Golf betting tips: PLAYERS Championship first round
2pts Mackenzie Hughes to win his three-ball at 7/5 (SpreadEx)
1pt double Finau and Munoz to win their three-balls at 3.39/1 (Unibet)
Sky Bet odds - TEN places outright | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook
Mackenzie Hughes to beat Ryan Armour and Jim Herman (1749 GMT)
Had the 300/1 from last week remained, I'd likely have been putting up MACKENZIE HUGHES in the outright market this week as he's a player who looks to be underestimated. He's made both cuts at Sawgrass, impressing on his debut to lead after round one, and on several occasions over the last 12 or so months he's threatened to win a good event, usually at a difficult course.
One such example was the Honda Classic, here in Florida, and he was placed at another Pete Dye course in the Travelers. With some eye-catching form at Sedgefield Country Club and even Harbour Town to some degree, he pops up quite often if you wade through the standard pointers towards success in the PLAYERS Championship.
Ryan Armour and Jim Herman make no such appeal, and it'll be a surprise if either can live with Hughes on Thursday. Armour is another really short-hitting veteran and in six rounds at Sawgrass, he's yet to break par. Only once has he shot 72, and despite putting really well lately he's not been competitive since playing in that low-grade event won by Gay in Bermuda. That ought to continue.
Herman won the Wyndham Championship last autumn and is respected on that basis, especially as he'd shot 68 here back in March. Still, his previous efforts at the course were far less impressive and he's missed his last four cuts coming in, shooting a round of 81 at Pebble Beach and generally struggling. Despite winning in 2020 he's almost 70 places beneath Hughes in the world rankings and the Canadian is better suited to the course, in better form, and a decent bet at anything bigger than evens.
Tony Finau to beat Charles Howell and Phil Mickelson (1207 GMT)
I won't be alone in expecting Phil Mickelson to struggle at Sawgrass this week. So poor is his form that he shot 74-80 in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, missing the cut in his favourite tournament — one he's won five times — for the first time in 13 years. After that, he finished 20th on the Champions Tour. Mickelson had won on each of his first two starts with the seniors.
Then there's the PLAYERS Championship, in which he's without a top-10 finish since winning the title in 2007. You have to go right back to 2011 for his last round in the sixties which, for a golfer of his standing, is remarkable. In 2020's abandoned edition he was already out of the running with an opening 75 and likely would've missed the cut for the seventh time in eight visits.
Mickelson is 7/4 to make the cut, which looks short, and 3/1 to win a three-ball which features one of the hottest players around. Again, it looks short.
TONY FINAU is the player in question and in what looks a match with Charles Howell, he's taken to oblige at a shade of odds-on. Finau's record here is unspectacular but he'd shot par or better across all eight rounds in 2018 and 2019, before labouring to a 75 of his own last year.
While that round raises a red flag, it did come after he'd played badly at Riviera and missed the cut at Bay Hill, evidently suffering a serious hangover after losing that Phoenix Open play-off. This time he's responded much better to another play-off defeat on the west coast, finishing 14th in the WGC Workday Championship, and he did very little wrong when beaten by Max Homa a week before that.
Since this tournament last year, Finau has shot one round of worse than 72 on Thursday, which is ridiculous to be frank. That came at the Tournament of Champions, after a month off. Otherwise he's been near flawless and we should be able to rely on him more so than almost any player in this field to get off to a decent start.
That's enough to earn the confident vote here, with Howell's opening rounds this year reading 67-72-80-79-74. Widen the lens to their last 50 events and Howell averages more than a shot and a half higher than Finau. His record here is a good one but that is accounted for in the market and his overall standard lately is much lower than the player who looks the morning banker.
Sebastian Munoz to beat Michael Thompson and Brian Gay (1240 GMT)
Colombia's SEBASTIAN MUNOZ has been really impressive since winning the Sanderson Farms Championship at the start of the 2019/20 season and ever since he arrived on the PGA Tour, fast starts have been commonplace. We've seen as much lately, all of his best work done on Thursdays, and on his Sawgrass debut last year he carded a solid, two-under round of 70.
Anything in that region could be enough to win this three-ball. Brian Gay shot 78-74 last week and on what will be his 17th PLAYERS Championship (18 if you include last year), he's looking for his second top-30 finish. Virtually every time he's been here he's been on the back foot early, breaking 70 back in 2002 but never since, and he was 113th after round one last year following an opening 76 in 2019.
The switch to March which makes the course play longer is another factor against the shortest hitter in the field and both times he's been competitive this season, he's been playing by the sea on short courses. Sawgrass will be a grind from the start and a high-seventies score appears likely.
Michael Thompson's form is more solid but he's another short hitter who generally struggles here, and while I'm wary of the fact he shot 68 last year, his wider record here combined with a couple of poor efforts lately are enough to believe he'll struggle against a classier player in Munoz.
Posted at 2050 GMT on 10/03/21
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