Best bets
2pts each-way Adam Schenk @ 28/1
1pt each-way Emiliano Grillo @ 25/1
1pt each-way Denny McCarthy @ 14/1
1pt each-way Eric Cole @ 28/1
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We may not have the crème de la crème playing at Deere Run this week but one thing is guaranteed: a riot of birdies and eagles.
This is the Illinois course where Paul Goydos shot a 59 in 2010 (but didn’t win!) and where Michael Kim shot an outrageous 27 under par eight years later (and did win). It a course, now a par 71 measuring 7257 yards, where steady-as-she-goes plodder Steve Stricker won a hat-trick of John Deere Classics between 2009 and 2011, a feat nobody since has been able to emulate, at least on the PGA Tour.
World No. 19 Cameron Young is the top-rated golfer but this huge hitter is making his tournament bow on a track where a hot putter beats a 320-yard drive any day. Besides, Cam’s golf since finishing seventh at the Masters and reaching the Dell Match Play final has nosedived. The 16/1 doesn’t tempt me but if you fancy him, do be specific with the name as there are two C Youngs in the field, the other being Carson.
Five of the last 11 champions have been first-timers and the disappointing Young does fit that criterion but so do many others, not least Denny McCarthy and exciting new kid on the block, Swede Ludvik Aberg, who played like God for the two rounds he was paired with Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald but, on his own, faded out to 40th from a potentially winning position in Detroit on Sunday.
That followed top 25s on his first two PGA outings and the layers are taking no chances as this is his easiest task to date. Even so, this may come a little too soon for him. It will be interesting to see if captain Donald, whom he easily outscored, has the 23-year-old former amateur star in his little book for a Ryder Cup wild card.
McCarthy may be a serial loser but every dog must have his day which Fitzdares feel may come this weekend as they’ve made him 14/1 co-favourite with ace putter Russell Henley. McCarthy did little wrong when edged out by Viktor Hovland at Muirfield. Getting that close to an overdue first win was obviously frustrating but the experience will stand him in good stead and there’s nobody of Hovland’s calibre among this week’s 156.
Regarded as the best putter on tour, this shortish birdie-fest of a course should be right up his alley. His 20th at the US Open was more than decent and seventh place at the Travelers two weekends ago suggests his game is still trending.
Another non-winner in fine nick is Adam Schenk who was in the mix on Sunday in Detroit (7th). The 32-year-old from Indiana has compelling course form as well (4th in 2021, 6th in 2019) and I make him my main advice. Twice a runner-up this campaign, at Valspar and Colonial, and seventh at Muirfield Village before last week’s eyecatching effort, a breakthrough is imminent.
The man who beat Schenk in the Colonial playoff, classy Emiliano Grillo, also gets a shout-out. He was runner-up to Poston last year but is playing with more confidence now thanks to that victory. On the right type of course he is often a contender (5th Mexico, 7th Heritage) – and 15th at River Highlands last time confirmed the often-negative Argentinian’s self-belief was significantly bolstered by his first W for eight years.
Poston is in nowhere near the form of last year but this guy can seriously roll his rock, Adam Hadwin’s second place after a playoff in Detroit gives him a serious chance if he can hang on to that level of form and Christiaan Bezuidenhout’s best finish of 2022 – he shared second spot with Grillo – came at Deere Run. His game is perfect for this but as he is finding it so hard to win in the States, I’ll give my final plug to Eric Cole, a fellow non-winner but one with far less baggage as this is his first season with the big boys.
This late-blooming Californian is 34 but it was not until this year that we got to know his worth. On his Honda second, Mexico fifth, Canadian Open sixth and 15th at the PGA Championship, he is building up a solid CV and it will a surprise if he doesn’t contend at this modest level.
Eric comes from great golfing stock. His father Bobby was a PGA Tour winner who in 1975 went close to winning our Open and his mother, Laura Baugh, was the glamour girl of the women’s tour. She never won but made a great magazine cover!
Best bets
2pts each-way Oliver Wilson @ 50/1
1pt each-way Ewen Ferguson @ 28/1
1pt each-way Alexander Bjork @ 16/1
0.5pt each-way Rikuya Hoshino @ 50/1
0.5pt each-way Kiradech Aphibarnrat @ 66/1
Denmark’s only tournament on the DP World Tour has attracted most of the usual suspects to Himmerland with the Hojgaard twins, co-favourite Nicolai and Rasmus heading the home defence, along with seven-time European winner Thorbjorn Olesen.
If not a Danish winner, then the golf-mad Scanda nations would happily settle for a Swedish one and there lies the 16/1 co-favourite Alexander Bjork who has just produced a string of top finishes – fourth in Italy and Belgium, sixth in Hamburg, eighth at last week’s British Masters and ninth in a home game at the Scandinavian Mixed.
The missing letter, of course, is W for Win, something he doesn’t do often enough to justify a life-changing interest. I see him more as a stake-saver.
Changing its name from Made in Denmark to Himmerland as that’s the name of the host club, the first post-pandemic edition under the new title went to Bernd Wiesberger (now a LIV player) and the second saw one-time Ryder Cupper Oliver Wilson who uniquely made the 2008 European team without having won a tournament (and had to wait six more years to do so).
Then there are the Scots but Bob MacIntyre’s dream of a Ryder Cup debut seems to have got in the way of the business of winning. However, he does have Himmerland form, notably runner-up as a rookie in 2019.
If BobbyMac has been a disappointment, compatriot Ewen Ferguson keeps busy accumulating points towards what he hopes will be a wild-card Cup ticket to Rome in September, his share of fourth with Justin Rose and fellow Scot Calum Hill at The Belfry being the fourth top-ten of this campaign. The Glaswegian was a double winner last year but has yet to add a third. Only a shot behind winner Wilson on this week’s course 12 months ago, he might easily go one better.
Maybe I’m missing something but 50/1 about defending champion Wilson look generous. The rock-steady Englishman arrives on the back of second place at The Belfry where his putting let him down on the final day. Tee to green he was pretty tasty and, provided a taxing in-contention week at the British Masters has not left a scar, there’s every chance he will again do well on Himmerland where he shot 21 under last year to clinch what was only his second victory. He had also placed fourth there three years earlier and he rates the week’s best value.
The Asian challenge is not to be underrated. Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat can be a birdie machine and showed plenty of his old va-va-voom last week while the trio from Japan, Rikuya Hoshino, Ryo Hisatsune and Masahiro Kawamura, are all very capable.
Hoshino is the one with the best results on the Japan Tour and he could be their ace in the pack.
German star Yannik Paul is having a tip-top year – another good showing last week – and the record-breaking US Senior Open performance of his idol Bernhard Langer might well inspire him.
Wilson apart, England have chances with Jordan Smith and a revived Andy Sullivan. Fresh from a 21st in Detroit, power man Nicolai Hojgaard could be Denmark’s pick but does the tricky little course, the shortest on the circuit at only 6646 yards and a 70 par with only two par fives, suit his game? One more Dane deserves a mention – Niklas Norgaard whose seventh at The Belfry was a PB, his first top-ten but not his last.
Spain has two danger men in multi-winner Pablo Larrazabal and straight-shooter
Adrian Otaegui while 2021 runner-up Guido Migliozzi was noted coming back to his best, for three days anyway, at The Belfry. As you can see, it’s a wide-open contest. Himmerland’s in luck with the weather, early-week downpours due to clear away in time for a dry four days and temperatures heating up to a Sunday peak of 77F as the week wears on.
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