Best bets
2pts each-way Jordan Spieth @ 18/1
2pts each-way Rory McIlroy @ 17/2
1pt each-way Ludvig Aberg @ 18/1
1pt each-way Chris Kirk @ 50/1
1pt each-way Will Zalatoris @ 28/1
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An already disastrous winter for golf punters turned even more evil with the weekend victories of Austin Eckroat and Jordan Gumberg at 110/1 and 400/1 respectively on the two main tours and it needs to turn around soon, otherwise people with big holes in their pockets and bank accounts will get so fed-up with the game they’ll turn to other sports for their betting fun.
As if having one big PGA Tour event won by an amateur wasn’t enough, to have someone like Gumberg, a total unknown to almost everyone who follows golf, winning on the DP World Tour was close to being the straw that broke the camel’s back.
At least second-season tourist Eckroat had one big piece of form to his name, a T2 to Jason Day in last year’s Byron Nelson, and by the cool way he handled the Cognizant lead on Sunday is clearly one to note. His breakthrough there has won the likeable Oklahoman a spot in this week’s elite field of just 69 teeing up in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at fabled Bay Hill in the second leg of the Florida Swing – such a flashy warm-up for next week’s Players Championship and what a weekend battle is about to unfold with Arnie’s bash and Jon Rahm and Co’s LIV Hong Kong, two $20m bonanzas with $4m winner’s cheques, going head to head.
There will be a cut in this fourth Signature event but in such a small field few will perish so punters can reasonably expect to get four rounds out of whoever they back.
I’m hoping sanity will return to golf punting in putting up Jordan Spieth at 18/1 and Rory McIlroy at 17/2 as my main picks with honourable mentions for two more Europeans, Ludwig Aberg and Victor Hovland, on a tough, unrelenting course where the Euros have frequently prospered, Rory winning in 2018, Francesco Molinari doing the business in 2019 (a year when five of the front six came from Europe), Tyrrell Hatton landing his lone Stateside victory in 2020, and McIlroy, Hatton, Hovland and Westwood finishing runners-up in the last three renewals.
Spieth has turned himself from one of the worst drivers to one of the best and ranks second on birdie average. Twice fourth on his two Bay Hill visits, the Bermuda greens clearly suit him. While you can pick holes on his putting elsewhere, Bermuda is his comfort zone. He ranked No. 1 on them in Kapalua and eighth at Scottsdale.
‘I’m hoping sanity will return to golf punting…’
McIlroy’s stellar Bay Hill record (from 2018: 1-6-5-10-13-2) speaks volumes but he’s a constant worry with his mental blips – last week a triple bogey meltdown in the Bear Trap in round three just when he looked poised to take a serious hand – but there’s nothing wrong with his driving and the big dog is the most important club in the bag this week on this flat, water-strewn 7466-yard par 72 that gives you nothing, hence winning scores as low as four and five under par in the last four years.
Just to think Tiger beat up Bay Hill eight times – how great was that? Rory would be thrilled to get to two and the price, given that past champions DeChambeau and Hatton as well as Rahm, Koepka and DJ are gainfully employed elsewhere in the worldwide web of golf, is more than fair.
Hovland, runner-up to this week’s shaky favourite Scottie Scheffler and arguably the best golfer in the world a few months back after being crowned FedEx Cup champion, is a superb driver and will be in his element and the driver is Aberg’s main asset too, along with a great temperament. An eyecatching 24th as an amateur on his Bay Hill debut last May, Aberg is a winner on both main tours since and although at 18/1 he has not been missed by the odds compilers, the Swede looks sure to give a good account.
Kapalua winner Chris Kirk, a great driver too and often a lethal putter, has solid course credentials (T5 in 2022, T8 the previous year) and was going great guns last week until a triple-bogey horror story unnerved him, while Aussie 40-something Adam Scott’s putting has improved a ton. Twice third at Bay Hill, he has posted four straight top-20s coming into this week and another high finish beckons.
Cameron Young, tenth and 13th the last two years has plenty of admirers after two strong recent performances. If he were a racehorse, punters would call him a dodgepot. Until he holds his nerve and posts that elusive first W, he’s not for me.
Much preferred is comeback man Will Zalatoris whose second at Riviera on only his fourth start after a long, painful back injury break was a tremendous effort. Now that he’s found a broomhandle putter that, however awkward it looks, gets the job done, we’ll be hearing plenty of this thoroughbred, T10 at Bay Hill in 2021 when his putting wasn’t much cop, in the near future.
We can’t finish without mentioning Scheffler who could be overhauled by McIlroy as world No. 1 if Rory wins and the frustrated Texan keeps wasting immaculate tee-to-green play with a dodgy putting stroke. It cost him a successful defence last year and continues to haunt him. If he’s come up with a solution, the game’s pretty well up for everyone else. But it’s a big if…
At this time golf needs a far classier winner than the 200/1 shot it got in Kurt Kitayama last year. Fingers crossed it will get one.
Best bets
2pts each-way Louis Oosthuizen @ 18/1
1pt esch-way Anirban Lahiri @ 40/1
1pt each-way Talor Gooch @ 14/1
Just a couple of weeks ago, Chilean star Joaquin Niemann wasn’t even in The Masters but an Augusta invitation came in the post after he’d notched his first LIV victory at Mayakoba and now, after an emphatic follow-up in Saudi Arabia, he’s being punted on to be wearing the much-coveted Green Jacket come April 14.
Fitzdares have ‘Joaco’ at only 28/1 now and with three wins from five outings starting with the Australian Open in December it is hard to think of anybody in better form or that there are 13 golfers with better Masters prospects which is what the betting says.
Most of the bigger names are patchy and all seem to have their problem area. All three at the top of the market, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, are all looking puzzled with flat stick in hand while missing greens from the middle of the fairway is becoming commonplace with Rory.
Niemann is perfectly capable of winning again this week in LIV’s first visit to Hong Kong but with tricky, old-fashioned Fanling only a short par 70 of little more than 6700 yards he is facing a far different assignment than Jeddah and after two wins Niemann’s odds are understandably getting progressively less attractive.
On a fiddly track like Fanling where if you just nudge the ball down the fairway, stay out of trouble and can putt, this could be the week to swerve the macho men like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and even favourite Jon Rahm as they have no edge. Koepka and DJ were never factors in Saudi on a course where they had exceptional records, so why support them on a course that’s hardly tailor-made for them?
‘New signing Anthony Kim has a long way to go to justify the fee.’
High winds forecast for the final 36 holes will add further problems for the high-ball bombers. And with a 4am tee-off UK time – it’s a Friday to Sunday tournament with the usual shotgun start – it couldn’t be less user-friendly for British viewers. It will all be done and dusted by the time most of us get up!
The fact that short hitters with a magic wand like Ian Poulter and Wade Ormsby have won Hong Kong Opens at Fanling back up the feeling that this is the time to back Louis Oosthuizen, Anirban Lahiri and Talor Gooch, none flashy, all solid and dependable.
Oosthuizen gave best only to Neimann at Jeddah yet is at more than twice the price. The silky South African’s form has been almost as impressive as Niemann’s with back-to-back DP World Tour victories which have given him back lost confidence. That has led to good showings with LIV and a second on the Asian Tour in Oman. A first LIV triumph cannot be long delayed.
Lahiri wasn’t far behind him when sixth in Jeddah and the Indian No. 1 had a very lucrative autumn spell with LIV when runner-up in Chicago and third at Bedminster. As a triple winner who was LIV’s player of 2023, Gooch needs no further justification for putting up on a course sure to suit.
New signing Anthony Kim has a long way to go to justify the fee and the fuss after finishing 11 behind the next-worst and a furlong behind the winner but that was his first competitive round at this level for 12 years and, given time, improvement can be expected from this once-exciting golfer who won three times, played Ryder Cup and smashed Sergio Garcia in the singles.
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