THE PLAYERS Championship PGA Betting – Win, Top 10, Longshot Golf Best Bets
Justin “STLCardinals84” Van Zuiden is a lead DFS and betting analyst for RotoGrinders and ScoresAndOdds. In this week’s preview, STL will run over his favorite 2022 PLAYERS Championship betting picks.
Hello again, everyone! We have another great week of golf on tap, with THE PLAYERS Championship greeting us for this first full week of March.
This tournament is commonly known as the ‘fifth major’ — but remember that it is now the first one to be played each year with the new PGA Tour schedule.
As usual, TPC Sawgrass will be the host venue. In general, ball striking is the name of the game here, as is often the case with “major championship” venues. Sawgrass is a relatively short par 72 course by today’s PGA Tour standards, but it will play a bit longer than usual thanks to the cooler March weather. In fact, after rain moves through on Thursday and Friday, high temperatures on Saturday are not expected to get out of the 50’s.
This should be a great event, so let’s get down to business!
STL’s Best Win Market Bets –– 2022 PLAYERS Championship
Xander Schauffele to win (+2800 on BetMGM) – It wasn’t long ago that we were often targeting Xander Schauffele in every big time event. That has slowed given his back-to-back missed cuts at this event, but the winning potential still exists. After all, he placed second in his PLAYERS debut prior to those two missed cuts. He finished 3rd and 13th in his two February starts leading up to this tournament, so the form is also strong. These are fantastic golf odds for a golfer of his talent, and he’s my favorite pick to win when you factor in the odds.
Will Zalatoris to win (+5000 on PointsBet) – I am on record with the take that Will Zalatoris will win a major tournament this year. He has the mental makeup to get the job done, and his all around game makes him one of the most polished young stars on the PGA Tour. Everyone knows that I am a fan if you have read my content for any length of time, and these are great plus odds on PointsBet.
STL’s Top Ten Market Bets – 2022 PLAYERS Championship
Gary Woodland Top Ten Finish (+700 on FanDuel) – I tipped the Woodland top ten finish last week, and it worked out just fine. He very nearly won the tournament at Bay Hill. If it’s not broken, why fix it? His 2021 struggles officially look like a thing of the past, and the odds have been slow to adjust for his recent surge. His game is back.
Tony Finau Top Ten Finish (+1100 on FanDuel) – This is more of a play on the favorable FanDuel odds than anything. For comparison, Finau currently sits at +700 for this same bet on DraftKings. Getting double figure plus odds for a top ten is a +EV play given the projections we have on him, and I’ll sprinkle a little on this in the hopes that he re-discovers his ball striking ability on a course that will cater to it.
STL’s Long Shots & Other Favorite Bets – 2022 PLAYERS Championship
Long Shots – This is one of the best fields we will see all year, so we could get some value with longer odds selections with upside. Once again, I’m fine going back to the Gary Woodland well (80-to-1 on DraftKings). I also really like Lucas Herbert as a long shot option. He had the best Sunday round last week at Bay Hill, shooting over seven shots better than field average. He’s 200-to-1 to win on BetRivers and 16-to-1 for a top ten finish. You could do worse with a few dollars of spare change!
Shane Lowry top 10 after first round (6-to-1 on BetRivers) – One of the angles that I think you need to consider this week is targeting players who play well in poor weather conditions. We have wind. We have rain. We have cool temperatures rolling in for the weekend. That sounds like the perfect setup for one Shane Lowry. Lowry has plenty of experience at this event, and he posted a career best 8th place finish in last year’s edition. I like him in various betting markets, including the one I have noted here for a hot start.
Matchup – Tyrrell Hatton over Paul Casey (-110 on DraftKings) – This is a form play. Casey absolutely imploded last week, shooting 17 over par on the weekend alone at Bay Hill. Hatton, meanwhile, closed with one of the best rounds of the day on Sunday on his way to a top five finish. Hatton tends to play his best in challenging conditions, which is another reason to give him a long look at THE PLAYERS. His course history is suspect with three straight missed cuts at the event, but Sawgrass will do that to people with the nature of the course. I’ll side with the current form of Hatton given the even odds on this H2H matchup.
Matchup – Corey Conners over Si Woo Kim (-110 on DraftKings) – Conners finally perked back to life last week with a T11 finish. As is the case when he is playing well, he led the field in strokes gained from tee to green; he could very well have won the event if he would have gotten more putts to fall. I’ll take my chances on that ball striking ability on this course, especially against Si Woo Kim, who has finished outside the top 25 in all three of his starts over the past six weeks.
Good luck this week everyone! Let’s win some money!