The Players Championship Betting Preview

Scottie Scheffler came from behind and held on while everyone else in the field faltered and fell back in the difficult conditions at Bay Hill and took down his second win in his last three events! Arnie's course played tough on Sunday, and Saturday for that matter with the winning score being LOWER than what the first round leader shot. That almost never happens. The wind picked up on the weekend and made things difficult and I expect we see a bit more of the same this week at the Players Championship!

The Player's Championship is the unofficial 5th major and with the move to March it now kicks off 'major season' for the PGA Tour. We get a 'major' in each of the next 4 months, this is the BEST time to bet on golf!

Let's take a little bit of a deeper dive into the course before we get to the field and my bets for the week!

The Course:

TPC Sawgrass - Stadium Course
Par: 36-36--72
Yardage: 7,256
Stimpmeter: 13

Architect (year): Pete Dye and Alice Dye (1980)
Renovation Architect (year): Dye & Steve Wenzloff (2016)

Average Green Size: 5,500 sq. ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 88
Number of Water Hazards: 17
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 17

Greens: TifEagle bermuda overseeded with
Poa Trivialis / velvet bentgrass .100”
Tees: Celebration bermuda overseeded with
Champion fine ryegrass .275”
Fairways: Celebration bermuda overseeded
with champion fine ryegrass .325”
Rough: Celebration bermuda overseeded
with champion fine ryegrass 2.5”

Recent Winners:

• 2021: Justin Thomas (-14)

• 2020: Canceled due to COVID-19

• 2019: Rory McIlroy (-16)

• 2018: Webb Simpson (-18)

• 2017: Si Woo Kim (-10)

This event took place in May prior to 2019 but the change to March hasn't really affected the scoring.

One thing to note about TPC Sawgrass is the designer, Pete Dye (and his wife Alice who doesn't get NEAR enough credit for involvement in all of 'his' designs). He built this course to be as fair a test as possible. There are a variety of hole lengths and there's no real 'style' of golfer that succeeds here.

What we have seen though is that you need to dominate tee to green. All of the recent winners have either been first or second in SG: Tee to Green for the week with the exception of Webb Simpson who putted the lights out all week en route to his win.

This course is a fairly tough test but looking at the weather for the weekend, it's going to be incredibly hard. We're seeing rain on both Thursday and Friday followed by winds gusting to 40 mph on Saturday and then temps in the low 40's on Sunday. Talk about extremes! Who ever can handle the weather and eliminate their big mistakes will come out on top!



The Favorites
Jon Rahm +1300 (Bet $100 to win $1300 Fanduel)

Once again, Jon Rahm leads the board after a disappointing performance at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as his previous few weeks but when you have this short of odds, you expect at a minimum a guy at least sniffs the lead and that didn't happen last week.

That being said, he did switch putters after his opening round debacle and looked much better the rest of the weekend. Had he gotten some decent weather conditions, he could have made a bit of a run.

He absolutely crushes TPC Sawgrass and had he not made a bonehead mistake back in 2019 going for the green when he didn't need to in the lead and hitting it in the water, he would have a win here under his belt already.

Justin Thomas +1300 (Bet $100 to win $1300 Fanduel)

JT is the defending champion here and he's coming off back to back top 8 finishes on tour. Rightfully the odds on favorite to win with Rahm.

Iron play is the key this week especially given the varied weather conditions I think a guy like JT makes a ton of sense as long as he doesn't get rattled. He'll be able to fire at every pin on Thursday and Friday with the soft conditions and then hopefully he can hang on on the weekend.

Collin Morikawa +1600 (Bet $100 to win $1600 Draftkings)

Love Morikawa this week. He's actually the favorite to win over at Fanduel at +1100 so we get some odds value here which is rare at the top of the board where most sites just copy and paste each other.

Debuted here and finished 41st but since then has just been playing some outstanding golf. Iron play is out of this world. Won't be phased by the conditions at all. This is a solid number but as I've written about here before, I might wait on him and hope to grab something upwards of +2000 if he has a mediocre start. With all the volatility that could take place with the tough conditions on the weekend the wait and see approach is likely prudent here.

Weekly Bets

+5000 or better:

Daniel Berger +3500 (Bet $100 to win $3500 Draftkings)

Berger bounced back from his injury pretty quickly with an excellent performance at the Honda Classic, an event he should have won if not for a collapse on the final day.

Two top tens here in the last 5 years and he's knocking on the door of a win. Gained almost 5 strokes approach at the Honda. Putts well. I make him about +2800 in this field so he's a great value here.

Brooks Koepka +4800 Fanduel (Bet $100 to win $4800 Fanduel)

Just a disrespectful number on arguably one of the most clutch players of this generation. Has started to find his game again after a tough start to his season where he dealt with injury.

Was 3rd in Phoenix, MC at the Genesis, and 16th at the Honda where he gained strokes everywhere in some pretty tough conditions. Has played well here over the years. Think this number falls pretty quickly to the mid 30's so jump on this now.

Longshots:

Alexander Noren +12000 (Bet $100 to win $12000 Fanduel)

+450 Top 20 Fanduel

Love Noren this week. He arguably should have won here in 2017 when Si Woo Kim took home the title (in similar conditions to what the players will see this week) he just didn't make a putt, and that's typically a big strength of his game.

Was 5th at the Honda and gained 5.4 strokes approach while gaining over 2 strokes the putter. Love that combination coming in here.

Really strong value on the top 20 odds, that's a full 1 unit bet for me this week!

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