Ben Coley makes Dustin Johnson the man to beat in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, where Ryder Cup winners Ian Poulter and Francesco Molinari can also go well.
Recommended bets
2pts win Dustin Johnson at 11/1
1pt e.w. Francesco Molinari at 28/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
1pt e.w. Ian Poulter at 45/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
1pt e.w. Louis Oosthuizen at 50/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
When the WGC-Match Play Championship was remodelled, it was with the aim of attracting as many of the world's top 64 as possible, and, whisper it, trying to engineer the best circumstances possible for the big names to progress.
With 62 of the top 64 in Austin, Texas this week, the first part of that ambition has undoubtedly been achieved. As for the second part, just look at the roll-of-honour: Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson. Four major-winning golfers, two who entered the week as world number one and another who graduated to that spot in winning.
Call it a lottery all you want, but moving from straight knockout to round-robin has protected the game's best and produced the sort of storylines organisers wanted, which last year included Justin Thomas's failed attempt to top the world rankings and Ian Poulter's Augusta rollercoaster.
The one problem still to solve, in my mind at least, is the final. Three of the four so far have been awfully dull, with one player taking an early stranglehold and the other not able to make things competitive. I wonder whether that's because playing a seventh match on the fifth day robs players of the physical and mental reserves required to put up a fight. All three of those to have lost heavily entered the final as underdog.
I digress slightly, but the point here is that the Match Play ought not to be dismissed as an unpredictable tournament. Even before the remodel, champions were almost invariably those who had the experience of playing Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup golf and while that's to some extent a natural byproduct of the invitation system, it also speaks to the fact that winning a series of head-to-heads tends to require experience of having done so in the near past.
When we get to Augusta in a few weeks, there will be many a trends guide which tells you the world number one doesn't win that event. Here, the world number one has won a more than respectable five from 20, a blindly profitable system if ever there was one, and a further six champions were seeded ninth or higher.
At the risk of labouring the point, focusing on recent winners has also been a fine starting point. McIlroy, Day, Johnson and Watson had all won in their handful of starts earlier in the same year - Day and Johnson on their previous start in fact - and it would be no surprise at all were this particular sequence extended.
The structure of the draw complicates matters somewhat. With the top seed in Group One, second seed in Group Two and so on, Johnson, Day and McIlroy are in the same half, along with 2017 finalist Jon Rahm, last year's semi-finalist Thomas, match play supremo Patrick Reed, the fearless Xander Schauffele and a returning Tiger Woods.
Pound for pound, I make Johnson, McIlroy and Thomas the three best players in the world and they've all gone really well in this event. It's little wonder that they've drifted, collectively, for finding themselves very much on the wrong side of things and many of the lurking danger men are in there to test them, too.
That being said, Johnson remains worthy of support at 11/1 as in my mind he ought to be favourite and his draw might not be as tricky as at first it seems.
Notwithstanding the fact that on any day, in any round of golf, regardless of the format, the bigger talent can lose, Johnson should be too strong for Chez Reavie and an out-of-sorts Branden Grace over the first two days.
That sends him into a clash with Hideki Matsuyama, but the Japanese has failed to get out of his group on three tries here, despite some kind-looking draws, and while clearly edging back towards his best he's vulnerable here. It's possible Johnson has already done enough, but if he hasn't he'd be a strong fancy anyway.
After that, he is drawn to face Reed, who was very poor last week and is without a top-10 finish in the US since last June. His form since winning the Masters has essentially been moderate and he's called for reinforcements in the coaching department, consulting with David Leadbetter at the Valspar.
Without talking through each and every scenario, the other likely last-16 opponent for Johnson is Sergio Garcia, who has a very poor record in this event regardless of format. Since the switch to round-robin, he's got out of his group only once, and immediately lost to a much lower-ranked opponent.
Johnson, then, looks to have a nice path to the quarter-finals and if you can take the 11/1 offered by Paddy Power, the only firm paying eight places, it's fantastic value. I've advised a win-only bet as I can't in good faith put a recommendation forward which is available only with one bookmaker, but a quarter-final place is really not much to ask given the way things have worked out.
From there, Johnson could face Rahm followed by McIlroy, Woods, Thomas or Day, so winning won't be easy. However, he was superb here in 2017 having made the quarter-finals in 2016, and with the exception of a poor final round last week he's been excellent lately, too. He's the man to beat.
Those others in the top half are of course respected, but McIlroy's group looks like a banana skin. On paper he's landed the jackpot with seeds 32, 47 and 64, but he lost to Peter Uihlein on Wednesday last year and I've a suspicion Luke List will give him a real test, as should Matt Fitzpatrick on Friday.
Rahm has a former winner in Matt Kuchar plus the dangerous, birdie-making Si Woo Kim to overcome, while Schauffele is in with Tyrrell Hatton, whose record here is strong and who of course performed with great credit on his Ryder Cup debut late last year.
Day couldn't have asked for a better group in many respects but has a missed cut and a withdrawal either side of his strong PLAYERS effort while Thomas, though expected to progress, will be up against potential dark horse Matt Wallace on Thursday.
In a nutshell, it's Johnson who looks the banker to progress and with his last-16 draw not expected to be as troublesome as at first it may appear, he holds exceptional claims in his bid for yet another World Golf Championship title.
Heading to the bottom half, it's clear that there's a comparative lack of depth and Francesco Molinari has to be a bet at 28/1.
The Italian once admitted that he's not particularly good at match play, simply because he's not a particularly boisterous character, but has since proven that you don't need to be a chest-beating warrior to be especially hard to beat.
Molinari of course went 5-0-0 at the Ryder Cup, making history in the process, and it's easy to envisage that proving to be the final piece of the puzzle when it comes to solo match play success.
Last year, he won his first two group matches here before receiving a thrashing from Thomas, but four stroke play wins since, including a major and, crucially, two titles in the US, demonstrate just how far he has come in 12 months.
As a broad rule, I like a green-hitting, mistake-avoiding player in match play golf, particularly around a course so fraught with danger, and there's surely no better way to ease into this than a first-round match with an out-of-form and likely outclassed Satoshi Kodaira.
From there, Molinari would be a strong fancy to beat Thorbjorn Olesen and with Webb Simpson coming off his first missed cut since last June, Group Seven is one from which the top seed should progress.
After that, it's the winner of Paul Casey's group and I can't see quite why the Englishman is shorter than Molinari in the market even if it is by just a fraction, especially as he looks to have a trickier run to the knockout rounds with the consistent Charles Howell and talented pair Abraham Ancer and Cam Smith in his way.
Molinari would be favourite to beat Casey for my money, albeit marginally so, and if he gets on a roll we've seen just what damage he can do.
No less interesting at around the 50/1 mark is Louis Oosthuizen, whose record here in Austin is exceptional.
In 2016, Oosthuizen won all three group games, before taking the scalps of Jordan Spieth, DJ and Rafa Cabrera Bello, ultimately losing the final to an in-form Day.
A year later, he won two of three group games before losing a sudden-death play-off for a knockout place, but he put that behind him last year when advancing once more to the knockout stages.
There, he lost to Ian Poulter 2&1, but Poulter was playing with the belief that a win would earn him a place in the Masters and there really wasn't anything between them in a match which could've gone either way.
As such, Oosthuizen boasts outstanding course credentials, he's got several Presidents Cup appearances in the locker, and he missed out by a single shot last week at the Valspar Championship to confirm that he arrives in good nick.
Group-wise, he has to overcome Tommy Fleetwood and that will not be straightforward, but he does start off against a struggling Kyle Stanley and has demonstrated already that around here he can beat anyone.
As for Poulter, I can't leave him out of the staking plan despite a tricky group and the fact that three each-way bets in the bottom half guarantees at least one of them is a loser.
We know all about his match play credentials, enhanced further at the Ryder Cup last September but also including victory in this event.
He made the quarter-finals on his debut in Austin last year and while thrashed by Kevin Kisner, there were mitigating circumstances. Poulter believed that beating Oosthuizen had earned him a Masters spot, only to find out shortly before facing Kisner that he needed one more win. Clearly, it affected him.
Perhaps facing Kisner first up on Wednesday this year will give him the perfect chance to address the heaviest defeat of his match play career and having played very well throughout the early stages of 2019, he'll be a dangerous opponent if reaching the knockout rounds.
Posted at 0930 GMT on 26/03/19
