Best bets
2.5pts each-way Rory McIlroy @ 9/1
1pt each-way Corey Conners @ 20/1
1pt each-way Billy Horschel @ 28/1
1pt each-way Hideki Matsuyama @ 20/1
0.5pts each-way Charley Hoffman @ 125/1
1pt each-way double McIlroy (9/1) & Rahm (6/1)
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With Scottie Scheffler surprisingly showing himself vulnerable at the Houston Open by failing to see off a bunch of rookies, dodgepots and non-winners, the spotlight shines even more sharply on his two main Masters rivals, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, in the final week before the year’s first Major at Augusta.
Both have far more to prove than Scheffler, the 1-1-2 for his last three starts should really read 1-1-1 and the world No. 1 must be rueing the triple-putt-from-five-feet fiasco on day two and the missed six-footer on the 72nd, as McIlroy’s best finish in five US outings is 19th while Rahm’s payback on his $400,000+ LIV signing-on fee is a modest 8-5-8-3, distinguished only by duffing up two obvious winning chances.
The pair of them desperately need a confidence booster on Masters eve, McIlroy from the Texas Open and Rahm at the LIV Miami tournament at Doral, and although one can’t be certain of anything in a year that has produced so many freak results, these are no ordinary warm-ups and punters look nailed-on to get a big run for their money.
Fitzdares have Rory 9/1 favourite in San Antonio and Rahm, who will be defending his Green Jacket next week, at 6/1 to beat an all-star LIV line-up featuring six more Augusta heroes of the past, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Charl Schwartzel and Sergio Garcia. Quite a job on for Rahm but he is a man who won’t for one moment be satisfied with taking the money and not performing. As the win part alone of an each-way double on Europe’s finest pays 69/1, it’s a tasty bet and that, along with the two singles, looks the way to go.
With the Texas action teeing off on Thursday, a day before the $25m shindig at what was called the Doral Country Club when I was there in 2004 but now sports a name, Trump National, that some find hard to say, let’s deal first with Rory. For a start he’s by some way the highest-rated golfer in a line-up denuded of Scheffler, Cantlay, Schauffele, Hovland and in-form Wyndham Clark who are fine-tuning their games at home preparing for the Big One. And although this is a rare visit to San Antonio, only his third in fact, he did finish runner-up in 2013.
With mostly wide fairways and just a few tree-lined tighter ones, the Greg Norman-designed 7435-yard par 72 Oaks course, with two front-nine par fives measuring over 600 yards, looks ripe for plucking by McIlroy’s awesome driver. Don’t forget he has won this year, at the Dubai Desert Classic, before one or two head-scratchers in America when his concentration wandered.
Little wonder his mind wan’t totally on the job with his off-course commitments as players’ spokesman in the PGA Tour’s long-running stand-off with the Saudis. Now he has freed himself from those, his chances of completing that elusive career Grand Slam have become more realistic.
He’d be only the sixth to do so and a convincing display now in the Lone Star State would be a huge mental tonic. Part of the reason for backing the favourite are the question marks against those closest to him in the betting: Ludvig Aberg missed the cut on his only visit as an amateur two years ago (but was eighth at the Players last time out), this is Collin Morikawa’s debut and he has swing problems to sort out, Open champion Brian Harman hasn’t visited since 2019 so this presumably is a warm-up week for him, Max Homa continues to underperform and Jordan Spieth has exited Friday at Sawgrass and Valspar on his two latest starts.
You might want to excuse Spieth on the grounds that he’s a course winner but the price is tight and really you have to go down to dual San Antonio winner Corey Conners before getting to a course-and-current form danger you can justify.
The sweet-swinging Canadian hasn’t been pulling up any trees this year but at least he’s trending the right way with 18th at Bay Hill and 13th at Sawgrass encouraging latest efforts. And when a guy’s only two Ws in eight years have come on this very track, it must mean so much mentally. Billy Horschel’s form at San Antonio has also been strong, though not up to Conners’ level, and he is coming to peak nicely after a couple of dodgy years.
His seventh at Houston on Sunday caught the eye and it rounded off a lucrative March in which he also posted a ninth at the Cognizant and 12th at Valspar. Also on a roll is Japanese ace Hideki Matsuyama, the winner at Riviera and T12 at Bay Hill and T6 at Sawgrass since.
A very respectable 15th on only his third visit to San Antonio last year, he will be on his mettle after young compatriot Keita Nakajima’s brilliant DPWT breakthrough at the Indian Open. The Oaks course has seen its share of shock winners, one coming just two years ago when JJ Spain landed his only victory but even that failed to match the 500/1 surprise from ten years ago when no-chance Aussie Steven Bowditch strolled home, never to be a contender again.
Looking for a three-figure outsider, the 125/1 for Charley Hoffman holds plenty of appeal. We all thought the 47-year-old Californian was yesterday’s man simply waiting to play the over-50s circuit until he all but won at Phoenix. After all, you have to go back to 2016 to find the last of his four victories. Was Phoenix a fluky one-off?
Maybe as he’s missed his last three cuts but if he’s ever going to shine again it will surely be at San Antonio where he boasts such a stellar record. Champion in 2016, runner-up 2019 and 2021, third in 2013, plus a brace of 11th places in 2014-15.
Now that’s what you call a course specialist! Aberg and Matt Fitzpatrick add ballast to the European challenge along with Thomas Detry, just an agonising shot away from a playoff in last week’s first leg of the Texas Twostep, and Matt Wallace, who co-led going into the final round here three years ago but stalled on Sunday and could finish only third to Spieth.
A last-gasp place in the Augusta line-up beckons for the winner if he has not already qualified and the weather looks sunny, to start with at least. Here’s hoping McIlroy’s golf is hot too rather than the hot-and-cold stuff he’s been serving up.
Best bets
2pts each-way Jon Rahm @ 6/1
1pt each-way Patrick Reed @ 40/1
1pt each-way Dustin Johnson @ 16/1
If it’s Masters clues you’re after, the LIV tournament at Trump National Doral is the place to be as they have seven winners of ten Green Jackets on parade compared with just the three, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott, over in Texas.
The Masters count in Florida is headed by defending champion Jon Rahm although numerically Phil Mickelson with three Augusta glory weeks and Bubba Watson with two have bigger bragging rights.
Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Charl Schwartzel bring the LIV total to ten but they have plenty of other box-office attractions on top, headed by five-time Major winner Brooks Koepka, 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith, the compulsively watchable Bryson DeChambeau and current star Joaquin Niemann, crowned Australian Open champion in December and a double winner since at Mayakoba and Jeddah on the mega-rich LIV circuit.
Most of them are on familiar territory this week, the four-course Doral resort just a mile from Miami airport which Donald Trump bought out of bankruptcy for $150m in 2012 and invested a further $250m on renovations the following year, all apparently to little avail.
Although the place is struggling financially again, the No. 1 course, the Blue Monster – so called because of its challenging and ubiquitous lakes and water hazards with particular reference to the ruthless 18th – came on the LIV itinerary for their season-ending team event in 2022 and 2023 and reappears as the fifth tournament on their calendar as a singles event.
At 7590 yards, it’s a long, flat track with thin fairways where everybody, long and short, has a chance. Without all the water it would be a nothing-special resort course. I was there for the 2004 Ford Championship and, standing behind the 18th green, saw the shot of the year, Craig Parry holing a 176-yard seven-iron second shot for the eagle that brought his playoff with Scott Verplank to an abrupt, dramatic end.
Of this week’s field, Mickelson won the WGC-Cadillac Championship on the Blue Monster in 2009, Reed did so in 2014 and DJ the following year, while Bubba Watson was a three-time runner-up, in 2012-14-16. Reed and Johnson were also members of the Four Aces squad that walked away with the LIV team title in 2022.
All that positive course experience is invaluable and I fully expect Reed to outperform his 40/1 odds (it’s a Friday shotgun start at 6.15pm our time). True, his LIV form this year has been disappointing but he was fourth on the Asian Tour at the Macao Open last month and don’t forget his best 2023 performance, fourth at the Masters, came in early April.
DJ has to be considered too after making a dazzling start to his year by winning LIV Las Vegas in February and is overpriced at 16/1 but I’m rooting for Rahm, a guy without any of the course experience of his main rivals, to show them the way home as he needs to come up with something special to justify a signing-on fee so outrageous it made even LIV’s previously highest-paid star captures Mickelson and Johnson blink.
Whether it was $400m, $500m or $600m, it showed how much the Saudis wanted the best in the world, which the Spaniard arguably was at the time. So far, with four top-ten finishes but no wins, Rahm has not reciprocated. It takes time getting used to a new format, new, noisier surroundings with rock music blaring and a different vintage of audience looking for a lighter, more varied day out but he hopefully has figured it out by now and is ready to show he is the standout act on a weekend when a big performance to take him into Augusta is a must.
LIV haven’t seen the best either of England’s best golfer Tyrrell Hatton who signed at the same time as Rahm (for a more modest $63m) and has got progressively worse (form figure of 8-12-15-21 in fields of 53/54). He too has clearly taken time settling in unlike Henrik Stenson who won first time out after signing on the dotted line but is an enormously gifted player I expect to win before the year is out.
Niemann continues to impress but at 15/2 second favourite the layers have got his measure now. Koepka is the other one on my short list but while 18/1 is more tempting than the 14/1 for Hatton, his focus is purely Majors and he’s much more interested in next week and making amends for letting last year’s Masters slip tamely out of his control.
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