The swing season continues on the PGA Tour with the Shriners Hospital for Children Open set to take place this week. This is another tournament that isn’t a marquee event on the schedule, but we do get a stronger field than previous weeks. The swing season is always an interesting time of the golf schedule, but that is even more true this year with the Masters still looming in November. Players will be forced to keep in form hoping to end their 2020 with a big victory at Augusta. This week players head to Las Vegas for what is going to be an extended stay with the way the PGA Tour schedule unfolds. TPC Summerlin is the venue, and we have a lot to break down for our PGA picks. Some appealing numbers are out there. and this is another field that is pretty wide open despite some big names in attendance.
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PGA Picks: Futures/Outright Winners
Rickie Fowler 35-1 (DraftKings)
We haven’t seen Fowler since the U.S. Open. Now he gets back on the course to gear up for this stretch run and comes to a course that should fit his eye. Fowler could use some positive energy with a rough 2020 season that has seen zero top 10s since January and way too many missed cuts for a player this good. All of that shouldn’t be the lead-in for saying I am interested in him in the outright market, but here we are. Fowler sits at 35-1, and although the form is spotty, there is no doubt that top-end ceiling is intact.
Fowler finished fourth in his last appearance here in 2018, and this course fits what Fowler can and should do. Players need to make birdies here, which isn’t a problem for a guy who can get hot with the putter, and length certainly isn’t required to compete. The desert track is a boost considering Fowler’s last win was at Waste Management in Scottsdale, and I see some similarities in the conditions.
At the U.S. Open he actually struck it well, gaining 6.1 strokes tee to green but somehow losing 6.7 strokes putting. That needs to be corrected, but historically the putter is the strength of Fowler’s game, so I don’t worry about whether or not he can heat up on the greens. Considering Sergio Garcia just won an event, we know how fast anyone can find their putting stroke and possibly make a leap into the winner’s circle. At 35-1 I will buy on Fowler and hope the few weeks off have cleaned up what was erratic form the last few times we’ve seen him.
Sungjae Im 40-1
Another guy who has had an up-and-down 2020, but we have a lot more recent form to go off of. Right before the pandemic sidelined everything, Im was one of the hottest players on tour, having just won at the Honda Classic down in Florida. Since the restart he has just one top-10 finish, missing way too many cuts considering how talented he is.
The good news for us and for Im is the form has come back in recent weeks, and he comes into this event off three straight positive ball-striking weeks. The putter heated up last week at Sanderson Farms, and if he pairs that up with his off-tee game, we quickly could see the same Im from the Florida swing earlier this year. So far in his career he has preferred putting on Bermuda greens, which isn’t ideal considering these are bentgrass, but that is still a secondary consideration for me. It also is more important on the DFS side of things where his actual finish matters rather than in an outright where it is either he wins the tournament or he doesn’t. At 40-1, I’ll embrace the variance and try to be early on a guy who clearly has shown he can win against any field.
Top Ten
Joaquin Niemann +550
If we want to take a little more nuanced approach in betting, then looking at the top-10 odds is a way to do that. You aren’t going to get that massive payoff on most guys, but we still have good prices on top players who just need to find the first page of the leaderboard. That allows us to have some upside on players while not requiring them to actually win the entire tournament. It’s not to say you can’t sprinkle on them in the outright market as well, but top 10s are also something to consider.
Niemann is sitting at a very enticing 11-2 in the top-10 market, and he comes into this Las Vegas swing playing good golf. He actually rode a hot putter at the U.S. Open, but the game is always going to be a little erratic with the way he plays. He’s a big-time birdie maker and should be able to lean on his off the tee game to set up plenty of looks at this track. He has gained off the tee in every tournament post restart except one, and that is one of the keys to setting himself up to go low in events like this. At +550 for a top 10, we have some room outside Niemann getting deep into contention, but he is still an upside play in terms of payout. That is why I lean more towards this than betting him outright. He also makes for an interesting pivot in the mid ranges on the DFS slate, so he will be a key piece for me this weekend.
Matchup
There are a bunch of individual matchups to break down if you are looking for less volatility. Another reason to bet a matchup is you are looking to short a specific player, and you can take several head-to-heads with him in there hoping he doesn’t find the weekend.
Doc Redman (-112) vs. Will Zalatoris
The matchup I’m going to here has Redman, hoping to continue his good play, against Zalatoris, who is looking to regain that form he flashed during his big showing a few weeks ago at the U.S. Open. Both players are earlier in their careers and certainly have the talent to be mainstays on tour for years to come.
To me Redman is in another tier of player right now and is consistently getting it done on tour. He has made four of his last five cuts, including two third-place finishes over that span. The ball striking has been fantastic with at least four strokes gained tee to green in three of the last four events. All of this is showing that Redman right now is churning out finishes and that is exactly what we want to see when looking at potential head-to-head matchups.
Zalatoris clearly has talent, but we still don’t know a ton about his game. He was dominating on the Korn Ferry Tour and had a huge showing at the U.S. Open and Corales but underwhelmed last week, missing the cut at Sanderson Farms. He was still positive ball striking, but the short game was ice cold, and he couldn’t make enough birdies to find the weekend. This is still a player with only a few starts on the PGA Tour, and I am not surprised to see inconsistency to his game.
Although I believe the upside is still there, this is a guy who has more questions than answers, and I was surprised to see him as a slight favorite over Redman. With the body of work Redman has, I expect him to continue that run of form. That will force Zalatoris to really bring his top game if he wants to win this head-to-head. With the price sitting -112, I’ll gladly back the more polished and consistent player with Redman.
Quick Notes
If you are unfamiliar with PGA betting or are just looking to dive into it for the first time, make sure to try and understand each type of bet and how to properly allocate bankroll for each. When choosing a few outrights at long odds, we are hoping to hit one of those a year as it would pay for the entire season and then some. Think of that as the large-field GPPs where you hope to tread water and then rely on a big hit once every year or so to do major damage.
On the other side, we have head-to-head bets, which, naturally, are more like cash games or head-to-heads in DFS where you aren’t going to win a huge multiplier of your money, but also should be hitting them at a reasonable clip. Getting a clearer picture of what each bet is like is important as this is a long season with a lot of opportunities to take some stabs at these PGA odds.
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