Best bets
The story so far … the Dallas-based money machine won nine times last year including Masters, Players Championship and Olympic gold. This year: played eight, won zero and form figures of 9-25-3-11-20-2-4-8. Wonderful stuff if your name is Joe Bloggs, not good enough for a guy hailed as the “next Tiger Woods” by many. Losing his Masters and Players titles will really have stung.
It’s all very well turning your nose up at the cramped odds but who do you put up against him? He is one level above the best of the rest even if there’s nothing remarkable about his form at TPC Craig Ranch. This course at McKinney north-east of Dallas is near enough for him to sleep in his own bed if he wishes to.
The Tom Weiskopf design, a 7569-yard par 71, has hosted the CJ Cup for only four years so we have limited form evidence but he was T5 to Jason Day in 2023. Looking at winning scores so far, 26, 25, 23 and 23 under par, it is a course geared for birdies so Scottie will need to have his putting boots on.
Korean KH Lee won the first two at Craig Ranch but you couldn’t fancy him on this year’s form and I would rather be on his compatriot Ben An, who has a good course record, and another Ben, Griffin, now that the promising American has opened his PGA account, albeit only in a pairs event in the company of the massively in-form Andrew Novak in New Orleans.
Griffin has been knocking on the door and now it has opened it will have done him the world of good. The 28-year-old from North Carolina had already shown his hand with a brace of fourth places in Mexico and at the Cognizant following a seventh at the AmEx.
Putting up An who hasn’t won in 213 PGA Tour starts against a golfer of Scheffler’s pedigree sounds foolhardy but he did win the Genesis in Korea on the DP World Tour late last year and there was nothing wrong with his eighth at Bay Hill or 21st at Augusta. But it is his Craig Ranch form – T4 to Taylor Pendrith last year and 14th earlier – that gives Ben each-way appeal.
Canadian Pendrith is back to defend and Stephan Jaeger had a win over Scheffler last year but I’d sooner be on An’s compatriots Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im. Si Woo, runner-up here two years ago, and Sungjae have both shown plenty recently but Si Woo spurned a winning opportunity last time out, his putter crumbling under last-round pressure at Hilton Head.
The Hojgaard twins did themselves proud when teaming up for second place at the Zurich Classic and both are talented enough to contend while the enigma that is Jordan Spieth also comes into the conversation.
A great hero in his home city, Spieth almost got it done at Craig Ranch three years ago, going down by a single shot to course specialist Lee who couldn’t miss. He missed the cut last year but two top-tens this campaign and tidy top-20s on his three latest starts including 14th in the Masters indicate a W is not too far away.
With Rory having completed his career Slam, Spieth is next in line, needing the US Open to complete his set and join an elite group that now numbers six. You can bet he’ll be trying at Oakmont in June.
Will Zalatoris, a class act close to regaining his best golf after a long injury lay-off, and Japanese star Ryo Hisatsune, going places at only 22 and impressive in New Orleans last week, are also worthy of consideration in a week that will have a sting in the tail weatherwise, a perfect 27C to start with but rain and thunder at the weekend.
Best bets
What’s happening with Bryson DeChambeau, the second-most-popular golfer on the planet (after Rory of course) and the reigning US Open champion?
For a third tournament Sunday in a row he’s blown it – with a 75 at LIV Miami and Augusta, handing the Masters to McIlroy gift-wrapped, and now losing his ball and triple-putting just when he’d taken the lead off Joaquin Niemann at LIV Mexico City.
Even if a T2 at the weekend sounds like an acceptable performance, it truly wasn’t and with the defence of his US Open crown only six weeks away, punters have to be wary about backing Mr Box Office. Beneath that sunny, shake-everybody’s-hand exterior there’s a frown. This week’s there the chance to redeem himself when he visits South Korea for the first time but I can’t bring myself to put him again, not yet anyway.
The Jack Nicklaus club at Incheon is already known to those who competed in the 2015 Presidents Cup there, won by the USA after a 15.5 to 14.5 scare over the Internationals. Clues from that, form so old it probably belongs on the History Channel, indicate that Louis Oosthuizen, with 4.5 points out of five and Phil Mickelson, with 3.5 from four, have a soft spot for the place so if you are looking for an angle to back an outsider, this is your way in.
However the South African has only one top-ten from six LIV outings this year and Lefty two from five though trending the right way despite a missed cut at his beloved Augusta.
Mickelson is the preferred each-way option of the two but it is hard to be overly optimistic of a turn-up when you see the quality of golf being served up week in week out by Niemann, DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Cammie Smith and Tyrrell Hatton. Knock LIV and its showbiz, shotgun, short-haul format if you like but these guys are top of the range.
With seven worldwide wins in 15 months including five with LIV, three this year after the Chilean’s triumph down Mexico way on Sunday that win him an automatic spot at the US Open, Niemann has the look of a world top-ten golfer with time on his side for further improvement. There are far worse bets around than Fitzdares’ 33/1 for the upcoming USPGA and 40/1 for the US Open.
Niemann is rightly favourite this week as his two closest market rivals, Rahm and DeChambeau, have yet to open their accounts for the year while he has been carrying all before him bar a disappointing Masters effort. Rahm turned in another solid fourth-place shift in Mexico and has yet to finish outside the top ten.
He will pop up soon but it is Hatton, winner of the Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour at the start of the year who will be carrying my cash after his fast-finishing T5 on Sunday, his best LIV performance of the campaign. That followed a 14th at Augusta that looked like being a whole lot better after an eyecatching first 36 holes and there is more to come from the eccentric Englishman.
It’s going to be a cool week (17C), quite breezy and with a bit of rain on Saturday. The course is a 7470-yard par 72 – a thinking man’s course rather than a slugger’s with eight water hazards to be negotiated, three of them on par threes. Subtle and sneaky, it shimmers in the shadow of the skyscrapers and the tenth hole begins on a rock cliff.
We saw it on the DP World Tour in the Genesis Championship in Korea at the end of last year when Ben An beat Tom Kim in a playoff after they tied on 17 under par. They were the two best-qualified in the line-up – a good omen for the cream rising to the top this weekend.
For all your bets on the PGA Tour, visit our dedicated golf betting page.
