50 who would often have a Ryder or Presidents Cup around this time, and end-of-year parties like the RSM Classic and Hero Challenge still to come. That's why he's played only twice since his debut, the first time when tired and suffering with a neck injury, and the second in 2019, the only year of a two-decade career which ended without a top-10 finish.

Twelve months on and he's plainly in better form, which leads to his only other start here, in 2008, when he'd won in Texas just days earlier. Johnson opened with a round of 62 to lead, followed it with a 65 to somehow find himself only third, was fifth with a round to go and eventually settled for a weary 10th. That's good enough evidence that Summerlin fits, and so is the fact that he's played 10 rounds here, and every one of them has been under-par.

Back climbing the rankings, he looks capable of winning again and must surely take great inspiration from the exploits of Stewart Cink, his long-time friend and fellow major champion. Cink ended an 11-year drought at the Safeway Open and has followed it with another top 10 behind Garcia, meaning two of the four winners in this new season have been aged 40-plus. Throw in Jim Herman, and it's three in eight events having been none all year prior.

Partly this reflects weaker fields, but while there's an elite, major-winning flavour to this one, we know this course itself can be a great leveller. Johnson looks to be playing well enough to make it another victory for the veterans.

At the front of the market, clearly the prospect of DeChambeau blasting his way to a second victory here is strong. He's been close to flawless in the last two editions, was in a league of his own at the US Open, and is a worthy favourite who goes in pursuit of a third victory since the PGA Tour resumed in June.

Cantlay's form figures read 1-2-2 — he really could have won the last three renewals — and his game has shown better signs of late, while Webb Simpson, Tony Finau and Hideki Matsuyama all like it here, as do Harris English, Matt Wolff and Scottie Scheffler.

Each could win and the front of the betting does look especially strong, but the standout value lies with COLLIN MORIKAWA.

In 31 events since he turned professional, Morikawa has won three times, including a major, and he's also been runner-up twice. He's hit the place money on a couple of other occasions and as one very good judge said to me last night, 'I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd been put in at 10/1', which would better reflect those numbers.

Instead, he's 22/1 — only a hair shorter than when winning the PGA Championship — because of a missed cut at the US Open, where he started slowly and couldn't recover. I can excuse that for any number of reasons, not least the fact that suddenly here he was, teeing off at Winged Foot alongside Tiger Woods, as the winner of the most recent major championship to be played.

It's also worth noting that though his first victory came after back-to-back top-fives, since then he's won when expectations have perhaps dropped slightly. First came that smash-and-grab at Memorial, a fortnight after the first missed cut of his professional career. After it, he finished 48th at the same course, then 20th in a small field, before winning so fabulously in San Francisco.

Morikawa was popular for the PGA, largely on account of local ties, and they're in play again here. When he won the Barracuda here in Nevada, he was in the process of buying a house near to Summerlin, and he's made this and the nearby Summit his base ever since. It's a popular spot with PGA Tour players and they've often put their course knowledge to use, most notably through two victories for Na, one for Ryan Moore, and a near-miss for Nick Watney.

And then we have bentgrass greens. All of Morikawa's three PGA Tour wins, plus his two runner-up finishes, have involved bentgrass to varying degrees. These surfaces compare best with Muirfield Village and Colonial — the latter where he lost a play-off — and at this embryonic stage he does show a slight upturn away from bermuda, on which he putted moderately at the TOUR Championship two starts back.

In general terms, his putting has improved since the restart but it's his accuracy off the tee which can power a significant improvement on last year's quiet debut here. Morikawa is behind only Simpson when it comes to driving accuracy among the world's best players, and I think he has every right to be up there with him in the betting.

Those seeking a repeat of Na's remarkable, lights-out putting success might consider Denny McCarthy, though he's not putting quite as well as he can at the moment. Perhaps the best in the field is in fact Maverick McNealy, a Vegas resident coached by the semi-retired Butch Harmon. He showed what he could do locally when seventh just over the border in the rehoused Barracuda, but I just can't trust him to find a fairway and it may prove his undoing.

On Monday, I alluded to a price I found staggering on twitter, and it was the 125/1 first show offered next to the name of Cameron Champ. In such circumstances it pays to look, look, and look again... and in so doing, the price has disappeared. Ultimately I've decided he has to be left out at a revised 80/1, but the case may interest someone and so here it goes.

Primarily, it focuses on Champ's wins, of which there are two in as many seasons, both coming at this time of year. But it's their timing which also sheds light on his performances at the Shriners, because he's played this event straight after both of them. On the first occasion then, perhaps the well was running dry — he was sixth through 54 holes thanks to a mighty driving display, but faded to 28th. On the second, he was spent before he got here. Days earlier, he'd secured that emotional victory following the death of his influential and beloved grandfather.

This time he arrives fresh and well, and the Californian could land an autumn hat-trick. It's not that he's a bad price, either — how can 80/1 about a player with two wins in fewer than 50 starts as a PGA Tour member be bad, especially when he has so much more to offer — it's just that he has struggled a bit since the PGA Championship. Have a look on Thursday morning and see if you can get a big exchange price, because he's a little all-or-nothing.

It's tempting to chance Will Zalatoris, who won at altitude in Colorado earlier this summer, hails from California, and only missed the cut last week because of a poor short-game. He's an excellent driver who had previously finished sixth in the US Open and eighth in the Dominican Republic, so perhaps there's been an overreaction to the Sanderson Farms where he only narrowly missed the weekend. By contrast, Sungjae Im made it with a birdie at the 36th hole, went on to climb the leaderboard, and has retained a fairly prominent position in the market as a result.

Both have their merits here but I find myself drawn to RICKIE FOWLER for the first time in many months.

It's been a lean year for Fowler, who has taken time to bed in some swing changes since making the difficult decision to leave the Harmon operation. He's now working with John Tillery, based at Sea Island, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to state that the switch has so far failed to really pay off.

That said, there's no place better to really start to show the fruits of their labour than Summerlin, where Fowler made his professional debut more than a decade ago and finished an excellent seventh. He's been back three times since, finishing 22nd a year later, 25th in 2015, and fourth on his latest visit in 2018 where he signed off with a 63.

All told that's 16 rounds, 15 of which have been under-par, and a scoring average of 67.50 which puts him right towards the top of the tree. Victory over at Scottsdale, where he'd previously been a habitual contender, underlines that this sort of golf suits his aggressive nature and there would be parallels with Phoenix were he to win here.

His form is a concern, but there's are reasons to spin it positively and the main one is that he struck the ball really well last time out in the US Open, ranking 15th in strokes-gained off the tee and 19th with his approaches. This will sound familiar to those who've read my European Tour preview, but the numbers he produced represent his best ball-striking since that victory in Phoenix last February. In that department he really wasn't far off.

Fowler called it the worst putting week of his career and he's not far wrong, but those fast, extremely contoured greens at Winged Foot are almost unique. Crucially, we know he likes those he'll face at Summerlin, because he's ranked 14th, second, first and eighth in strokes-gained putting here. I would venture it's been his most productive stop on the PGA Tour when it comes to making putts.

Prior to the US Open, don't forget he flirted with the places at the Workday (eighth through 54 holes) and contended at the St Jude Invitational (third through 54 holes), and he did the same at The American Express in January, where he was the co-leader with 18 holes to play. That's another desert event which is open to all kinds of attack and though quiet on Sunday, 10th place there is another pointer towards his chances here.

The message is Fowler isn't all that far away from clicking and if he can drive the ball well on his return to Las Vegas, where he was based for a while at the start of his career, this is an excellent place to see it through for 72 holes.

Abraham Ancer and Talor Gooch are others who, like Fowler, won't mind a breeze should it arrive, but I'll put forward JAMES HAHN as my final selection.

This two-time PGA Tour winner is playing on a Major Medical at the moment, which means he has a limited number of starts (12 remaining) to earn a certain number of FedEx Cup points (140.136 remaining) and secure his full playing rights again.

The good news is the battle is halfway won, because he's earned 165 points already this season courtesy of top-10 finishes in both starts. First he held the 54-hole lead before a disappointing final round the Safeway - forgivable on his first start in two months — and then he played well every day in the Dominican Republic. Crucially, both were powered by arrow-straight driving (fourth and eighth) and hitting greens (sixth and 10th), a combination which could carry him a long way in Vegas.

Hahn has actually said before that he doesn't think the course particularly suits him, and yet he contended in 2016 and more often than not has figured prominently in driving accuracy at Summerlin. He boasts a sub-70 scoring average and has started well on his last two visits; last year it was his first start in eight months, and he was in abysmal form before taking a solid 28th in 2018, as he had been before making the cut in 2017.

By contrast that eventual tie for 15th in 2016 came after a top-10 finish, in turn on the back of a strong FedEx Cup run, so when Hahn has played this tournament with his game firing, he has threatened. This will be just his second opportunity to do that, and he might well be capable of taking care of business where that Major Medical is concerned.

Remember, he has won two high-class events, the first when he'd been playing well in the preceding weeks. He's also gone well in Phoenix and at PGA West in what's now The American Express which means we have some strong desert form, and he's proven should conditions take a turn for the worst — in fact, that would favour him.

All things considered, Hahn rates the pick of the outsiders.

Posted at 1110 BST on 06/10/20

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