Best bets
1.5pts each-way Justin Rose @ 50/1
1pt each-way Aaron Rai @ 60/1
1pt each-way Tony Finau @ 28/1
0.5pt each-way Kevin Yu @ 80/1
0.5pt each-way Austin Eckroat @ 50/1
0.5pt each-way Thomas Detry @ 50/1
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What a surreal week at Valhalla with the world No. 1 arrested and handcuffed, the world No. 2’s divorce announced, the once-mighty Jon Rahm missing the cut, Tiger Woods reduced to a sad sideshow, and victory going to a man who had crumbled the previous weekend when put under pressure, not for the first time.
Fair play though to Xander Schauffele for so quickly shrugging off that Quail Hollow nightmare and leading the PGA Championship from pillar to post to bag his first Major, jumping over his Wells Fargo conqueror Rory McIlroy to No. 2 in the rankings and now 12/1 third favourite with Fitzdares for next month’s US Open at famed Pinehurst No. 2.
It is humble-pie-eating time for your correspondent who was convinced Schauffele’s scars from Quail Hollow would take a long time to heal. He was challenged on all sides, particularly by the awesome Bryson DeChambeau, but refused to bend, holing out from six feet at the 72nd hole to defy the LIV star to post his first victory for almost two years, a reward for metronomic consistency.
DeChambeau has turned from loner to Mr Nice Guy since joining LIV and is apparently loving the team aspect of his new life and hanging out with such unlikely pals as Anirban Lahiri, Charles Howell and Paul Casey. But it was an otherwise dismal week for LIV who, despite being granted a wider representation than at the Masters, could muster only two finishers inside the top 20.
Rahm exiting early for the first time in a Major, following his T45 at Augusta, was a disaster for them and the Spaniard, once the undisputed world No. 1, has only one LIV tournament to sort himself out before the next Major.
‘If Scheffler has a quiet week, the Europeans could cash in…’
If it was a poor week for LIV it was an excellent advert for European golf with seven making the top 12 – Viktor Hovland leading the way in third, his first decent finish of an underwhelming 2024, Thomas Detry T4, Justin Rose and Shane Lowry T6, Bob MacIntyre T8, McIlroy T12 with Alex Noren. Many in the field would have been thrilled with a T12 but for Rory it has to go down as a misfire on a course where he’d won the 2014 PGA and was coming into the week on the back of two victories. Too many silly mistakes among all the glorious shots but he is so magnetic we still keep following him over a cliff!
No McIlroy and no Schauffele at Colonial this week for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Fort Worth, Texas, on the old-fashioned layout they used to call Hogan’s Alley because the great Ben won there five times. This is the 77th time the tournament, founded in 1946, has been played on this cunning par 70 which now measures 7289 yards. Narrow fairways, small greens, a few doglegs – a shot-maker’s course where a driver off the tee is not always the right play and precision rather than power is called for. Even more so in the very hot, thundery week that’s forecast.
As it’s close to his Dallas home, Scheffler is down to play but he was exhausted by his ordeal with the Louisville police. There was a bit of good news for him when his arraignment was put back from Tuesday of this week to June 3. He is not one to let sponsors down but whether he will be firing on all cylinders is another matter. If he is, he’ll blow them all away. To finish T8 at the PGA after such a bizarre week, and when factoring in being a first-time dad for just eight days, was something to be proud of and the 66 he shot on Friday after spending the morning in the klink has to go down as the round of the year.
Scottie has first-rate Colonial credentials, going down in a playoff to his great mate Sam Burns two years ago and finishing just a shot out of another playoff 12 months ago, when Emiliano Grillo pipped Adam Schenk. But is this the right time to be taking skinny odds like 13/5? If Scheffler has a quiet week, the Europeans could cash in because there are question marks against other big-name Americans like Jordan Spieth and Max Homa whose performances aren’t matching their reputation.
Collin Morikawa and Tony Finau are feared more after strong showings at the PGA but Morikawa found nothing under pressure when going out in the final twoball with Schauffele.
Finau was another to fall away but he has enough course form, second in 2019 and fourth in 2022, to be of punting interest if his putting holds up. It could easily be an outsiders’ week and now that Rose has come good with that stellar showing at Valhalla after struggling for much of the year, the English veteran could easily spring a surprise. It’s a course that really suits him as he demonstrated when beating Brooks Koepka in 2018 and finishing only one shy of the playoff in 2020. There’s plenty of good golf left in this fit 43-year-old who was one of the stars of last year’s Ryder Cup.
Another Englishman with a shout is straight-shooter Aaron Rai who shared 12th place with Rose at Colonial last year and has reserved his best golf this year for the Lone Star State, finishing fourth at the Byron Nelson and seventh in Houston. This is great chance for Rai to break through in the States, and the same comment applies to Belgian stylist Thomas Detry, runner-up in Houston and now fourth at the PGA. He’s a serial non-winner but the previously windy Schauffele has shown him how it’s done and I think it’s finally dawning on Detry just how good he can be.
Sticking with longshots, there’s a win somewhere along the line with Kevin Yu who looked so good at the start of the year with third at the Amex and sixth at Torrey Pines. He was back in that sort of form when fourth at Myrtle Beach last time out and could outrun his odds.
Korean stars Sungjae Im, Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim all come into the conversation and Austin Eckroat, the winner at Cognizant, impressed sufficiently when T18 on Sunday to be worth an each-way dabble. He has potential, as do the exciting Coody twins Pierceson and Parker in their home state..
Best bets
1pt each-way Bernd Wiesberger @ 28/1
1pt each-way Kiradech Aphibarnrat @ 50/1
1pt each-way Adrien Dumont de Chassart @ 40/1
1pt each-way Sam Bairstow @ 40/1
1pt each-way Adrian Otaegui @ 20/1
We’ve had the Opening Swing, the International Swing and the Asian Swing – now the DP World Tour’s European Swing tees off with the Soudal Open and in case you’re wondering where Soudal is, it’s the Belgian Open in disguise, the title hijacked by the sponsors.
‘It’s three years since Wiesberger won a tournament but he has beaten far stronger fields than this and I’m counting on the talent still being there’.
So it’s Belgium this week – we’re at the Rinkven International course ten miles outside Antwerp again, a 6940-yard par 71 where Simon Forstrom beat Jens Dantorp in a Swedish 1-2 for his first DPWT victory last year. Then the tour moves on to Germany (twice), Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy.
In the absence of their most gifted player Thomas Detry, fourth in the PGA Championship on Sunday and with nine million reasons to be in Texas this week, the locals will be hoping LIV signing Thomas Pieters or bright new star Adrien Dumont de Chassart can keep the trophy at home.
Pieters was brilliant as Rory McIlroy’s partner and Europe’s top scorer in the 2016 Ryder Cup but that was a long time ago and he has done little to suggest LIV have spent their money wisely since he took the Saudi shilling although fifth in Singapore last time out was a step in the right direction.
De Chassart is a highly-rated graduate from the Korn Ferry Tour who was sixth in the Puerto Rico Open and played nicely enough on his two latest outings at the Byron Nelson and Myrtle Beach. At 24 he is an improver and there is nobody to frighten him in this 20/1 the field tournament that’s waiting for some young buck to put his stamp on it.
Jordan Smith’s last-round 64 at Valhalla has encouraged support but he is hard to win with and the same comment applies to Germany’s Yannik Paul, a Ryder Cup hopeful last year who has not quite hit the expected heights. Paul has strong course credentials as runner-up to Sam Horsfield at Rinkven two years ago but I’m not sure he’s any better now.
Thriston Lawrence had a disappointing time at Valhalla and should have done better when dropped in grade at Myrtle Beach so I’m going for experience in the shape of Austrian Bernd Wiesberger, a one-time Ryder Cup player who signed up with LIV, didn’t feel comfortable there and asked the DP World Tour to reinstate him.
This eight-time winner has been steady rather than spectacular on the Asian Swing but knows Rinkven well, saying when he played it a couple years back: “It’s bouncy, tight and tree-lined. You want to hit the fairway as you get flyers out of the rough and can’t hold the greens.” It’s three years since Wiesberger won a tournament but he has beaten far stronger fields than this and I’m counting on the talent still being there.
Kiradech Aphibarnrat was a decent 15th at Rinkven last year and the Thai star burst into form recently when runner-up in the Singapore Classic. In three tournaments since he has shown enough to risk an investment in a contest that’s wide open.
Sam Bairstow, third in Singapore and with a bunch of solid top-20 efforts this term, is due a breakthrough and the Sheffield 25-year-old arrives on a high after finishing fourth in the US Open qualifier at Walton Heath on Monday to earn a spot at Pinehurst next month.. Richard Mansell and Grant Forrest, co-winners of that qualifier, are also in the Rintval field with leading claims but the two extra rounds make it a long and tiring week.
Adrian Otaegui, a course winner back in the day when it was called the Belgian Knockout, cemented his position at the top of the market by winning the 54-hole China Open at the beginning of the month with another past Soudal winner in Guido Migliozzi second. Both the Spaniard and the Italian are course-proven and need serious consideration.
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