Best bets
2.5pts each-way Jon Rahm @ 9/1
1.5pts each-way Hideki Matsuyama @ 28/1
1pt each-way Corey Conners @ 40/1
0.5pt each-way Byeong-Hun An @ 50/1
0.5pt each-way Matt Fitzpatrick @ 40/1
2pts win Rory McIlroy @ 7/1
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We’re down to the 50 left standing as the race for FedEx Cup riches hots up in the BMW Championship after Lucas Glover sprang a 66/1 surprise in the first leg of the end-of-term bonanza at St Jude for his second victory in a life-changing eight days.
Well, maybe not such a surprise to Fitzdares punters as the 2009 US Open champion was one of last week’s selections and now the 43-year-old with the magic broomstick putter is being spoken of as a serious contender not only for next week’s $18m FedEx top prize but as a late entry for a Ryder Cup place in Rome next month.
Now Mission (almost) Impossible – three wins on the bounce – faces the craggy South Carolinian at brutal Olympia Fields not far from Chicago, his yip-laden train wreck of a career resurrected by switching from orthodox putter to the long-handled instrument that has also given another flawed veteran, Adam Scott, a new lease of life.
Since the Rocket Mortgage Classic at the end of June, Glover has amassed the best part of $6m thanks to two wins and three other top-six finishes – in a year that started with five missed cuts out of the first six. He rose from 49th to fourth on the FedEx ladder after Patrick Cantlay handed him the St Jude by driving into the drink at the first extra hole – and driving Cantlay backers to drink too.
So Cantlay stays winless in 2023 but as winner of the last two BMWs and clearly in good form despite throwing it away on Sunday, he’s a cramped 10/1 to make it a BMW hat-trick, only a point or two behind market leaders Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm.
Rory posted yet another high finish in Memphis (third) but the other two, down the field in 31st and 37th place respectively, failed to do themselves justice, although Rahm’s four early-year victories ensured he keeps the No. 1 spot on the FedEx rankings.
The burly Spaniard will be anxious to stay that way after the BMW because the leader when the flag goes up at the Tour Championship gets ten “starter points” under the competition’s bizarre handicapping system and a guaranteed minimum two-shot start on the rest of the elite 30 who make next week’s final showdown at East Lake, Georgia.
The severity of the North course at Olympia Fields, 7366 yards is long for a par 70, is likely to sort the men out from the boys, the basis for that comment coming from the last BMW to be staged there in 2020. Only five finished under par on a course that had hosted four Majors and was a fearsome examination.
Rahm and Dustin Johnson dead-heated at four under, DJ holing a 45-footer to get into the playoff but Rahm having the last laugh by holing from 66ft in extra time. It was just as well he did because the previous day, in a lapse of concentration, he had picked his ball up on the green without marking it for a one-shot penalty.
To shoot 66-64 after that glitch on a course that took no prisoners – even Tiger Woods could not match par in any round – makes me think Rahm at 9/1 is better value than 10/1 for Cantlay who finished 12th, alongside Rory, last time after being tied for the lead at halfway. Cantlay got his revenge by winning the last two BMWs but they were at Delaware and Caves Valley and he is awaiting his first victory since.
Outside Rahm, sixth-placed Matt Fitzpatrick was the highest European and I was toying with the idea of an each-way Fitz-perfect double linking him at 40/1 with kid brother Alex who is a 33/1 chance for the World Invitational in Northern Ireland which runs concurrently with the BMW. It’s a 1393/1 payout if you fancy it.
New pro Alex is already a winner on the Challenge Tour but Matt’s golf this summer has disappointed. He has rarely done himself justice since winning Heritage in April but expect a revival any time now as this grinder is best when the going gets tough and par is a good score.
It could be a great week for Europe as McIlroy’s game and mind are in a good place. It’s only a few weeks since he won the Scottish Open and he has maintained that level of form since. And Tommy Fleetwood has been doing everything bar winning. He’s in a super-consistent groove, yet that first PGA win stubbornly refuses to arrive. Like Fitzpatrick, he’s most dangerous on difficult courses. Olympia Fields comes into that category but he didn’t play in 2020 so lacks the course familiarity of his main rivals.
Not so Hideki Matsuyama who finished third to Rahm last time and fought like a tiger to qualify for this as he was on the wrong side of the top 50 until Sunday’s 65 hoisted him from 57th to 47th on the points list. Injuries have hampered him this year but at last he seems almost back to the golfer who won a Green Jacket and became a national hero in golf-mad Japan.
Viktor Hovland continues to impress (13th at St Jude) and is a key string to Europe’s Ryder Cup bow but is priced accordingly and on the score of value Canadian Corey Conners is just preferred. He was sixth in Memphis and this arrow-straight driver can make full use of his main weapon on demanding Olympia Fields where there are 91 bunkers and eight water hazards that need avoiding.
What type of player is best suited? That 2020 result suggests the power men are advantaged and the victory of Bryson DeChambeau in the 2015 US Amateur backs that up. But to balance that look at the outcome of the 2003 US Open, won by Jim Furyk, one of the shortest hitters in the field, after Willie Park’s original 1915 layout had been lengthened to keep pace with modern-day technology.
My pick of the longer prices are Byeong-Hun An (better known as Ben) and Emiliano Grillo who are both playing some of the best golf of their careers. The main problem with both is that in their hearts they don’t believe they’re as good as they are.
A very hot weekend is in store on and off the course with sunshine and temperatures well into the 80s after a rainy, cooler Thursday.
Best bets
2pts each-way Alex Fitzpatrick @ 33/1
1pt each-way Ewen Ferguson @ 16/1
1pt each-way Tom McKibbin @ 22/1
1pt each-way Robert MacIntyre @ 12/1
0.5pt each-way Marcus Kinhult @ 33/1
0.5pt each-way Matteo Manassero @ 80/1
It’s a great title, the World Invitational, but this week’s DP World Tour offering in Northern Ireland is more about the format – separate male and female competitions on the same two courses with equal prize money – than for its avalanche of world-class participants.
The men’s event is headed by Ryder Cup contenders Bob MacIntyre and Victor Perez while the women have some highly-ranked LPGA players staying on after the AIG Open at Walton Heath. Local heroine Leona Maguire and the 2018 British champion Georgia Hall head the cast there but sadly no Charley Hull, the gallant AIG runner-up.
Last year’s winners were Scotland’s Ewen Ferguson and Sweden’s Maja Stark, the big difference this year being the highly-regarded Castlerock links as the second course to parkland Galgorm Castle, replacing Massareene. That gives the players the opportunity to tackle two types of golf. Both courses are used for the first 36 holes, then Galgorm has the action to itself after the cut.
Tom McKibbin represents Galgorm on tour and the Belfast youngster who made his DP World breakthrough in the European Open in June has to go on the short list. I’ll take two to finish ahead of him, defending champion Ferguson and newcomer Alex Fitzpatrick who wasted no time in posting an emphatic Challenge Tour victory at St Mellion to add to a fourth in an earlier event in Italy.
Even more impressive was Alex’s performance in The Open itself where he looked set for a top-six finish until it all got a bit much for him on the Sunday. Still, 17th place was much more than big brother Matt could manage and the 24-year-old is an improver.
A Ferguson victory would elevate the Glaswegian into the Ryder Cup conversation. He knows how to win and boasts a raft of high finishes throughout the year, most recently fourth at the British Masters and a Scottish Open 12th.
Gallant Scottish Open runner-up MacIntyre probably has his Ryder Cup place buttoned up but winning this would clinch the deal while I give an each-way shout to Matteo Manassero, once the blue-eyed boy of European golf who won four times by the age of 20, including the tour’s flagship event in 2013, the BMW PGA at Wentworth, then vanished off the map as he tried new methods to increase driving distance and forgot the one that gave him such precocious success.
Now 30, he’s been to hell and back but thankfully two Challenge Tour victories this summer have shown us some of the old Matteo magic. What is it they say? Form is only temporary, class is forever. Let’s see.
Finally, a shout for Sweden’s Marcus Kinhult who put in two good shifts in the States with 14th at the Barbasol and 20th at Barracuda. They weren’t great tournaments but this is weaker still.
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