Best bets
You don’t need great players to have great finishes and with two playoffs involving a total of seven players going off simultaneously at the Rocket Classic in Detroit and the LIV tournament in Dallas, TV golf fans were treated to an orgy of golfing thrills on Sunday night.
It was a slow-burn Rocket that took an age reaching its target as 20-year-old first-time winner Aldrich Potgieter – the well-upholstered South African youngster is the longest hitter on the circuit – outlasted Max Greyserman with an 18ft birdie putt at the fifth extra-hole after Chris Kirk had missed a tiddler to exit the three-man shootout earlier.
Meanwhile over in Texas, Patrick Reed, once the emotive ‘Captain America’ who loved representing his country and showed it belligerently, was throwing his hat into the ring for a Ryder Cup comeback by taking down England’s Paul Casey, surprise packet Jinichiro Kozuma and South African Louis Oosthuizen after the quartet had tied at six under par on the wild Meridoe course.
Reed, five ahead with 17 to play, had done his darndest to throw it away in a crazy five-bogey spell on the front nine when he not only lost all of his sizeable lead but had contrived to fall one behind.
Just as we were about to write him off, Reed steadied the ship, recovered as others came to grief themselves, and clinically delivered the hammer blow, a swinging 16ft birdie putt on one of the hardest holes, to complete his first victory on home soil in style – his first too as a LIV ever-present since the breakaway tour took off in 2022.
Not many come out on top with a last round of 75 and it will take more than one stuttering LIV win to convince captain Keegan Bradley that the 34-year-old Reed, a past Masters champion, should be high on his list for a Ryder Cup wild card in September but Bradley is more likely to sit up and take notice if Reed follows up in the BMW International Open in Munich this week when he heads a powerful LIV challenge on this DP World Tour prize – and he’ll have a favourite’s chance now coming in on such a high.
He knows the Eichenried course having finished 13th there on debut last year – only two behind going into last round but faded. He is one American who travels well and one of the few who has down the years supported the game in Europe. Surprisingly, he has never won there but the game and passion that saw him beat McIlroy one up in one of the greatest Ryder encounters ever in 2016 are clearly still there.
We saw what the feisty Reed can do at the end of last year when he shot a 59 on the way to winning the Hong Kong Open on the Asian Tour – and we saw it again last week. The flat, straight-forward par-72 parkland course in Munich, 7284 yards long with a couple of streams, a couple of half island-green short holes and 90 bunkers to navigate, will seem stroll in the park after last week’s walk on the wild side.
Reed is not the only LIV renegade with a big chance: Sergio Garcia, relieved after snatching a place in The Open at the weekend despite a sub-standard display, has visions of getting a Ryder Cup call from Luke Donald and as Europe’s highest points scorer in history, if he can make a point this week now that he has finally paid his fines, his experience would be useful. Yet he will need to play far better than on his last four starts. Indeed, if he repeats his last four 36-hole LIV totals, he won’t be in Germany for the weekend.
He was a LIV winner at the start of the year and is a dual runner-up at Eichenried but a younger Spaniard is preferred, the exciting David Puig, only 23 but immediately making an impact at LIV with a handful of high-class performances. Previous outings on the DP World Tour early in year, top fours at Ras Al Khaimah and Bahrain, suggest he’s well up to this week’s assignment. Puig had a distinct shout in Dallas after two rounds but a 75 on Sunday consigned him to 13th spot when, on overall play, he was better than that.
Here’s someone I wasn’t expecting to be tipping up: Martin Kaymer. After all, it’s 17 years since he won the BMW International. And 11 since he last won anything. And his record with LIV is far from inspiring. But the hero of Medinah, the dual Major champion, the one-time world No. 1 may still have a W in him judging by a top-ten in Virginia two outings ago and a strong last round on a difficult course in Texas last week. With a home crowd to help him along, life could begin again at 40 for the classy German at a big price.
His last notable performance came on this week’s course when runner-up in the 2021 and I think he’s got a bit of his mojo back after a decade and more of struggling because he wanted to change a winning swing to acquire the draw shot needed to win the Masters. It not only didn’t work, it backfired.
Outside his LIV chums, the opposition is not as hot as the weather. Matti Schmid, runner-up at Colonial and top-ten in a few lower-quality PGA tournaments, may figure but is not one to trust down the stretch; last week’s front two, Frenchmen Adrien Saddier and the younger Martin Couvra, are back for some more, Saddier winning for the first time at the 200th attempt and Couvra, already a winner this year, looking to have another W on his CV until the nerves interfered.
England’s hopes rest with Jordan Smith, joint runner-up last year, last week’s third Dan Bradbury, Marco Penge and Laurie Canter who could turn out to be the best of them, particularly if he is in the form he was at the start of the year.
Danish youngster Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen was terrific in 12th at desperately demanding Oakmont in the US Open but he’s not always that good and this is a totally different test. He looks plenty short enough in the betting and at the prices I’d sooner be on Chinese ace Haotong Li, a course winner when he beat Thomas Pieters in a playoff three years ago and in generally good nick this year as a February winner in Qatar and subsequently contender in Turkey (T2), Belgium and China.
Japan’s Rikuya Hoshino likes the course (T3 and T6 the last two years) but has been having a hard time of it on the PGA Tour (eight missed cuts out of 13) and might be short of confidence and young Spaniard Angel Ayora again promised much but looked jumpy on Sunday. He is learning how to put four good rounds together and will get there but not quite yet.
It’s due to be steamy (35C) and thundery on Thursday, cooling down to high 20s for a rainy weekend. Could even be a 1-2-3-4 for LIV – now wouldn’t that be something? – but non-stop-chatterer Li could be the man to shut them up.
Best bets
While the big cats pack their bags for their two-week trip to the Scottish Open and The Open, the mice can squabble over $8m pickings at the John Deere Classic not far from Chicago at Silvis. No stars but birdies galore on a public course built for birdies.We had 22 under rocking up in the Motor City last week – and even that score only good enough for a marathon playoff – but it’s highly unlikely that will be low enough at Deere Run where rounds of 59 have been seen and where Davis Thompson’s 28-under 256 shattered all records and scattered the field last year.
The 7289-yard par 71, laid out in 1999 by DA Weibring, a triple winner of this tournament himself in its previous identity, was where Jordan Spieth broke through as a teenager in 2013, a feat so nearly replicated in Detroit on Sunday by giant-hitting 20-year-old Aldrich Potgieter, a 60/1 winner then and perfectly capable of going in again at 40/1.
The South African is a natural, instinctive talent who needs only to brush up his chipping to go right to the top. But others with greater knowledge of a course with an old-time feel to it – it used to be a farm for Arabian horses – might have the edge.
Michael Thorbjornsen, just a stroke outside Sunday’s playoff, was joint runner-up with another immense talent Luke Clanton last year and looks the pick at 30/1. The 23-year-old one-time amateur star from Ohio is stringing together a compelling record that also features an eighth at the PGA Championship, 14th at the Players, fifth at the Genesis and 12th at the Travelers. Proven on the course and in form – what’s not to like?
Clanton, still an amateur when he played so brilliantly at Deere Run 12 months ago and a pro now for only a month, was carrying a penalty last week – he was saddled with my headline selection. It proved too much of a burden but he was right up there for much of the way and will repay regular support.
Another youngster to keep an eye on is Ryan Gerard, very consistent, T8 alongside Thorbjornsen at the PGA, runner-up at the Texas Open.
Ben Griffin has been around longer and achieved more, not least two victories and a second at Memorial this year. At world No. 17 he’s the highest-ranked golfer in the field and not impossible to leave out with his last six form figures reading 8-1-2-10-14-13. And T5 at Deere Run last year.
Among the long-servers, Jason Day and Rickie Fowler attract attention. Fowler has posted three top-20s in the last six weeks but I’m not a fan. Day, once the world No. 1, still has much to offer but finds winning difficult. It’s a while since he did so but there’s no arguing with his consistency. T4 last time out at the Travelers was his fourth top-ten of the year and his game is in shape to improve substantially on last year’s 23rd.
Si Woo Kim and Jake Knapp deserve a mention and don’t ignore the Macs Factor! There’s Big Mac, lanky lefty Matt McCarty, and Little Mac, ace putter Denny McCarthy. In his first year on the main tour, McCarty did what McCarthy hasn’t been able to in 205 attempts, and that’s to win.
McCarty did so at the new Black Desert Championship at the end of last year and continues to impress but course specialist McCarthy is probably the safer each-way bet. He’s been a total of 53 under for the last three years in finishing T7, T6 and T6.
Thompson would be the first back-to-back champion since Steve Stricker three-peated in 2009-10-11 but has only one top-ten to his name this year and seems to be trying too hard to win a Ryder Cup place.
And if you’re looking for a real big one, young Jackson Suber, sixth at the Sony at the start of the year and sixth again at the Rocket on Sunday, isn’t the worst 100/1 shot around.
The last three winners, JT Poston, Sepp Straka and Thompson, stayed separately in the same rented accommodation a few miles from the course. I wonder who’s checked in there this year? Hope the air-conditioning is on full blast because it’s going to be very hot and sticky with thunderstorms forecast for Saturday.
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