Ben Coley previews the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, where the defending champion rates the best bet.
Recommended bets: WGC Match Play
3pts win Jason Day at 16/1 – last year’s winner overpriced at twice the odds of McIlroy
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Without doubt, the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play isn’t for everyone – and that includes some players, with Henrik Stenson, Rickie Fowler, Adam Hadwin, Justin Rose and Adam Scott all deciding that as many as seven matches across five days does not represent ideal Augusta preparation.
Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, is back as a regular fixture in the event, which now guarantees every player in the field three matches in the opening group stage, before the 16 winners advance to a weekend of head-to-head battles which, for some, is too volatile.
There is absolutely no doubt that this format does increase golf’s inherent unpredictability, but the addition of a group stage has helped produce two champions who were anything but. Rory McIlroy was world number one when he arrived at Harding Park before winning the title two years ago; 12 months later, Jason Day returned to number one courtesy of his victory here in Austin.
In fact, the tournament has a rich history when it comes to winners. Tiger Woods took the title three times, US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy twice, while Ryder Cup stalwarts Ian Poulter and Luke Donald showed they could transfer that team success to the individual game in 2010 and 2011 respectively, the latter seeing off Martin Kaymer as world number three beat world number one.
All of a sudden, the idea that any one of this 64-man field could go on to lift the trophy seems fanciful. On the PGA Tour last season, there were a number of shock winners – Jim Herman, James Hahn, Vaughn Taylor, Greg Chalmers. This event hasn’t produced one in over a decade with each of the last 10 champions either a major winner, a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup player, or both.
Last year I sided with Rory McIlroy at 12/1 and he’s the man to beat following two encouraging performances since he returned from a cracked rib. In fact, Rory has played three times this season, and will have been disappointed not to have won each of those three tournaments.
Given a thoroughly impressive match play record, particularly as an individual, and the fact that his relative freshness could now be an asset where last Sunday it showed itself as rust in contention, it’s easy to draw up a solid case for the 15/2 favourite.
McIlroy’s biggest challenge in making the latter stages may come early on, as his group includes a back-to-form and dangerous Emiliano Grillo as well as Gary Woodland, who he beat in the final of this event two years ago, and whose level of play recently suggests he’s basically in the form of his life.
If he comes through that, most would expect Rory to beat the winner of a group whose top seed is Branden Grace, and while three dangerous Spaniards plus in-form Tyrrell Hatton are all in the same quarter, if McIlroy gets rolling he’ll be hard to stop en route to a potential semi-final rematch with Jason Day.
However, at twice the price it’s the latter who screams value having won the event twice in three years and showed just a glimmer of his best form last week in Florida.
Quite simply, Day’s draw looks extremely kind given the very real possibility that Marc Leishman can’t get back on the bike just three days after an emotional, overdue victory, with neither Pat Perez nor Lee Westwood particularly fearsome opponents on paper.
The more I look at Day’s section, the keener I am on his chances so we’ll take the general 16/1 about a player whose record in this event shows a phenomenal 21 wins to just six defeats, three of which came at Harding Park which may simply not have suited.
Should Day win his group, he’s seeded to face Phil Mickelson, who said last year that Austin Country Club encourages defensive golf - something which just isn’t his style. The other top seeds in this quarter are Justin Thomas, who lost all three matches here last year, and an ill and out-of-sorts Danny Willett.
Even beyond the seeds, alternatives to Day are really hard to find.
Matt Fitzpatrick and Daniel Berger are probably the pick of them, but neither has a wealth of experience at this level and if Day is in anything like the form he showed last year, his path to the last four looks as smooth as it gets.
Granted, there’s little to suggest that he’s playing as well – last year he’d just won the Arnold Palmer, a fact which may encourage Leishman – but that’s accounted for in the price.
Day has the best draw and the best event form which makes 16/1 generous.
Last year’s event was the first time the PGA Tour had come to Austin Country Club, but Jordan Spieth’s prior knowledge of the layout only took him so far as he lost to Louis Oosthuizen in the first knockout round.
Spieth has since broken his Texas duck, winning the Crowne Plaza, and has to be considered a live threat having also made the quarter-finals in the last renewal at Dove Mountain (2014), whose greens have been compared to the large, undulating surfaces here.
However, it’s Oosthuizen who looks better value on account of his run to the final here last year, which saw him beat both Spieth and Dustin Johnson having cruised through what was admittedly a gentle group.
One year on, he���s much the same player – effortlessly brilliant, enormously frustrating – and a couple of top-five finishes already this season, including in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, demonstrate that his game is in fine shape.
Oosthuizen also has the benefit of a match play sharpener in the new European Tour event in Perth, and aside from that it’s been a largely similarly preparation to that which saw him lose the final here in 2016.
It’s worth noting that Oosthuizen is the only player in this field who has won all six group matches since the switch in format, while it was only eventual champion Day who beat him in the latter stages of the 2014 edition before that.
His record in match play also extends to the Presidents Cup, where he did what McIlroy could not in holding Patrick Reed to a half in 2015, having also halved his match with US Open champion Webb Simpson in the previous edition.
Given that this event tends to be won by a high-class player with team form, that’s highly relevant – as is the fact that he’s one of just 15 major champions in the field.
At upwards of 50/1, Oosthuizen rates a smashing bet to topple an out-of-sorts Hideki Matsuyama in their group and make a run to the latter stages once more.
In the same section, Ross Fisher made some appeal as a live outsider before the draw was made, given three top-sixes in recent WGCs, including on his latest start, and a solid match play record which includes a win in Europe.
He’s a former Ryder Cup player who has at least contended for majors and could make life difficult for Oosthuizen, but the South African has answered just about every question asked of him in this event and can do so once more.
Some will consider the nature of Austin Country Club a non-factor given the format, but I wouldn’t be one of them. The trouble is, it’s quite difficult on one year’s evidence to get a firm grip of the skill set required.
On the one hand, this course played tough – birdies were nowhere near as common as they tend to be in match play. Much of the challenge came from elevation changes, hazards and strong winds, which will again cause their fair share of carnage as players work out a way round the course.
That leads me to strategic players who are good around the greens, but the flipside of this is that last year’s final four was made up exclusively of big-hitters, all four of whom are outstanding drivers of the ball when at their best.
We’ll perhaps know more after this year’s event but for now I’m willing to chance the neat and tidy Zach Johnson, given generous three-figure quotes.
Johnson’s overall record in this event isn’t all that impressive, but he did reach the final four in 2006 when beating a couple of major champions before coming unstuck against Davis Love.
However, there’s no way the west coast courses used up until the switch to Austin will have suited Johnson, who is well known for being at his best in this part of the US where he’s won two Texas Opens and two editions of the Crowne Plaza Invitational.
Last year, he produced the performance of the week to beat Martin Kaymer 8&6 in his second group match, having been around six-under in his first and won his third with a degree of comfort, too – in fact, he didn’t see the 16th hole until the first knockout stage.
Unfortunately, that was where he bumped into McIlroy but losing on the final hole to one of the game’s best players represents very strong form and Johnson looks a solid bet to once more advance from a group which is completed by Brendan Steele, Matt Kuchar and Tommy Fleetwood.
After that could come an encounter with namesake Dustin, but Zach is as tough a competitor as you’ll find and will not fear anyone.
Evidence for Johnson being a better match player than his record in this event suggests can also be found via a look at his Ryder Cup record, which reveals that he’s unbeaten in singles since suffering defeat to Darren Clarke at the K Club on debut in 2006, a match perhaps no player in the world could’ve won.
Given that until last year he’d always been on the losing side, that’s a really impressive return and underlines the fact that Johnson is a born winner, as also demonstrated by his two major championships.
Granted, Johnson hasn’t been quite at his best of late but he’s still hitting fairways and there’s certainly enough in there to encourage a bet at the price.
And so we return to McIlroy’s quarter, where Brandt Snedeker is just about given the benefit of the doubt despite potentially facing the tournament favourite in round two.
I like Snedeker as a match play competitor, even if he was thumped by Paul Lawrie in 2012 and by Day at the Presidents Cup a year later, when perhaps memories of what happened at Medinah were some kind of lingering factor.
He certainly played his part in the US Ryder Cup win at Hazeltine, winning three points from as many matches, including a singles victory over Andy Sullivan who he will again face in the group stage here.
Sullivan hasn’t been at his best lately and the same goes for William McGirt, Snedeker’s day-one opponent who will be making his debut in the event without any kind of match play record to speak of.
In theory, then, this group could come down to Snedeker’s Friday clash with Grace, and to that end it’s encouraging that in last year’s renewal he was much too good for another South African in Charl Schwartzel, having played well over the first couple of days to make it a winner-takes-all match.
As with Johnson, he then bumped into one – in Snedeker’s case, it was Day – and I’m prepared to chance him either enjoying a better draw, or stepping up a level and beating a world-class player as we know he can at his best having done so to land the FedEx Cup in 2012.
Snedeker isn’t a major champion, but he’s got plenty of team golf experience and with the putter back on fire in the Arnold Palmer last week, he could make for an extremely dangerous opponent and one who has shown strong form throughout the season in stroke play.
Where to watch on TV: Sky Sports
· Our betting partners Sky Bet are offering a series of specials on Ben's selections, including 100/1 that his four picks all win their group and 9/1 that any of the quartet wins the tournament. Click here for a full list of the available specials.
Posted at 1225 GMT on 21/03/17.
