Best bets
2pts each-way Taylor Pendrith @ 28/1
1.5pt each-way Tom Kim @ 12/1
1pt each-way Robert Maclntyre @ 33/1
1pt each-way Stephan Jaeger @ 25/1
0.5pt each-way Alex Noren @ 22/1
Place FIVE pre-tournament bets and get an in-play matched FREE BET! T&Cs apply.
While the cats are away, the mice will play … there’s no Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy nor even a Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay or Collin Morikawa in the line-up for the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. And until Tom Kim jumped up ten spots for his near-miss against the phenomenal Scheffler on Sunday, this $9.2m tournament did not even boast one world top-20 player.
Kim celebrated his 22nd birthday with his best performance of the year, bubbling with the positives of getting within a whisker of a wire-to-wire victory over his good friend Scottie and must have every chance of justifying favouritism in what will be a low-scoring birdie-binge week in Michigan.
‘Don’t expect him to be tired or hungover by the one that got away because he just loves to play.’
The chirpy South Korean’s seventh to Tony Finau in his rookie season two years ago on the old-fashioned Donald Ross layout, a gentle 7370-yard par 72, tells us the course holds no fear for him and this golfaholic is in buoyant mood for his ninth consecutive week on tour. There have been no let-ups either, no half-weeks when he’s missed the cut because there weren’t any. Don’t expect him to be tired or hungover by the one that got away because he just loves to play. The only cloud on the horizon is last year’s Detroit flop and the only disappointment for those who were on at the recommended 40/1 last week was that the putter went cool on him on Sunday afternoon when he should have put victory beyond Scheffler’s reach.
With past winning scores in Detroit of 26 under by Finau, 25 under by Nate Lashley , 24 under by last year’s winner Rickie Fowler and 23 under by Bryson DeChambeau, Kim will need to be bolder on the greens if he is to see off the likes of Cameron Young, who holed everything in sight when shooting a rare 59 at River Highlands on Saturday and then 30 for the front nine on Sunday – just 89 blows for 27 holes, quite something.
Young finished ahead of Kim when T2 behind Finau two years ago but he is still a non-winner and when you look at his back nine on Sunday, you can see why. Two bogeys and a double bogey crept in as soon as he saw his name at the top of the leaderboard and his race was run. It’s too often that way.
Less likely to combust is Taylor Pendrith who looks a spanking each-way bet at 28/1. Course form good: T2 alongside Young in 2022, T14 last year. Current form trending: Byron Nelson winner in May, eight top-25s in 17 starts, solid 16th last time out at the US Open. At 34 the stylish Canadian is a late bloomer who will repay following in these lesser tournaments.
Akshay Bhatia, overshadowed by Scheffler and Kim in the final threeball on Sunday but stayed with them most of the way to finish T5, was a Texas Open winner in April and is not out of it if not too tired to do himself justice. Last week took a lot out of him coming on top of another full-on week when 16th at the US Open.
Nobody is enjoying his golf as much as Bob MacIntyre now that he’s proven at top table with that win at the Canadian Open. The Scot blamed home-sickness for below-par golf earlier in the year but that’s all forgotten now and a T16 at River Highlands was another positive result. He, the ever-consistent Arron Rai and Alex Noren look the pick of the Europeans. Noren should have won in Detroit three years ago but his nerve went over the closing holes and he finished one shot out of the three-man playoff won by Cam Davis. Ninth last year, Detroit fits his eye. The spectre hanging over the Swede, a multiple winner on what was then the European Tour, is that this is his 179th PGA Tour start. He’s lost the first 178 and at 41 time is running out. Third at the Nelson and 12th at the PGA Championship, this is as good a chance as he will have.
The same goes for the brilliant Min Woo Lee who makes birdies for fun but the first W on American soil has proved elusive. T2 at the Cognizant in March remains his only top-ten but he’s there or thereabouts most weeks. You would have to say the cautious price is based on potential rather than what he has achieved but he is capable of winning this doing handstands if he gets a taste for the course. This will be his Detroit debut.
One who has broken his duck is the German Stephan Jaeger and what a scalp he took in doing so! Jaeger didn’t flinch when going head-to-head with top-man Scheffler in Houston and came out on top when Scottie missed a six-footer at the last.
Before that, a brace of third places at Torrey Pines and in Mexico caught the eye and the recent T21 at the US Open underlined everything was still in working order. He has course form too – fifth in 2022, T9 last year – and rates solid each-way material.
The weather outlook is warm and sunny until Saturday when there’ll be some thunder about.
Best bets
2pts each-way Bernd Wiesberger @ 16/1
1.5pt each-way Matteo Manassero @ 33/1
1pt each-way Guido Migliozzi @ 20/1
1pt each-way Patrick Reed @ 12/1
0.5pt each-way Andrea Pavan @ 80/1
First of all, massive congratulations to Tyrrell Hatton, the first Brit to win on the LIV circuit and didn’t he do it in style in Nashville with a six-shot victory over another Englishman Sam Horsfield and a well-timed one at that with the LIV circus coming to Europe for their next two performances.
It was Hatton’s first W for three and a half years but, begging the pardon of Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose, I have long regarded him as the best golfer in England. He’s certainly different, apt to explode or sulk when a putt fails to drop. And if there was a four-letter-word competition, he’d probably short-head Shane Lowry in that.
Hatton is what they call a “character”, a word that covers a multitude of sins, and he’s not everybody’s cup of tea, just as his LIV colleagues Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed aren’t (though the new version of Bryson has been working on it) but wouldn’t golf be more watchable if there were a few more like them?
The controversial Reed has never sought to win a popularity contest but has been a good supporter of the DP World Tour over the years and here he is again, adding a bit of Texas beef to the Italian Open and then staying over in Europe for next week’s BMW International in Munich. If Reed had played better with LIV at the weekend instead of finishing T32, fifteen strokes behind Hatton, he would have been my main pick because the opposition is hardly strong and the course, the Adriatic Golf Club Cervia, will be new to all bar the Italians.
‘The classy Austrian arrives as a past Italian Open champion ‘
The Adriatic, in the north-east of Italy, takes over from Ryder Cup venue Marco Simone which has hosted the last three editions. By all accounts, it has a Scottish linksy feel about it on the holes closest to the coastline and at 6965 yards par 70 it should give everybody, long, medium or short, a chance.
With Reed’s Majors exemption for his 2018 triumph at Augusta having run out and no longer in the top hundred in the world because his LIV exploits don’t count, there’s every incentive for him to put on a show in Europe the next two weeks as they do count. Still without a win at LIV – but third at Houston at the start of June – he is probably not the player he was but the passion and the short-game skills are still there. At 12/1 favourite, Pat’s hardly a bargain because, like Hatton, it’s three and a half years since he won but it’s worth remembering his fourth and 12th in the last two Masters. Who else the field would get close to that?
For the main bet Bernd Wiesberger is just preferred at 16/1 because of his improved recent form and a proven eight-win track record at this level. The classy Austrian arrives as a past Italian Open champion (Olgiata, 2019) and on the back of his two best finishes, T2 in Hamburg and T7 in Amsterdam, since splitting with LIV and rejoining the DPWT.
Young Tom McKibbin put in another good shift last week (sixth) but I’m going local for the rest of my picks in nominating Guido Migliozzi, Matteo Manassero and Andrea Pavan.
Migliozzi put in a gutsy finish to snatch the Dutch title on Sunday, a great confidence-booster in a year that was getting away from him, while Pavan (not to be confused with the Frenchman Pavon) did his best to spoil the party in Holland with a riproaring final-round 65 to snatch fourth place and almost a playoff. It was easily the best effort of a poor year, of which there have been several, and could lead to a revival.
You have to go back to the 2019 Italian Open to find Pavan’s last top-ten and it might be an omen that his two most recent victories came in June. He’s 80/1 for a reason but when he had a nice little run five years ago, he strung together three good finishes in a row so Sunday’s fourth could be the catalyst for sunnier times.
Manassero has proved his breakback win in South Africa in March was no one-hit wonder by running up a fifth in India, 13th in Belgium and T7 at the weekend at the KLM. The 30-year-old who entranced us all as a boy wonder 11 years ago by whipping a star-studded field for the high-profile BMW PGA at Wentworth is emphatically back and on a not-overlong course that should suit him.
After some thundery showers early in the week, the sun will be coming out on cue for round one and stay out until we have a champion. Sunday, with 32C, will be the hottest day. Hopefully with some hot golf to match.
For all your bets on the US Open, visit our dedicated golf betting page.
