Golf betting tips: KPMG Women’s PGA Championship preview and best bets
Matt Cooper is keen to take advantage of a dramatic price drift and back world number one Nelly Korda in this week's Women's PGA.
Golf betting tips: KPMG Women’s PGA Championship
4pts win Nelly Korda at 11/1 (bet365 - 10/1 general)
1pt e.w. Anna Nordqvist at 100/1 (General 1/4 1,2,3,4,5)
1pt e.w. Hinako Shibuno at 125/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
Having spent most of this year playing her golf on metaphorically heavenly high ground, Nelly Korda will this week quite literally visit that place.
The third women’s major of the year is the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the host is Sahalee Country Club near Seattle, Washington. “Sahalee” means heavenly high ground in Chinook and, as such, it is the ideal location for Korda to seek the third major championship of her career and seventh victory of the year.
The greats can always trip up, of course, and Korda experienced an example of that indignity herself when carding a 10 at the par-three 12th hole, her third, in the first round of the US Women’s Open earlier this month. There’s something rather wonderful about a dreamy run of form (she’d won in six of her previous seven starts) ending in absurd fashion although it is likely, and entirely understandable, that she found it less than entertaining herself.
“I’m human,” she said afterwards and then indulged the heavenly theme 24 hours later after draining a looping par putt on her return to that pesky short hole. “The golf Gods made it go left and I made it,” she said.
Truth be told, of course, Korda’s successes are down to her own hard work and, in an entirely flippant (non-Richard Dawkins) manner, I’ve always been intrigued by the business of God’s involvement with sport. Specifically the notion of “God-given talent”.
I like to assume that I have it entirely wrong and that God is doling out talent. Moreover, I like to hope that he’s been doling it out since the year dot rather than since the invention of activities that fit the talent. So perhaps somewhere in Papua New Guinea in 1279 BC someone found herself swinging a broken branch, thinking she was really rather good at it, but couldn’t fathom how to make the most of this skill. Even better, her friend kept making a square with her fingers and peering curiously into it, little knowing that centuries later someone would invent the camera.
Enough blarney, what of this week? The course at Sahalee Country Club was originally designed by Ted Robinson in 1969 and it was renovated by Rees Jones in 1996 ahead of the 1998 PGA Championship and 2002 WGC Firestone Invitational. Since then it has hosted the 2019 edition of this week’s event and also the 2020 US Senior PGA Championship.
The winners of those four events, in order, were Vijay Singh, Craig Parry, Bernhard Langer and Brooke Henderson. Those four drop us a hint because all are relentlessly hard workers on their long game. There’s little sparkle but not a lot of errors either and certainly not big ones.
A par-71, it will play at 6,831 yards and it sneaks between thickly wooded cedar and fir trees. Those trees are tight to the fairways and greens, and sometimes impede the line to the green of a ball that has found the short grass. In those four events players finding plenty of fairways and lots of greens have thrived. The one exception was Singh, who had an off week with his long game, but was superb on and around the greens. Lee Janzen likened it to playing down Fifth Avenue and Colin Montgomerie said the fairways required everyone to walk single file.
Number one pick is indeed NELLY KORDA and the theory is relatively straightforward: price. She was 7/2 ahead of the US Women’s Open which was fair enough, if a little short, given those six wins in seven starts before then.
As discussed, she missed the cut at the year’s third major but there was a decent enough excuse with that early blooper (and it was a hole and pin location that wasn’t great).
She also missed the cut last time out in the Meijer Classic but that was down to an opening lap of 76. She followed it up with a 67 and I’m happy to take a medium-term view. Odds of 10/1 for a player who has won six of her last nine starts, and is a previous winner of the tournament (in 2021), seem more than fair.
We’ll add Japan’s HINAKO SHIBUNO who won the 2019 AIG Women’s Open when, having expected a links course, she was delighted to find herself among the thick trees that lined Woburn’s many fairways. It reminded her of home and Sahalee might well play a similar trick on her mind.
She finished second at the US Women’s Open and featured on social media when clapping the triumph of her compatriot Yuka Saso from back down the fairway. She’s featured in the top 10 in both of her last two starts without pushing on but she’s got a win and four other top-five finishes from her 20 completed major championship starts.
On a course that could well suit, three figures is an attractive offer.
Wholesome stuff from Hinako Shibuno applauding Yuka Saso 🥺 pic.twitter.com/zybadiZaPt
— Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) June 2, 2024
Shibuno’s fellow countrywoman Ayaka Furue is arrow straight from the tee and in form but has just one LPGA win. Lilia Vu is fresh from another win and so is Linn Grant after her astonishing victory in the Scandinavian Mixed. Grant came closest to selection.
Instead, having gone big with Korda we’ll add Grant’s fellow Swede ANNA NORDQVIST.
She has good memories of Sahalee having finished eighth there in 2016, a week when her ability to hit plenty of greens came to the fore. She ranks top 20 for driving accuracy and greens in regulation and while these traditional stats have their limitations this is one week when they tell us something.
Nordqvist’s raw major stats are also good: three wins and another five top-five finishes from 72 starts. She won this event in 2009, was third last year and, after a tough season to date, she fired middle rounds of 67-65 to enter last week’s final round in second.
A closing 73 saw her slip back to T12 but she can rebound from that and three figures is the clincher.
Posted at 1635 BST on 18/06/24
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