Day, Johnson among several worth wagers
Professional handicapper Wes Reynolds (@WesReynolds1 on Twitter) is using a mythical bankroll of $200 to bet the PGA Championship futures board at the Westgate Las Vegas:
When it comes to betting golf futures, most casual bettors will pick one or two players to win and see what happens on Sunday. As a weekly golf bettor, I tend to spread my wagers across several players. If at least a couple of them are on the first page of the leaderboard come Sunday, this provides opportunities to hedge out in the live betting market. This is what I have done here with the mythical bankroll. As always, shop around for the best numbers.
One common theme you will see in this column is that winners from earlier in the season on the PGA and European Tours tend to do well at the PGA Championship. Fourteen of the past 16 PGA champions have won another preceding event during the season.
Another indicator is to look at last week’s results at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. That event was moved to the week before the PGA in 2007, and the subsequent winner of the PGA in each year has finished in the top 22 the previous week.
$50 on Jason Day (12-1) and Dustin Johnson (15-1): Per the main stats (driving distance, scrambling and strokes gained tee to green) that I think are important this week, Day comes out as my top choice. The Aussie also comes in off a win at the RBC Canadian Open three weeks ago, which occurred one week after a heartbreaking loss at the British Open.
He also contended at the U.S. Open while undergoing a bout with vertigo, so he’s arguably the best player in the field at dealing with physical and emotional adversity. Day is also ranked fifth in scrambling on the PGA Tour. Scrambling will be important at Whistling Straits because the Pete Dye-designed links-style course has a total of 976 bunkers of all shapes and sizes.
Johnson doesn’t fit into our criteria of a good finish at the Bridgestone last week, as he shot 75-76 over the weekend after shooting 69-67 in the first two rounds. But this is a ‘horses for courses’ type of selection and also admittedly a selection out of plain old stubbornness.
Whistling Straits is listed as playing at over 7,500 yards and could play longer than that depending on pin placements. No one hits the ball longer than Johnson (No. 1 in driving distance, Bubba Watson No. 2, Day No. 3). All of the numbers are positive for him, but his mental state is always the question.
You may recall at the 2010 PGA, also played at Whistling Straits, he had a one-stroke lead entering the 72nd hole on Sunday. He eventually bogeyed the hole, which still would have gotten him into a playoff with Martin Kaymer and Watson. But Johnson was ruled to have grounded his club in a bunker on that last hole and given a two-stroke penalty to put him in a tie for fifth.
It would be the ultimate redemption story if Johnson can win here and put that painful experience in that past.
$30 on Rickie Fowler (20-1): He finally proved he could win the big one this year at The Players Championship. He comes in off a second at the Quicken Loans National and a 10th last week at the Bridgestone. We also cannot neglect that he finished fifth, second, second and third in last year’s majors. If any player is ready to win his first major, it’s Fowler.
$25 on Brooks Koepka (40-1): Koepka comes in off a sixth-place finish last week and has six top-20 finishes in his past eight starts. He also earned his maiden PGA Tour win in Phoenix this season. In a course that would seem to favor bombers on paper, he ranks sixth in driving distance but also can get it done on the greens (fifth in strokes gained putting).
$10 on Patrick Reed (50-1): It’s never easy to dub Reed and his irascible personality as forgotten, but I find him to be a little under the radar this week. He has played solidly in all three majors this season with finishes of 22nd, 14th and 20th. He has not won since the opening event of the season at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, but he was been consistent for the most part and made 19 of 21 cuts. His win at the WGC event at Doral combined with superlative play at the Ryder Cup shows that he’s not bashful on the big stage.
$5 on Branden Grace (80-1), Robert Streb (80-1), Danny Lee (80-1), Danny Willett (100-1): All of these players are in fairly good form at semi long-shot prices and have won events this season. Obviously the stories coming out of the U.S. Open were Jordan Spieth’s win and Dustin Johnson’s three-putt on the 72nd hole. But we tend to forget that Grace was tied for the lead on the 16th hole on Sunday before he hit his tee shot out of bounds. This links-style course should set up well for him.
Streb comes in with superb form, having seven top-20 finishes in his past eight starts, including three top-fives. Willett became a more well-known name with his sixth-place finish at the British Open. He followed with a win the next week at the Omega European Masters. Lee, the U.S. Amateur Champion in 2008, finally broke through with his first win at the Greenbrier Classic in July.
$4 on David Lingmerth (100-1), Justin Thomas (100-1), Steven Bowditch (150-1): Three more players who have had strong seasons at longer-shot prices. Lingmerth was a huge long-shot winner at the Memorial and defeated one of the world’s best players in Justin Rose in the playoff. He hasn’t proven to be a one-hit wonder, with three top-six finishes since that win in late May.
Thomas has stardom written all over him at only 22. He has been upstaged this year by one of his best friends, Jordan Spieth. He has six top-10 finishes in his rookie season on the PGA Tour, including fifth (John Deere) and fourth (Quicken Loans National) in his past two events. He is second on the tour in par-5 scoring average. This is a very good value play.
Bowditch, the winner of the AT&T Byron Nelson in May, is one of those players you forget about, but he has been on a lot of leaderboards this year. He shot 63 Saturday at Firestone, the low round at the Bridgestone Invitational by two shots. Scrambling will be key this week, and he ranks second on the tour in that category.
$3 on Chris Wood (500-1): We’ll take a complete flier here. Every year there seems to be a couple of lesser known Europeans on the Sunday leaderboard at the PGA. Last year it was Bernd Wiesberger, Mikko Ilonen and Victor Dubuisson. In 2013, it was Jonas Blixt. In 2012, it was David Lynn, Peter Hanson and Carl Pettersson. Wood could fit the bill in that regard. This is his only major this year, and he has played well on links-style courses in the past.
