PGA Tour: Safeway Open betting preview and tips from Ben Coley

Recommended bets

2pts e.w. Joel Dahmen at 30/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Kevin Streelman at 40/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Mark Hubbard at 70/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Wyndham Clark at 100/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Kevin Chappell at 125/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Doug Ghim at 250/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

If there is a right way to begin the new PGA Tour season, less than 72 hours after the previous one has ended, perhaps it's on a course like Silverado in California, perhaps the epitome of an anything-goes layout. The playing field has already been levelled by the resetting of FedEx Cup points, and there are no real excuses for anyone who arrives here fit and healthy. It is a par 72 which is neither easy nor particularly hard, and one on which players as contrasting as Cameron Champ and Adam Hadwin, Brendan Steele and Patton Kizzire, Emiliano Grillo and Kevin Na, can duel.

In fairness to the latter pairing, they're perhaps not as different as the previous two and their respective performances
in 2015 were similar. Back then, Grillo followed up his victory at what was the Web.com Tour Championship by beating Na in a play-off between the two best iron players in the field. Both of them lost strokes on the greens, in itself a remarkable fact, and if there's one category we probably can place on the back burner it is the least predictable.

Otherwise, the best way to tie together champions is that they've been largely excellent drivers. For the best part of a decade, Steele - who has won twice here in Napa - has been among the most reliable off the tee on the PGA Tour. Kevin Tway certainly relies on long and relatively straight hitting, and then along came Champ, whose power is perhaps the most pure and authentic in the sport.

Driving the ball well on this twisting, tree-lined course is an excellent starting point, and there are a couple of other small factors which could potentially lead to the winner. One is course form: Champ and Steele had been inside the top 25 a year earlier, and Tway had been eighth after the first round of his previous visit and played well for large parts. The other is local ties: Champ and Steele are Californians and Na was raised in SoCal. Plenty of others who've gone close have strong west-coast connections - Ryan Moore's geographical, Brandt Snedeker more to do with a record built on his poa annua putting - and this is the first trip to the Golden State since February for many.

All of those aspects combine to make Steele and Phil Mickelson the two candidates who are arguably the most likely winners, the former having enjoyed a back-to-form season and Mickelson a winner on the Champions Tour two weeks ago. But with the US Open to come next week I wonder whether we ought to be just a little more speculative, while also acknowledging the strange circumstances which led to that. The new season begins but not with a new batch of rookies; instead, there are many players here given a lifeline, a second chance to establish themselves, and that could prove significant, too.

I'll start off with one of the best maidens in the field, who ought to see this as a fine opportunity, with JOEL DAHMEN's form of late of a standard which makes him a massive runner here.

The 32-year-old has become well known for what he's said and done off the course rather than on it, but all the while he's quietly established himself as a rock-solid PGA Tour player who, at 60th in the world rankings, is on the cusp of competing at the very top level.

He's shown recently that he can rub shoulders with the best, with performances such as 20th in the WGC-St Jude Invitational, 10th in the PGA Championship and 20th in the BMW evidence of that. Clearly, this is a massive step down in grade with none of the 30 TOUR Championship participants making the trip out west, and a reproduction of that kind of golf would have him as one of the most likely winners.

The issue is his course form, which reads MC-46-MC, but that's largely a product of poor putting and I'm happy enough to take on board that risk. Born in Washington, Dahmen grew up putting on poa annua greens and his long-terms stats on them are solid, much better than on bermuda for instance. That he hasn't yet taken a shine to these is of course concerning, but never has he arrived in this sort of form and that does extend to putting, in which he ranked sixth in San Francisco at the aforementioned PGA.

Good on the greens again last time, we should be able to rely on a solid display here and that makes him of prime interest. Dahmen ranked 29th in strokes-gained off-the-tee last year, making him one of the best drivers in this field, and all of his best form - fifth at Bay Hill and Riviera, second at Quail Hollow - suggests that he doesn't want a shootout, which this is not.

That Riviera effort is potentially significant, as it was in defiance of a previously poor course record (MC-MC) and shows that he's simply a much improved player. It's also another Californian course with visual similarities to this one, a fact some used to good effect when Sang-moon Bae - a Riviera contender - won when the Tour first came here six years ago.

With finishes of 14th, fifth and 10th on his last three starts in California, all at a higher level, Dahmen has no excuses. I can only hope his shockingly bad par-five stats of 2019/20 are a red herring (they were fine in 2018/19) and that he can take advantage of those four scoring holes and contend for his breakthrough win.

Harold Varner is similar in profile and this strong ball-striker rates the pick of these if you use strokes-gained: total as a starting point, which is never a bad idea. Ultimately that tells us he produced the best golf in this field last season and as a past Riviera contender who has made all five cuts here, he was difficult to overlook at the same sort of price.

Cameron Tringale is next on that statistical list and, as a Californian who is in form and was in my staking plan here last year, he too earned a second glance. The trouble is his weakness is his driver and perhaps that explains why he's made five cuts in six here without ever contending, each time struggling off the tee. That's what is keeping him from fulfilling his potential, and it's what keeps him on the periphery of calculations rather than in the centre.

There would have to be some worries that MARK HUBBARD might also give away too much ground in that department but he's actually driven the ball pretty well on a number of occasions this season, which has allowed the rest of his game to piece together a career-best campaign.

At 44th in the FedEx Cup, 31-year-old Hubbard wasn't far away from earning a Masters invite for 2021 and he's been one of the quiet success stories of the summer, making the cut in nine of his 10 starts and withdrawing from the other. It's a sequence of impressive consistency given the strength of the fields we've had, and suggests he could capitalise on this drop in grade.

Hubbard went to college in San Jose and when playing in this event for the first time in 2014, the year it came to Silverado from CordeValle, he made clear how significant it is to him, saying: "I mean if I could pick one tournament this fall season that I'd like to win, it would be this one just because I'm a local boy in San Jose."

Hubbard had just carded a second-round 65, the best of the day, to lie fourth at halfway. It's not especially surprising that he failed to stick around and his performances at Silverado broadly follow the trajectory of a slow-burning career, with last season's 13th an excellent effort - his best yet.

Hubbard was 19th in approach play and fourth in putting for the week, his eight-under weekend score bettered by just three, and he returns having since added strong finishes such as ninth in the Phoenix Open won by Webb Simpson, 11th in the Honda won by Im, and 15th and 29th in recent starts at the Wyndham and Northern Trust.

All of these came in much better company and this field is more comparable to the one in which he finished second, in Houston, behind Lanto Griffin. At this level his cut-making form figures look really strong and having contended twice this summer, both times on tree-lined, old-fashioned courses where power isn't everything, he looks perfectly prepared to get in the mix once more.

That Hubbard ranks 28th in par-five scoring is a positive - he played them especially well here last year - and that avenue leads to WYNDHAM CLARK, who would be following the Champ route to victory if able to do so on Sunday.

Clark is a huge hitter who putts well, in other words what you might call the modern prototype, and he's the best of these across the par-fives on 2019/20 form, as he is 2018/19. In fact, of all the players on the PGA Tour - those here, and the world-class ones heading to Winged Foot - only Justin Thomas has played the long holes better over the last two years.

That could be key given that three of the last four winners of this topped the par-five stats, and while his driving hasn't been as good as it can be lately, he's also a candidate to impress off the tee as Champ, Steele and, to a lesser extent, Tway have all done.

We know by now that Clark is one of the best putters around, and his figures barely dip for switching to poa annua - perhaps not all that surprising given he went to college in Oregon and has spent most of his time as a PGA Tour member either in Scottsdale or Arizona, meaning he's played a lot of golf on the west coast and much of it on greens similar to these.

What I really like, however, is the improvement in his approach play recently. It's too soon to make firm conclusions, but this has been the real area of weakness in an otherwise impressive game, yet he took a step forward two starts back, and another in Boston, where his weekend iron play was the best it has ever been.

Were he to pick up where he left off three weeks ago, we'd be talking about a player with all the tools to make this his best season yet. And, having contended at Riviera for a time on his debut there in the spring, and shot 66 to begin his first event as a PGA Tour member here in 2018, there's enough in his profile to make Silverado a good venue.

His top-20 finish at the Texas Open is a potential pointer - Steele has won there, Tway contended, and there's crossover through players like Andrew Loupe and Steven Bowditch - and three-figure prices are worth taking.

There are some sleeping giants who could go well, like Charl Schwartzel and Kyle Stanley (the term is used relatively), but at a bigger price I'm prepared to chance KEVIN CHAPPELL, who has winning form at TPC San Antonio.

Another Californian, Chappell made a slow start to his relationship with Silverado but 40th on his return after five years away in 2019 was encouraging enough. He drove the ball extremely well, ranking 11th, and made plenty of putts for once, and it was just a poor week with his irons which hurt him at a time when he was returning from injury.

One year on and things have remained a little stop-start since then, but in three appearances post-lockdown, he's played 10 rounds, and eight of them have been sub-70. Compare that to seven from his previous 10 starts this season and while a little arbitrary, it does demonstrate considerable improvement - as does a significant shift in scoring average from 71.3 to 69.5.

The putter has behaved during this run and his latest performance, at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, was eye-catching. Thanks to ranking ninth off-the-tee, Chappell crept up to 13th through 54 holes only for a nightmare Sunday to undermine much of the best work he's done since injury came and interrupted what was a progressive career.

Since then, he's welcomed a third child into the family - the nappy factor has been in the headlines recently and I am a firm believer in its potential, for all it is by no means bombproof. Interestingly however, Chappell himself was one of the real nearly-men of the PGA Tour from 2011 to 2017. In January that year he and his wife had their first child and while it took a handful of starts, come April he'd finally secured silverware at last.

While we're at it, Chappell actually proposed to his wife at this event in 2012, so there are a couple of underlying connections but the main evidence here is the upturn in form since lockdown, which may have allowed him to work on both his technical issues and his fitness.

It's not ideal that he's been absent since July, but Chappell can now start afresh with 20 starts on a Major Medical beginning this week, during which he needs to earn upwards of 250 FedEx Cup points to hold onto his card. We do at least have evidence that he goes well fresh - a top-10 in what was the Humana, 10th in the CIMB after a six-week off-season, that 59 on his return in the Greenbrier - and he's a fascinating runner at a big price.

Adam Schenk looks like he'll play well but doesn't exactly scream value at 80-100/1, while Maverick McNealy and Patrick Rodgers are among those with local ties and abundant potential. Chris Baker though was the last player off my list, after rounds of 63 and 65 at the Wyndham, some quality approach work lately, and a good round here on debut before a nightmare Friday saw him narrowly miss the cut.

He's definitely of interest as perhaps the type to make the most of his second shot, but I would rather roll the dice and hope that DOUG GHIM might be ready to do that himself at odds of 250/1.

Ghim actually beat Champ to a big amateur title up at Chambers Bay, on those notoriously bumpy greens, and he has some sneaky Riviera form having lost to Doc Redman in the final of the US Amateur there.

That all helps, but it's the small signs of encouragement he's produced lately which really appeal. First he was 18th in the 3M Open, played well enough at altitude in the Barracuda, and then missed the cut despite shooting three-under in the Wyndham Championship, where he putted awfully.

The 3M and Wyndham are his last two performances for which we have strokes-gained numbers, and from a ball-striking perspective they were the best two of his rookie season, so rather like Clark we have to pin our hopes to him building on that rather than regressing to the golf he was playing earlier in the campaign.

As a 24-year-old with abundant potential I'm more than happy to do that, Ghim having shown heaps of bottle to earn his PGA Tour card at around this time last year. He's got a European Tour top-10 to his name already and it's a matter of time before he puts it all together at this level, which is all enough to make 250/1 worth taking.

Back towards the head of the betting, I appreciate he's not as exciting as Cameron Davis, anywhere near as classy as Jordan Spieth, as qualified as Shane Lowry or as talented as Sergio Garcia, but I can't escape KEVIN STREELMAN as one of the most solid contenders here.

Since chasing home Dustin Johnson in the Travelers, Streelman has produced a string of excellent performances in the context of this grade, and last time out he flushed his way through the weekend to leave the BMW Championship with real momentum.

Ranking fourth in strokes-gained approach there and very much the best of the lot over the weekend, Streelman got right back into the groove and this quality ball-striker has been operating at a level which makes him of significant interest at a course he likes.

So far he's not managed to string together four rounds here, but Streelman was 13th in 2017 and 25th in 2018, both times hitting it well enough to have contended, while last year he seemed to get to grips with these greens only for his long-game to desert him.

There's an element of hope rather than expectation that he does hole his share of putts, but we saw in that 2015 edition that it's possible to lose ground on the greens and still win this title. If anyone is to do that, Streelman could well be the man and I like that he returns to California full of confidence having played some of the best, most consistent golf of his career over the last three months.

In a field short of world-class quality and with some no doubt casting an eye towards the US Open, that makes him stand out at 40/1 and bigger.

Posted at 1155 BST on 08/09/20

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