Martin Mathews is backing Brian Gay to upstage some young pretenders and land the Bermuda Championship.
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1pt e.w. Brian Gay to win the Bermuda Championship at 25/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4)
Anyone not certain of the type of player that has been best suited to the windy test posed by the Bermuda Championship this year need only take one look at the top five on the leaderboard through 54 holes and the sight of the names of Doc Redman, Ryan Armour, Kramer Hickok and Brian Gay.
Collectively four of the straightest hitters the PGA Tour has seen over recent years and also, particularly in the case of Armour, Gay and Hickok, four of the shortest, it has been a case of control your golf ball the best you can in the wind from tee to green and then hopefully hole a few putts.
Of the quartet it is the youngster Redman who has marginally managed this the best so far and he sits on 10-under, holding a slender one-shot lead over Armour, Hickock and Wyndham Clark, who has combined strong iron play with his usual strong putting, until Saturday at least, to gatecrash the short-hitters' convention.
Former US Amateur champion Redman was highly touted on turning pro and having already posted two third-place finishes and a runner-up at last year's Rocket Mortgage Classic, were he to land his first title tomorrow on a course which clearly plays to his strengths, no one would be remotely surprised - he was a popular 28/1 shot on Monday.
Having said that, this will be the first time he has held the 54-hole lead since he joined the PGA Tour ranks and this of course will mean a new type of Sunday pressure for him. When he finished second at the Rocket Mortgage he was eight behind runaway leader Nate Lashley going into Sunday, while his third place at the Safeway Open a few weeks back came with a closing 63 from way off the pace, and therefore it would be fair to say the only time he has had a legitimate shot to win so far was at the Wyndham Championship in August. On that occasion he couldn’t take advantage of Si Woo Kim’s Sunday stumble as he closed with a rather tame round of 68.
On that basis while there is no doubt Redman’s time will come it may well be that this final round in Bermuda is part of his learning curve and I am happy to pass at the general 5/2, for all his credentials are obvious.
Of his nearest challengers followers of Ben Coley’s preview will be hoping that pre-tournament 125/1 pick Hickok is the one who is able to take advantage of any slip-up from Redman. The Texan, who has taken to using the straight-armed putting technique of practice buddy Bryson DeChambeau, stated this week that he is playing the best golf of his life at the moment so there is certainly cause for optimism.
Again though the concern has to be that this is the first time that Hickok has been in anything like this type of position since he joined the PGA Tour ranks and a three-putt at his last from just in the fringe on Saturday won't have done much to help settle the nerves going in to the final round.
As for Armour, unusually for him, although stats can be deceptive and his misses as a whole off the tee haven’t been that big, he has relied more on his putter this week than his driving accuracy, particularly on Saturday, to get him out of trouble on occasions. He got up and down a couple of times on the back-nine having been wayward from the tee and that could catch up with him.
If I had to side with one of the front four then going in to the final day it would probably be Clark, mostly on the basis that alongside Armour he has more experience of being right In the hunt going over recent seasons than most here, and it may just be that having paid his dues
- particularly at the Honda and the 3M Open in 2019 - that his time has come.
In all honesty though with 14 players within four shots of the lead going in to Sunday this is a really tough one to call particularly as outside of veteran Brian Gay there are only three PGA Tour titles between them, which are owned by Armour, Matt Jones and day one leader Peter Malnati, who now sits four off the pace.
Instead of playing at short odds then, while there is a temptation to swerve a final round bet all together and simply cheer on those on Hickok I will to small stakes chance the player who as touched on above has more PGA Tour titles to his name than the remainder within four shots of lead put together, BRIAN GAY.
A fifth Tour victory for Gay at the age of 48, seven years after his most recent, wouldn’t have been at the top of many people's golf predictions entering the 2020/21 season, however this has proven to be a good time for the veterans after 47-year-old Stewart Cink and 40-year-old Sergio Garcia both triumphed.
Gay, a former champion at Hilton Head where he memorably lead the field a merry dance from wire to wire, is a master of these shorter coastal venues with another of his titles coming at the Mayakoba to go alongside plenty of strong performances at venues like Pebble Beach and Sea Island. Third here last year and sitting second for the week in driving accuracy, he clearly is in control of his golf ball and his move into the mix with an eagle at the 17th on Saturday was eye-catching.
It may just be then that Gay, who has improved his score every day, can take inspiration from that win of Cink’s and use his vast experience to at the very least hang around at the top of the board and give us a nice each-way return. Certainly, at the odds he looks good value to potentially be the one to put pressure on the leader and those just behind, all of whom lack Gay's winning credentials.
Posted at 2235 GMT on 31/10/20
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