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The stars as well as some of the best golfers in the world this week will be in Northern California for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Well, unlike the last few years, this even will not really have a strong field, as only 7 of the top 30 golfers in the world will be playing this weekend. This is one of the older events on the tour, as it was established in 1930 when crooner Bing Crosby put the tournament together with some of his friends to play some golf and raise money for charity.
The defending champion of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is Dustin Johnson and the purse is an impressive $6.2 million. The event will be played on 3 courses of the MPCC Shore Course, Spyglass Hill, and Pebble Beach Golf Links and the top 25 pro-am teams and the 60 golfers that make the cut will play final round on Sunday at the beautiful Pebble Beach course.
One of the leading sportsbooks has the field with the best odds at +250 and one of the reasons is that there is a wide-open field.
The golfer with the best odds to win Pebble Beach is Phil Mickelson (+500) and he is a good bet, as he has won this event 3 times including twice in the last 3 years. He has played well this season and even though he has only played in 2 events he has a runner up finish, losing in a playoff in the FBR Open, and a 6th place finish. Lefty has the length and putting stroke to do well at this event and he will surely be in contention.
The golfer with the next highest odds is Retief Goosen and he is ranked 20th in the world and just like Lefty he has only played in 2 tournaments this season taking a 4th at the Sony Open and a 6th at the SBS Championship. In the off-season he worked on his putting stroke and distance and it has showed this season and it seems it is only a matter of time before he captures a title. Putting is key at this event and so far this season he ranks 1st on tour in birdies per round.
Dennis Johnson is also at +1500 and the defending champ knows how to win here and he has made 3 cuts in 4 tournaments this season. He is playing well and last week he came in 3rd at the Northern Trust Open. He has the distance to reach the par 5’s and he has the putting stroke, as he currently ranks 12th in birdies per round.
Jim Furyk and Mike Weir are both at +2000 this week. Furyk has finished in the top 25 in this event and he placed a decent 20th at last week’s Northern Trust Open. Weir has not won the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, but he has played well there with 4 top 4 finishes in this event.
Other golfers that have solid odds to win this event, at one of the leading sportsbooks, are:
Sergio Garcia +2500
Tim Clark +2500
Luke Donald +2500
Matt Kuchar +2500
Padraig Harrington +2500
Brandt Snedeker +3000
Hunter Mahan +3000
Nick Watney +3000
Sean OHair +3000
Rory Sabbatini +3000
Steve Marino +3000
February 10th, 2010 11:22:11 AM GMT+5 | Posted in Futures, Golf, Sports, Sports Betting by Jason Green | No Comments
The FedEx Cup has gotten off to an exciting start, with each of the first two events being decided on the final hole, so this week’s BMW Championship at Cog Hill in Lamont, Illinois has a lot to live up to.
After Heath Slocum captured The Barclays with a clutch putt on the final hole, Steve Stricker nailed a putt on the 72nd to score the win at last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship.
Stricker missed out on a playoff at The Barclays by missing a par putt on the final hole, but he more than made up for it by birdying 17 and 18 on Sunday to win the Deutsche Bank Championship by a shot over Scott Verplank and Jason Dufner.
The win, which was Stricker’s third of the season, saw him move over the $6 million mark in earnings for the season, and it also saw him overtake Tiger Woods for top spot in the FedEx Cup standings.
Tiger’s hopes for a win were all but dashed by a 72 in the third round that might have had more than a few people wondering if something was amiss, but a final-round 63 no doubt shut at least a few of those people up, even if it only landed him in a tie for 11th.
In the first BMW Championship in 2007, Tiger triumphed, and though his 63 wasn’t enough last week, a similar score saw him finish at 22-under and beat out Aaron Baddeley by two and Stricker by four.
My pick last week, Padraig Harrington, was once again plagued by a couple of costly mistakes as was the case in his previous three tournaments. Harrington shot a 4-under 32 on the front nine on Sunday to move to 16-under, but a bogey on the 10th and a double bogey on the 12th dropped him back to 13-under, and though he birdied 17 and 18, it wasn’t enough to overcome what transpired on 10 and 12.
The latest BMW Championship odds have Woods at 7/4 to win, with Stricker and Harrington both at 14/1.
Could this be the week that Phil Mickelson breaks out? He may have finished only tied for 27th at the Deutsche Bank Championship, but he finished on a tear, holing birdies on his final three holes and five of his last seven to finish with a final-round 66 (5-under), which was his lowest score (under par wise) since shooting 5-under in the final round at The Masters in April.
Mickelson’s a nice option at 25/1, but I’m going to stick with one of the top trio. Not to say that the rest of the field doesn’t have a chance, but with the way that Woods and Stricker have been the best on the Tour this season, and Harrington is just a shot here and there in his last four tournaments from having at least a couple of wins in his pocket.
September 9th, 2009 5:30:57 PM GMT+5 | Posted in Free Picks, Golf, Sports, Sports Betting by Griffdog | No Comments
One event down, three to go for the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, and this week the Tour is in the great state of Massachusetts at the TPC of Boston for the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Normally, we’d already be at the end of the first round of the event, but this week’s tournament tees off of Friday and finishes up on Labor Day, so while you’re doing whatever it is you do on Labor Day, you can catch Tiger and the gang battle it out in the final round.
The FedEx Cup started with Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker atop the standings, and after both finished tied for second at The Barclays last week, the two remain 1-2. Woods started with 3,341 points and has 4,381 heading into the Deutsche Bank Championship, and Stricker moved from 2,155 to 3,105.
However, we have a surprise name in third spot in Heath Slocum. Slocum sunk a 20-foot punt on the 18th hole to beat out Woods, Stricker, Ernie Els, and Padraig Harrington by one stroke.
Slocum had finished in the top-10 only twice and missed 10 cuts in his previous 23 cuts events this season, but he shot a final-round 67 and sunk that clutch putt to earn his first win since November 2005 and 2,500 FedEx Cup points.
So where does scoring the biggest win of your career and beating out the top players in the game get you with the oddsmakers the next week? Back in much the same spot, as the Deutsche Bank Championship odds have Slocum at 100/1.
As always, you can find Tiger in the favorite role at 3/2. I was a little wide of the mark with my Tiger prediction last week, but it wasn’t for a lack of him trying. After shooting 72-70 in the first two rounds, he was seven shots behind surprise leader Webb Simpson, but he moved within striking distance with a 67 on Saturday.
Padraig Harrington has had some issues with ill-timed bad rounds ruining an otherwise good tournament, and that was the case again last week. He shot three rounds of 67, but a second-round 75 rendered his Sunday charge as futile as the charges by Woods, Stricker, and Els. But you’d have to think he’s going to get it all together one week, and this might be the week, so he‘s a good option at 16/1.
Stricker had four under-par rounds, but he was done in by two bogeys in the final four holes, including one on the 18th that saw him miss out on a playoff. But he’s deserving of his place on the money list, in the FedEx Cup standings, and as one of the leading favorites at 20/1.
Another prime pick this week is Ernie Els, who’s at 20/1 with Stricker. Els finished tied for sixth at the PGA Championship, then shot a final-round 66 at The Barclays to score his best finish of the season. Not only is he coming off of a couple of good finishes, but he finished tied for third at the Deutsche Bank last year.
Since Tiger is, you know, the default pick, who’s my non-Tiger pick for the week? I’m going to have to go with Harrington. That Sunday charge should have restored his confidence after the final-round struggles at the Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship, and I fully expect him to be there at or near the top on Monday.
September 4th, 2009 12:00:22 AM GMT+5 | Posted in Free Picks, Golf, Sports, Sports Betting by Griffdog | No Comments
The PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs get underway this week, and we can expect to see a loaded field at Liberty National in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The Barclays has been the opener for the FedEx Cup since it began in 2007, but for the first time in the FedEx Cup’s short existence, Tiger Woods will be in the field for the tournament.
Woods didn’t play in the tournament in 2007, but he still went on to win the FedEx Cup title by a sizable margin over Steve Stricker thanks to wins in the BMW Championship and The Tour Championship. Last year, he’d have been the favorite to make it two wins in two years, but he missed out due to his knee injury.
Not as if he needed any extra motivation, after the way things went for Tiger in the final round of the PGA Championship, when he wasn’t able to hold a final-round lead in a major for the first time, you can expect him to be a man on a mission. Not much went right for him on that Sunday at Hazeltine, when he shot a 75 and wound up finishing three shots behind winner Y.E. Yang, and as uncharacteristic as it was to see that happen for him in that situation, it’d be unlike him not to bounce back with a vengeance this week.
As you would expect, Tiger is an overwhelming favorite, with the latest PGA Tour odds having him at 13/8 to win, with Padraig Harrington a distant second favorite at 20/1, and Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia at 25/1.
Like Woods, Harrington should also be a man on a mission after a couple of disastrous final rounds at the Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship. When it comes to picking one of those non-Tiger options, I definitely favor him over Mickelson, who’s still trying to get back in the groove. However, Garcia’s fourth-place finish at the Wyndham Championship could be a sign that he’s finally headed in the right direction after a pretty forgettable year, so keep an eye on him.
Vijay Singh is the defending champion of The Barclays, and he followed up a win in The Barclays with a win at the Deutsche Bank Championship to put himself in position to take home the FedEx Cup title, despite Camilo Villegas’ best efforts.
This year hasn’t been a great one for Vijay, as he has more missed cuts (5) than top-10 finishes (3) in 19 events. He was in the mix in the PGA Championship after the first two rounds, but he shot 75-73 in the final two rounds to finish tied for 16th at 1-over. But if you think this is the week that he puts it together, he’s at 40/1.
What about the newly-crowned PGA champion? Yang comes in at 66/1, and if you’re looking for a long shot in the field, he’s a fine option. Before his win at Hazeltine, Yang had been playing well, finishing 8th at the RBC Canadian Open, 5th at the Buick Open, and shooting 69-66 in the final two rounds at the Bridgestone Invitational to finish 19th. So, he’s playing excellent golf right now, and don’t be surprised to see him near the top of the leaderboard this weekend.
When it comes down to it though, I’m going with Tiger to take this one. He’ll be fired up and focused after his final-round struggles at Hazeltine, and I think that’ll translate into a FedEx Cup-opening victory.
August 26th, 2009 7:00:45 PM GMT+5 | Posted in Free Picks, Golf, Sports, Sports Betting by Griffdog | No Comments
After a momentous upset rocked the golf world at the PGA Championship last weekend, this week’s Wyndham Championship has a tough act to follow, doesn’t it?
We won’t see surprise PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang or Tiger Woods in this week’s field in Greensboro, North Carolina, but we should be in for a week filled with low scores and plenty of excitement.
Last year, the tournament returned to Sedgefield Country Club for the first time since 1976, and Swede and North Carolina State alum Carl Pettersson won by two shots, posting a score of 21-under to beat out Scott McCarron.
We didn’t see a ton of low scores at Hazeltine last week, but we should see more than a few at Sedgefield. There were more than three dozen rounds of 65 (5-under) or better in last year’s tournament, so you can expect to see plenty of birdie highlights this weekend.
The Wyndham Championship doesn’t boast a wealth of top names, but there are a few notables in the field, and they’re all among the favorites. The latest PGA Tour odds have U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover and Sergio Garcia as the top favorites at 16/1, with Tim Clark at 18/1 and David Toms at 20/1. A few other notable names in the field are former champions K.J. Choi (2005) and Davis Love III (2006), who both come in at 28/1 to win, along with Adam Scott (40/1).
This week would be a prime opportunity for Garcia and Scott to finally get back on track after the tough times they’ve had this season, and the same can be said for Pettersson, who’s made only 10 cuts in 24 events and has only one finish inside the top 20 this season (a 17th place showing in the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship).
So, who are my picks for the week? Instead of naming one favorite as I usually may, here’s the quintet that I see this week’s winner coming from:
1) Lucas Glover: His final round at Hazeltine didn’t finish (+4 over his final 13 holes) as well as it started (-2 over the first five to move within a shot of the lead), but that’ll give him incentive to be at his best this week.
2) Tim Clark: Clark finished tied for 6th in last year’s Wyndham Championship, and though he hasn’t been able to parlay some solid rounds over the last few weeks into high finishes, I like his chances to take advantage of the wealth of opportunities he should have at Sedgefield.
3) Carl Pettersson: His poor form this season is the reason why he’s one of the longer shots at 66/1, but he’s the defending champion at the tournament in his adopted hometown. With the crowd behind him, this is as good an opportunity as any to get back on track.
4) Michael Letzig: Letzig tied for ninth in this tournament last year, and he comes in playing well, having finished in the top 10 in each of his last two tournaments.
5) John Senden: Senden hasn’t been the picture of consistency this season, with more missed cuts (7) than top-10s (5), but when he’s on his A game, he can contend. He finished tied for sixth here last year, so this is a prime chance for him to net his first win since 2006.
August 20th, 2009 12:40:01 AM GMT+5 | Posted in Golf, Sports, Sports Betting by Griffdog | No Comments
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