After more PGA Tour profits last week, Ben Coley previews the final event of the season - the TOUR Championship.
One of the great challenges in golf betting is staying ahead of the opposition. Predicting good play, rather than reacting to it, is as difficult as it can be rewarding.
When we're met with a field of just 30 players which is, by nature, made up only of those who've shown some degree of tangible form over the last few months, the challenge intensifies. It's next to impossible to know something the layers don't, and it's extremely difficult to interpret things better.
Yet I believe, as a general rule, there's still too much reactionism to it all. If you spend a weekend on a different planet to this one, the best way to find out just what happened in the golf is often to have a look at how they bet for the next event.
By way of example, Hideki Matsuyama is twice the price for this week's TOUR Championship than he was for the PGA Championship. One has 30 runners, the other almost 200; the one with almost 200 is a major, the other is not. Yet because Matsuyama had won the week before Quail Hollow in August, he was considered twice as likely to win the big-field major than the small-field Tour event.
Justin Thomas was 50/1 for the PGA. He hadn't won the week before, and in truth hadn't looked like winning since the spring. He's no bigger than 12/1 this week, having won two of his last four starts and fared all right in the BMW Championship at Conway Farms, won in such scintillating style by Marc Leishman. It's easy to say it now, of course, but that price for the major is a fine example of how taking a longer-term view can pay off.
Playoff form of TOUR Championship winners
- 2016: McIlroy - 31-1-42
- 2015: Spieth - MC-MC-13
- 2014: Horschel - MC-2-1
- 2013: Stenson - 43-1-33
- 2012: Snedeker - 2-6-37
- 2011: Haas - 24-61-16
- 2010: Furyk - 24-37-15
The counter argument to all of this is that players are more likely to win when they're demonstrably in form, and that's certainly true to some extent: we've seen Matsuyama and Thomas string together victories, just as we have Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Still, every streak starts somewhere, and the real winners are surely those who get ahead of the curve before it has even started to form.
All of which is a rather silly way of telling you that I'm prepared to look beyond the obvious this time. Spieth has an obvious chance but is the right sort of price given the quality of the opposition. Dustin Johnson hasn't quite budged enough after a couple of up-and-down weeks since his victory at The Northern Trust. Rickie Fowler is surely far too short versus Thomas, who in turn is short enough versus Matsuyama.
Perhaps it's symptomatic of a long, hard season of trying to choose between this elite bunch every other week, but I'm inclined to look for each-way value given that we can still have five or even six places despite the reduced field. Yes, you can get paid out if your player finishes in the top 20 per cent of the leaderboard. That has to be the way to go.
Top of my list is Sergio Garcia.
You may recall that Garcia won the Masters in the spring, and this will be his first subsequent visit to Georgia. That alone puts him on the shortlist as he bids to cap the most memorable year of his life, one which also saw him marry Angela Akins.
East Lake, home of the TOUR Championship, also happens to be an ideal venue for him. This par 70 is a technical challenge, one which lends itself to quality ball-striking as we saw last year when Kevin Chappell should've won it and Rory McIlroy did. Neither man had to putt well to enter a three-way play-off which also included Ryan Moore.
Granted, that hasn't always been the case here but with Billy Horschel and Henrik Stenson also on the roll-of-honour, arguably the pick of Donald Ross's creations is set up perfectly for those who exude control from tee-to-green.
Garcia's record at the course is suitably strong. He was second in 2008, losing a play-off to Camilo Villegas, and has offered some form of encouragement in each of just three subsequent visits, including when ninth in both 2013 and 2014 when by no means the player he is now.
Villegas also leads us to a key formline to consider: the Wyndham Championship. That event, the last one of the regular season, is held at Sedgefield Country Club, an easier but nevertheless similar Ross design. Villegas has won at both courses, so has Stenson, and Spieth, Bill Haas and Brandt Snedeker may all feel like they should have.
Garcia of course won the Wyndham in 2012 and in the absence of Stenson, there may not be a better Ross player in the field. The Spaniard shot to worldwide fame at Oakland Hills in 1999 and among his other major championship near-misses came third place at Pinehurst, perhaps the most famous entry in the Donald Ross portfolio.
Given that he probably putts best on bermuda greens and has shown definite improvement across the last two FedEx Cup events, Garcia is both playing well enough and suitably under-the-radar to put his experience to use at a course which is always capable of catching out the fearless aggression of youth.
Since his last start here in 2014, Garcia has really stepped up a level and he's been winning in high-class company. The players who've finished second to him this season are both major champions, while the player he beat in a play-off for last year's PGA Tour win has since become one.
Granted, there are others in this field who have been playing better but not always does this event go to someone who arrives on a tear. In fact, at 25th in the standings Garcia is in exactly the same position from which Bill Haas scooped the lot with that famous shot out of the lake in 2011.
All things considered, Garcia looks a solid alternative to the more fancied runners after controversially sneaking into the field on Sunday night to earn a return to a course which plays to his strengths.
There's a troubled forecast this week but I'd be wary of suggesting it'll suit the most powerful players in the field. This bermuda rough could easily turn very nasty should the weather turn, after some rain at the start of last week already loosened the turf, and that conjures memories of Jim Furyk's victory here in 2010 when he was, unsurprisingly, the most accurate man in the field.
If keeping the ball in play turns out to be the best avenue to success, then Matt Kuchar should go really well.
There would perhaps be a degree of poetic justice to a win for Kuchar at the expense of points leader Spieth, who so cruelly denied him a breakthrough major championship with golf from the gods at Royal Birkdale.
That was confirmation that Kuchar is back to his best, having definitely taken time to get comfortable since John Wood took over the bag, and while a post-Open dip was understandable, fifth place in last week's BMW Championship puts him in a great place to challenge again.
Indeed, Kuchar happened to finish fifth one week prior to his last PGA Tour win and since he completed his return from the wilderness with victory in New York eight years ago, every stroke play title has been earmarked by a prior top-15 finish.
There's a slight concern around his East Lake record, but Kuchar really struck the ball well last year when a seven-hole stretch at the end of round two cost him a chance to contend. Leading the field in accuracy will inspire confidence for his return and there are few better in this field at finding fairways and staying away from trouble.
This is also something of a return home for a player who played college golf at Georgia Tech and still has friends in Atlanta, and having done everything well at Conway Farms I firmly expect him to be in the mix.
Whether or not he can get over the line for the first time since 2014 at this level remains to be seen, but let's not underestimate a former PLAYERS and WGC winner who did absolutely nothing wrong when runner-up in the Open.
If you do want to take one from the top of the market, my preference would just about be for Johnson ahead of Spieth and Justin Rose. The latter is a Ross specialist whose East Lake record is outstanding, but his price has collapsed since last week and it's no given that the putter will remain hot, while it's not a positive that Spieth has a big target on his back as FedEx Cup leader.
Granted, if I had to select one player capable of dealing with that it would be Spieth, but Johnson appeals as the better bet. His Sunday 64 in Chicago is very significant when you consider that his last win, three starts ago, came after he'd caught fire in the final round of the PGA Championship. This is something he's done multiple times throughout his career and he has unfinished business here having blown a good chance to land the jackpot in 2016.
Jason Day still looks a little fragile to me while for all their brilliance, it would be something were either Jon Rahm or JT to win at this course. Along the way, I expect we'll see both caught out. The bottom line, though, is that there are better opportunities to back all of these players in my opinion.
It's tempting to side with the sensational Patrick Cantlay once more and there's a very straightforward case to be made for Chappell, but I'll finish with a speculative bet on one of the rank outsiders, Kyle Stanley.
Although his form appears to have tailed off since a win mid-summer, Stanley was second after rounds one and two in the Dell Technologies Championship a couple of starts back and may not be all that far away.
He now makes his East Lake debut and could follow in the footsteps of Chappell, who absolutely striped it here a year ago on his first visit and might have won had he not been nervously seeking his first PGA Tour title..
Unlike Chappell, Stanley has a couple of wins to his name already and might just be the most accurate player at East Lake. The 29-year-old hits it long and straight and leads this field in both greens and proximity, while sitting ninth in the all-important strokes-gained: tee-to-green charts.
That accuracy could prove vital should conditions turn. His victory over Charles Howell in a play-off for the Quicken Loans National came on one of the toughest courses played all season, in the pouring rain, and courtesy of an elite ball-striking performance. He did not putt at all well - he didn't need to.
Obviously this is a big step up in grade and he hasn't looked like winning again since, but Stanley has a definite touch of class about him and should be well-suited to the venue.
What's more, he produced one of the best putting rounds of his career in the first event of the Playoffs after a change in set-up, and has been mid-pack with the flat stick in both starts since. For a player who is typically among the very worst, that's a definite step forward.
Speculative it may be, but the TOUR Championship honours' board does not preclude someone of Stanley's stature from causing an upset. This course fights against golf's move towards a younger model and while not yet 30, Stanley has patience beyond his years. Perhaps we'll see that over the weekend.
Recommended bets: TOUR Championship
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Posted at 0730 BST on 19/08/17
