SHRINERS: October is a great time to be in Vegas, and this week the PGA Tour makes its annual stop in Sin City for the Shriners Childrens Open, a tournament that has been a fixture on the schedule for over 40 years and boasts an impressive list of champions that includes names like Greg Norman, Davis Love III, Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay, and Bryson DeChambeau.
The overall quality of the field has waned a bit in the past few years, with only a handful of top players teeing it up in recent editions. That is the case again this year, as back-to-back defending champion Tom Kim is the only player in the top-25 of the current World Rankings to be teeing it up this week, and he unsurprisingly heads BETDAQ’s Win Market at 17.0. That said, the field is a bit stronger than we’ve seen in these last couple Fall Series events, so if Kim wants to pull off the hat trick, he’d better bring his birdies.
Did I say birdies? Rest assured there will be plenty of them this week, as the host course, TPC Summerlin, is one of those green light specials without any speed bumps to slow down Tour pros. The winner of this event has reached the 20-under mark in each of the past six years, with Kim posting 44-under in his past eight competitive rounds here. Summerlin is a Bobby Weed designs that’s located about 10 minutes outside of Las Vegas proper and is heavily affected by the surrounding desert. A shortish track that tips out at 7,250 yards and plays considerably shorter than that due to the altitude, it features wide Bermuda fairways, perfectly manicured bentgrass greens, and very few stressful shots. As mentioned, you’d better bring your birdies this week. The cutline will be well under par.
Right behind Kim on the BETDAQ exchange you’ll find names like Taylor Pendrith (27.0), Seamus Power (31.0), and Kurt Kitayama (34.0), solid players but none too exciting at their current price points. We might have to dig a little deeper in the market for the right plays this week, though it’s worth mentioning that we haven’t had a proper “longshot” winner of this event since Martin Laird in 2020. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Davis Thompson (34.0)- It was a memorable summer for Thompson: after runner-up finishes in Myrtle Beach and Detroit, he picked up his first career PGA Tour victory at the John Deere Classic in July, closing with 62-64 over the weekend to win by four. In five events since then he hasn’t missed a cut and he finished T12 at the Wyndham three starts ago, so there should be no concerns about the state of his game. He’s played this tournament in each of the past two years and has found success, making the cut both times and finding the top-15 in 2022, so he certainly knows his way around TPC Summerlin and the fact that he keeps returning to this event makes you think he must like the feel of the course (either that, or he just wants to shoot craps and play blackjack til the wee hours). Thompson probably feels like he’s the best player in this field and he’s already shown that he’s very comfortable with a birdie fest — he ain’t scared to go low. He makes sense at the current price.
Adam Hadwin (56.0)- Horses for courses, right? Everyone with even a passing familiarity of tournament golf knows that old truism, and no one questions that certain courses simply fit the games of certain players, whether it’s the layout, the conditions, the sight lines, the breakfast at the clubhouse… there are a number of contributing factors that could come into play. You can’t argue with results, though, and when you see a player have continual, repeating success at a course over the span of several years despite occasionally struggling elsewhere, you know there’s more to it than luck or timing. Such is the case for Hadwin at TPC Summerlin — over the past decade he’s logged five top-10s in this tournament, including 4 in the past 5 years and a runner-up last year. He’s a birdie machine at Summerlin, it’s as simple as that, and it’s not like he’s in the midst of a prolonged slump — he made three straight cuts in August to close out the season and now returns to action after a 6-week hiatus. His price is entirely too big here. Jump on it.
Kevin Yu (96.0)- Yu broke through for his first career victory at the Sanderson Farms Championship two weeks ago, firing 23-under for the week and proving that he had the mettle of a champion on Sunday, when he executed pressure shot after pressure shot coming down the stretch, then made birdie on the first playoff hole to close the door on Beau Hossler. It wasn’t Yu’s first brush with contention this season, either — he logged five top 10s and three top 5s in 2024, proving that, when his game is right, he can compete with anyone, anywhere. This will be his third appearance at this tournament and he’s made the cut twice, so he knows how to get around the course and has experienced moderate success. His price here indicates that most don’t expect him to continue with the great form we saw at Sanderson Farms earlier this month, but I’m not sure… Yu shows signs of being a streaky player, and we might be in the beginning stages of a hot streak. It seems like he’s worth a bet at a price like 96.0.
