BMW CHAMPIONSHIP: After a rain-soaked Northern Trust the top-70 in the FedEx Cup standings have advanced to this week’s BMW Championship, the penultimate event of these Playoffs, with the top-30 in the standings following the completion of Sunday’s play set to earn a coveted spot in next week’s Tour Championship, as well as an exemption into all four of next year’s major championships. Even for millionaires who set their own schedules, these are an important four days that will require and receive their full attention. This ain’t the John Deere Classic.
The venue this week is a new one, or at least new to the players in the field– Caves Valley Club is a Tom Fazio design that originally opened in 1991 and will be making its PGA Tour debut after hosting a U.S. Senior Open in 2002. A recent renovation has stretched it out to over 7,500 yards, so there will be plenty of long irons this week, but the course doesn’t appear to be particularly severe off the tee and the par-5s are supposedly reachable, so a birdie-fest seems likely. It sounds like your typical North American parkland course: tree-lined with thick rough and fast, bentgrass greens that are well-protected by mounds, hollows, and bunkers. Water comes into play on a handful of holes and there are some doglegs that can be challenged by the longer players, so the ability to hit it long and straight off the tee will undoubtedly be an advantage, as it is most every week. There’s always more guessing than usual when a new venue is involved, but I’m expecting more of a sprint than a grind this week as the players get aggressive in trying to secure a spot in the top-30.
World No. 1 Jon Rahm, fresh off a near miss at the Northern Trust, stands alone atop BETDAQ’s Win Market this week at 8.0, with the next-shortest player currently trading at 22.0. To be such a clear favorite in a field of this caliber speaks to how dominant Rahm has been of late, and it will a surprise if he’s not in the mix on Sunday afternoon. That being said, it’s awfully tough to close the deal on a victory, as Rahm knows well, and we don’t know for sure how well his (or anyone else’s) game fits at Caves Valley, making a price like 8.0 a tough sell for me. The following players offer a bit more bang for the buck, I think:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Justin Thomas (22.0)- It was a disappointing summer for Thomas after his triumph at The Players, as he failed to crack the top-10 in eleven consecutive events and was never in contention in any of the majors. He had quietly shown signs of returning to form heading into last week, however, notching solid performances at the Olympic competition and the FedEx St. Jude, and then there he was last Thursday, looking like the best player in the world again as he fired a 63 en route to a T4 at the Northern Trust. Suddenly, Thomas feels like a major threat in these Playoffs, for we know that his “top gear” is good enough to win any tournament in the world, and that he is not afraid of doing big things in big moments. He switched to an old putter last week and rolled it beautifully… sometimes a little tweak like that is all a player needs to find the magic again. I’m pretty enthusiastic about Thomas at better than 20/1 this week.
Corey Conners (50.0)- Conners has played the best golf of his career this season, posting seventeen top-20 finishes and eight top-10s. After appearing to cool off a bit in early summer he’s found his form again, finishing 15th or better in three of his past four starts, including a T8 at last week’s Northern Trust. He’s simply one of the best ball-strikers in the game today, ranking 7th on Tour in strokes gained off the tee and 8th in strokes gained on approach, so this week’s test, a 7,500-yard parkland course that is sure to feature plenty of mid-to-long irons, seems right up his alley. Because of his proficiency off the tee he plays well on longer courses, and though putting isn’t the strength of his game, bentgrass is his preferred surface. Conners has been consistently undervalued all year and this week is no exception– he’s an absolute steal at a price like 50.0.
Alex Noren (118.0)- After establishing himself as one of Europe’s top players Noren struggled a bit in 2019 and 2020, posting only one top-5 finish across 36 PGA Tour starts. He began to play some good golf again this past spring, reeling off five consecutive top-25 finishes in April and May, but it wasn’t until recently that he started to look like his old self again– a master around the greens whose prowess with the flat stick makes him a threat to win every time he tees it up. Noren currently ranks 1st on Tour in 3-putt avoidance, 7th in one-putt percentage (a rare combo, as players aggressive enough on the greens to lead the Tour in one-putt percentage rarely rank near the top in 3-putt avoidance), and 10th in overall putting average, and he’s rode that hot putter to two top-5 finishes over the past month, including a T4 last week, when he broke par in all four rounds and finished at 15-under. We’ve seen players come out of basically nowhere to make some serious noise in these Playoffs, and with the way Noren is rolling the rock, and with his experience in big events, I certainly wouldn’t write him off. He’s a great value this week as a bona fide triple-digit longshot.
