Tides’ Takes – PGA Tournament Matchup Picks, Props & Outrights: BMW Championship
ScoresAndOdds analyst Timothy Buell gives free expert advice and pga betting picks for the 2022 BMW Championship!
For the purpose of this column, I will be focusing mostly on H2H matchup, outright tournament winners, and live bets!
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BMW Championship Course Breakdown
Congratulations to Will Zalatoris for his first career PGA Tour victory! We hit our outright ticket with him, in a very dramatic fashion, as he held off Sepp Straka in a playoff.
It’s always nice when the hard work pays off. He was the perfect fit for that course and he showed why over the weekend. We did not hit any of our top-20 tickets and broke even in our head-to-head picks. Overall, it was a really good week, thanks again to Willy Z!
This week we head to The Wilmington Country Club in Delaware for the second round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The top 70 players in the FedEx standings will compete for not only the BMW Championship, but their spot in the top 30 in the playoff standings for the Tour Championship. Update: Cam Smith has withdrawn and the field is now down to sixty-nine players.
The course is a par-71 design that plays at a distance of 7,534 yards. The average green size is 8,100 square feet. Those green sizes are absolutely massive by PGA standards. As you consider golfers this week, keep in mind about 3-putt avoidance. There are four holes where water comes into play and the greens are bentgrass.
Last year, the course was renovated, which added eight bunkers and seven championship tees. The original course architect was the very famous Robert Trent Jones Sr. The fairways seem wide enough to be forgiving. I think that this course will be very scorable, but there is nothing I can do to quantify that. The rough is 4”, but with the type of grass it is, it will be more predictable hitting out of than it was last week. My speculative prediction for the winner will be -22.
BMW Championship Betting Picks – Outrights
Tony Finau
- Current Odds: 16-1 on FanDuel
I always want to be transparent. There is no data to lean on this week, so I will be risking lower volume compared to weeks where we have data. My very first pick is Tony Finau. If he had made some putts down the stretch last week, he would have won three tournaments in a row, and he would be closer to 10-1 this week.
He is in far better form than anyone else on the board sans Will Zalatoris. If the fairways are as wide as they seem, and the rough is easy to get out of, I think it will be he should have no problem climbing this leaderboard.
If I look at the names around him, I simply don’t have confidence in anyone else to take this title. Jon Rahm did impress me on the weekend, but he seems to start very slow and work his way up the leaderboard. I think there will be a lot of birdies this week and you won’t be able to stall in any of your rounds. Scottie’s putter has failed him week-in and week-out and I don’t think he finds it on a course he has never played before. I am going to go searching further down the board for my next selection.
Cameron Young
- Current Odds: 28-1 on BetMGM
Will we have another first time winner this week? Let’s hope so! Cameron Young gained nine strokes in the ball striking category but you never saw him near the leaderboard. He lost almost six strokes putting. The worst putting performance of his pro career. That won’t happen again this week. On these huge greens he is one of the best lag putters on tour.
Young has knocked on the door of a victory a few different times this season and they have been in big events. It is true that his best putting surface isn’t bentgrass but he is still a Northeast kid and perhaps will go back to his roots this week and find his way on these greens. His off the tee game is unparalleled and the odds are a little longer than where I would rank him.
Cam Davis
- Current Odds: 70-1 on PointsBet
If this course plays on the easier side this week, then I think we see a ton of birdies. Cam Davis is a high-variance birdie machine, who excels on easier golf courses. He is also a bomb-and-gauge type player, where he doesn’t particularly care if he is accurate or not. He is very aggressive and is always looking to go low. He is also one of the best par-5 scorers on tour.
There will be three par 5’s this week and they seem to have some length to them, as two of them over 630 yards. I want to have exposure to someone who can excel at those types of long holes. Davis has winning upside and he hits on all cylinders. You will be looking at a really nice payday! If there is steam on him this week and this number falls under 60-1 I would stay away. I will be adding Cam Davis for a top-20 at +175 on the betting sheet.
Head to Head Matchups
Aaron Wise vs Adam Scott
- Pick Aaron Wise (-120 DraftKings)
Wise is one of my favorite golfers of the week and I am betting on him to top-20 in Wilmington. Adam Scott is getting a little too much credit after his solid result last week. Scott led the field in putting, which is a clear outlier performance. Scott has an extensive history of being a very poor putter. Scott should get exposed this week with these huge greens. I can’t be totally confident of who this course will benefit more in terms of off the tee and iron play, but I will say that I like the consistent play of Wise over the last couple of months and prefer his ball-striking metrics.
Jon Rahm vs Justin Thomas
- Pick Jon Rahm (-120 DraftKings)
I think Thomas will really struggle (at least for his standards) at this course. The flat stick has really let him down and this course should only exacerbate that issue. Anytime you get large greens with lots of undulation, it will only hurt his confidence. I considered betting Rahm outright this week, but I simply prefer Finau a little more. Rahm seems to be showing signs of life and is a far better golfer than Thomas in terms of metrics, despite the results being fairly poor. Rahms superior driving skills and putting should lead him to a clear and convincing win over Thomas.