Golf betting tips: Preview and best bets for Shriner's Childrens Open

Golf betting tips: Shriners Children's Open

2pts e.w. Will Zalatoris at 28/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2pts e.w. Hideki Matsuyama at 28/1 (William Hill, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Patton Kizzire at 100/1 (William Hill, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Chez Reavie at 150/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Joseph Bramlett at 150/1 (Betfred, Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Andrew Landry at 250/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

The nearly-men of the Ryder Cup selection process have dominated the early stages of the new PGA Tour season, first Max Homa and then Sam Burns showcasing in stark terms the depth of talent in the United States. Now, less than a fortnight on from their record victory over Europe, Brooks Koepka and Scottie Scheffler are the first members of Steve Stricker's side to get back to the day job in the Shriners Children's Open.

Back in 2012, four members of the victorious Ryder Cup side plus one vice captain combined to win five of the nine remaining European Tour events, and many will expect his victory over Jon Rahm in the singles to prove similarly catalytic for Scheffler. One of the two best maidens on the circuit, he's done everything but win, from shooting 59 in Boston to finishing runner-up in a WGC and building an excellent bank of form in majors.

As for Koepka, his record in this event — two top-fives, three missed cuts — is a mirror of his play in 2021. His pickpocket victory in Phoenix came after a run of three missed cuts, and he followed it with two more in his following five events, but two near-misses to go with it. Koepka has been all-or-nothing, either inside the top seven or outside the top 20, for almost three full PGA Tour seasons now. The 'only majors matter' schtick isn't quite true, but it's clear he's not that bothered about fighting to finish 12th.

These two add to a strong field which features Burns, Abraham Ancer and former champions Webb Simpson and Kevin Na. Victory for either of latter duo would continue this trend of jilted Ryder Cup hopefuls, and they can compete at a relatively short par 71 which plays shorter still in the thin air of Las Vegas.

But while Na's record-setting performance with the putter here three years ago is a reminder of what that club can occasionally do, a broader view confirms that while straightforward on paper, TPC Summerlin is a decent test of ball-striking. There are some hazardous approach shots here and all of last year's play-off trio excelled with their irons.

Masters one-two fancied to go well

For that reason, and the fact that they might be sharper than some others at the front of the market, HIDEKI MATSUYAMA and WILL ZALATORIS both make considerable appeal.

• CLICK HERE to back Matsuyama with Sky Bet

Matsuyama ended a historic season on something of a low note, perhaps finding the tank running empty after the combination of becoming the first Japanese man to win a major championship, and then heading home to Tokyo for the Olympics. He did incredibly well to follow the disappointment of narrowly missing a medal there with second place in the St Jude Invitational, but come the TOUR Championship appeared in need of a reset.

Having had that, Matsuyama returned with sixth place in the Fortinet Championship, his trademark tee-to-green game back on-song, and it sets him up nicely for a return to Summerlin. He was 10th here on debut in 2014, which came after a similar effort in California and when he was at exactly the same spot in the world rankings, and finished 16th in 2019 despite having missed the cut a week earlier.

Last year's missed cut came after a three-week break and isn't a concern, as he shot 68-69 to miss by one. That means he's now under-par for nine of his 10 rounds here, averaging 67.60, and he ties in really nicely with course specialists Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau. All three have also won at Muirfield Village, where Na lost a play-off, and while visually very different, there are some similarities when it comes to strong driving and the importance of the second shot.

Matsuyama has generally putted well here — last year he gained more than a stroke per round and he was close to that on debut — and it would be fair to say this Masters champion is best on Bentgrass greens. He's a two-time winner down in Phoenix, at another desert TPC layout with a similarly dramatic closing stretch, and he's often made a very strong start to the season. Another big week can be expected.

As for Zalatoris, there are evidently those who are already getting frustrated just a fortnight after he was named rookie of the year by the PGA Tour. I wouldn't be one of them: remember, he began the 2020-21 season with no status, earned it while playing on invites, finished second in the Masters, and yet knew he had to win if he wanted to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs and have a realistic chance of making the Ryder Cup side.

• CLICK HERE to back Zalatoris with Sky Bet

Given that he also had to battle back from an injury which forced him to withdraw from the Open despite a good start, he's done extraordinarily well and the only real criticism I would level at the youngster is his failure to kick on last week. His class should've counted for a lot during the third round of the Sanderson Farms Championship, but Zalatoris stood still as Burns made his pay instead.

Still, that's finishes of 11th and 14th to begin the season, the first on his course debut, the second at one where he'd missed the cut in 2020. Therein lies the key: now, for the first time as a fully paid-up PGA Tour member, he returns to a course at which he has positive experience and proof of his suitability. Last year, while playing for his membership, he fired back-to-back 64s here and finished in a tie for fifth.

As you'd expect, that performance came in spite of rather than thanks to the putter, which saw him rank 42nd. The good news there is some hard work and an equipment change have seemingly helped improve matters, because after losing strokes in each of his seven starts before the Open, he's gained strokes in three from four since then.

Zalatoris's stellar long-game (ninth in strokes-gained tee-to-green last season) means he can win at this level with a quiet putting week, but right now he's capable of something better than that and it could well be that a return to something more familiar makes all the difference. He's got form at altitude and, like Na, DeChambeau, Cantlay, Ryan Moore and several other regular contenders here, has west coast ties, too.

Persevere with Patton

Matthew Wolff and Si Woo Kim also make some appeal at the front end of the market, but the former looks short enough and I can't quite bring myself to trust Kim to continue his excellent start to the new season. Undeniably capable of winning his fourth PGA Tour title at a course which suits, he's begrudgingly left out of the staking plan in favour of four at much bigger prizes.

First and foremost, PATTON KIZZIRE gets another chance having failed miserably to kick on from a good start at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

• CLICK HERE to back Kizzire with Sky Bet

The case for him there did include local ties and course form, but he has the latter here having closed with a round of 63 to finish runner-up in 2015, and 64 for fourth place in 2017.

Since then, Kizzire's eight rounds have all been under par, enough to finish mid-pack, and a scoring average just north of 68 highlights how comfortable he is at the course. Generally he's one of those who is best avoided out west, where poa annua greens have often been problematic, but these smooth Bentgrass surfaces are plainly to his liking.

His record during this part of the calendar — by which I mean the events from the Fortinet Championship through to the American Express, when fields are a little weaker — is excellent, covering both his wins. In total he boasts 11 top-10 finishes from October to January, versus seven from February to September. He's played more than twice the number of events over the latter period than the former.

The fact that this excellent putter has produced some high-class approach play numbers here (fifth in 2015, fourth in 2017) is also encouraging and so has been his recent play. Yes, he was poor last Friday, but he's featured inside the top 10 at some stage in both of the first two events of the new season, and ended the last one in decent form, too.

Kizzire's brace of top-three finishes in May came after he'd made good starts in his previous two appearances but hadn't kicked on. Both tournaments were played on courses with Bentgrass greens, but key to his ability to convert promise into something more substantial is to dial in his approaches. He's done that here before and is worth chancing to do it again.

Sam Ryder is one to watch in the first-round leader market, as in 12 rounds here he's shot 62, 64 twice, 65 and 66 twice. He was somewhat interesting at 200/1 but this is probably too strong a field to expect him to win his first PGA Tour event, especially as while capable of quality approach play, right now he's showing only flashes of promise.

Nate Lashley also makes some sense, possibly also for a strong start. He's a long-time Scottsdale resident who played well there in 2020, and was 12th in the California desert a year earlier. Proven at altitude via wins in Ecuador and Colombia, this streaky putter has started the season with back-to-back top-20 finishes, and he shot 63 in the first round here last October.

Side with flushers in Vegas

Ultimately though I am generally drawn to players capable of a better class of tee-to-green performance. When DeChambeau won here in 2018, pre-protein shakes, he led the field by a distance and ranked just 45th in putting. A year earlier, Cantlay himself ranked 32nd, and shock champion Rod Pampling was 39th in 2016. Koepka out-putted him, but Pampling's iron play was far superior.

You may hear it said that a low-scoring tournament played on an off-the-shelf TPC with sparse rough and nothing especially complicated from a decision-making perspective amounts to a putting contest, but it simply isn't true. This is a course where shorter hitters can compete thanks to quality iron play and, yes, the putter, but generally champions have needed to gain close to two strokes per round with their ball-striking alone.

That's an apologetic introduction to the selection of both JOSEPH BRAMLETT and CHEZ REAVIE, who will still need to putt better than they have been to compete at around the 150/1 mark.

• CLICK HERE to back Bramlett with Sky Bet

Bramlett currently ranks 180th in strokes-gained putting, last of all those to have played all eight rounds so far this season. But the fact he has been so poor on the greens yet managed to play every round tells you how well he's hit the ball, ranking seventh and eighth in strokes-gained approach and gaining 14 strokes with his ball-striking in total.

That's quality tee-to-green play and while not necessarily surprising given he's been known as a strong ball-striker for a long time, his iron play in particular represents a notable step up. It looks to me like the confidence taken from winning the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, his first tour-level success as a professional, has made a difference as he embarks upon another PGA Tour season.

So far Bramlett has failed to establish himself at this level, but his career has been plagued by injuries and only now does he look ready to press on. Long and straight off the tee and now showing signs that he can be equally as effective with his approaches, there is only one missing piece to the jigsaw, and that's putting.

It must be said he's been hopeless so far, losing more than a shot per round to the field average. Over the last year alone he's ranked 65th, 66th, 67th, 68th (twice), 70th and 71st in putting, this of the 70-odd players who made the cut that week. His best putting display, produced on Bentgrass greens at the Byron Nelson, translated to his sole top-10 finish.

Rolling the dice that he'll find something on the greens could be an expensive project, but I'm willing to do so here, and that's partly because he's back on effective home soil. Bramlett moved out to Las Vegas a couple of years ago, renting a room from friend and always-the-businessman Maverick McNealy, and using Summerlin as a regular practice base. His previous one was up at altitude in Arizona, and he's got form at altitude via Korn Ferry Tour events in Utah and Colorado, too.

Last year, familiarity with these greens didn't help: he ranked 66th in putting and, despite being one of the best drivers in the field, this meant a mid-pack finish. But he's taken big steps forward in every other department since then, including the intangible ones, and perhaps for one week only it's worth backing that long-game to overcome those putting issues.

Reavie has been based in Arizona for a long time and lost a play-off for the Phoenix Open there in 2018.

• CLICK HERE to back Reavie with Sky Bet

He's been catching the eye for a long time now and with his 40th birthday approaching, a big performance seems likely if he can get the putter working, something he has managed to do in four of his last five visits to Summerlin.

Some will look at his course record, which shows a best of 24th in 10 attempts, and determine that it just isn't the right place for an accurate, green-finding type who might prefer tougher conditions. However, he shot 61 here in 2016, opened 68-64 last year, and back at the beginning of his PGA Tour career was the halfway leader in the event.

That's enough to suggest he can score here when it all clicks and his iron play certainly has lately, enough to rank fifth in the Fortinet Championship and then hit no fewer than 15 approaches to 15 feet and in during last week's missed cut. He's currently fifth for strokes-gained approach at this very early stage of the season.

Best away from Bermuda, Reavie's standout putting display this summer came on Bentgrass and 150/1 looks a big price for one whose long-game is right where it needs to be.

Can Landry do it again?

Finally, with Davis Riley's odds not drifting despite another on-the-number missed cut and this much stronger field, I'll turn to another recent selection and sign off with ANDREW LANDRY.

As with Reavie, I put up Landry at massive odds two starts ago, so it was a little frustrating to see him play so poorly and then follow it up with a run into the places at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

• CLICK HERE to back Landry with Sky Bet

However, that confirmed my suspicion he's been closer than his results suggest, and although his inconsistency means we can't be confident he'll back it up, 250/1 seems an enormous price for someone who has won twice in the last three years on the PGA Tour and twice before that at Korn Ferry Tour level.

Certainly Landry is one who can be relied on when he does get in the mix and both those victories correlate nicely with Summerlin. The first came at TPC San Antonio, a desert course in Texas with similar characteristics, and the second came in the CareerBuilder Challenge, played across three desert courses in California.

So far he's not yet shown quite the same level of form here at Summerlin, but last year he opened 64-68 before rounds of 67 and 71 saw him fall to 27th. Nevertheless, that was a decent effort and by far his best since winning at huge odds nine months earlier.

Indeed both of Landry's wins have been at prices north of 200/1 and he's capable of producing another upset here.

Posted at 1200 BST on 05/10/21

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