3-4; -11.31pts

Pre-tournament plays:

LAY 20pts liability

Justin Thomas 6.0  17th
Yes, he has won this event in each of the last two years and he is a far better player now, but these are still very short odds at this stage of the event. And as he is such a better player and achieved so much this season, as well as playing in all five sessions in the Presidents Cup last time out, there is the issue of how focused he will be on this event as well as exhausted from such a demanding season. He certainly warrants favouritism, but I usually find little reason to back favourites before a golf tournament starts.
Hideki Matsuyama 12  5th
Matsuyama defeated Thomas in the Presidents Cup singles match, but he has shown very little other form since the start of the PGA Tour Playoffs. He has a very good record on this course, but needs to be playing far better to be a warrant these odds.

Pre-rd3 plays:

LAY 20pts liability

Xander Schauffele 3.3  3rd
This is Schauffele's first event since winning the Tour Championship and he is in a good position here - just one shot behind Perez and three ahead of three players in 3rd place - but these odds are rather low with only half of the tournament completed. He was 100/1 to win the 30-player Tour Championship which shows that he hadn't really proven himself at the top of this Tour and that is needed for these odds. Perez has been playing well recently - top-20 finishes in his last three starts - and there are some very good players behind him and they have plenty of time to make up the shot difference.

Pre-rd4 plays:

BACK 1pt

Xander Schauffele 6.0  3rd
Closing out the Schauffele play for a profit. His odds were too short yesterday and while he is now four shots back, he is still in sole 2nd place and tops the greens in regulation standings. With Perez a player to oppose when leading (see below), Schauffele is the best player in terms of position, ball-striking this week and form to take advantage of any final round wobbles from the leader.
Sung-Hoon Kang 19  3rd
Kang is only a shot further back in 3rd place and missed just one green in regulation yesterday. If Perez does struggle early on, these odds will fall very rapidly.
Keegan Bradley 29  2nd
They will also fall very rapidly on Bradley who is a shot further back in 4th place. He has good form here - he finished 6th in this event last year - and bounced back well yesterday after a 2nd round 71 saw him fall from 2nd to 6th.

LAY 20pts liability

Pat Perez 1.56  1st
Perez has a four-shot lead with one round to play, but that was also the case last year with Anirban Lahiri - he shot 72 in the final round and finished four shots behind Justin Thomas. It is easy to be dismissive and say that Perez is better than Lahiri, but the Indian was coming off a 2nd place finish the previous week, had won the Malaysian Open (a European Tour co-sanctioned event) on this course the previous year and was ranked inside the top-100 in the World Rankings. And what of Perez's record when leading at the start of the final round? He hasn't been in this position since 2002 and he is still 0-for-2 even though, strangely, he held four-shot leads on both occasions: in the 2002 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am he shot 76 to finish three shots back in 2nd place; in the 1999 Monterey Peninsula Classic (Web.com) he shot 77 to finish two shots back in 3rd place. Well-known for not having the calmest temperament, this is a high-pressure situation in which he has both failed in the past and not experienced for a long time. Given that he said after his round, "I didn't really hit it that great, but I putted good again", it is a case of the leaderboard position justifying these odds, but not if that player is PP.