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14-4; +1.75pts Pre-tournament plays: LAY 20pts liability Jon Curran 200 mc
Robert Garrigus 140 mc
Morgan Hoffmann 240 mc
Michael Thompson 250 14th
Scott Stallings 250 mc
Curran has a habit of either finishing well down the field or in the top-10, but given his recent run of form and a mdf last year, the former looks rather more likely this week
Garrigus finished 2nd in this event in 2012, but that was at Hamilton GC ... at Glen Abbey, his finishes read 44th-wd-mc-mc so this is clearly a course that does not suit
With finishes of 52nd and mc, this course appears not to fit Hoffmann's eye very well either and it has been 15 months since his last top-10 finish, he can opposed at these odds
Thompson did record a top-10 finish last week, but it was his first one since September and havong shot 74-75 in his previous visit to Glen Abbey a repeat of last week's form looks unlikely
Stallings is another who has played at Glen Abbey only once and missed the cut, together with a record of no top-10 finishes this year and with a top-40 finish in his last five starts, he is another who can be opposed this week Pre-rd3 plays: BACK 1pt Jon Rahm 10.5 2nd
Matt Kuchar 14.5 9th
Rahm has continued his impressive form (and particularly his impressive putting) to be one shot behind Johnson and List; finishing 3rd in the Quicken Loans National four weeks ago after leading after 18 and 36 holes showed that he could compete under pressure, particularly as it was his first professional event, so he shouldn't be daunted by this week's opportunity
Finishes of 2nd and 7th in the last two Canadian Opens suggested that Kuchar should feature this week and has done to continue his run of finishes in non-Majors of 3rd-3rd-6th-4th-3rd; that does rather suggest he may fall short of the winning line again, but I'd price nearer 10 to convert his current position three back from the leaders LAY 20pts liability Luke List 17 14th
Jared Du Toit 70 9th
Brandt Snedeker 26 5th
Cameron Tringale 120 14th
Emiliano Grillo 360 49th
Seung-Yul Noh 85 59th
Jim Furyk 32 13th
Adam Hadwin 140 43rd
List has never held the 36-hole lead on the PGA Tour and when he last did so on the Web.com Tour (2015 United Leasing Championship), he shot 80-77 over the weekend to finish 40th
Du Toit has all the pressure of being the top-placed home player and playing as an amateur; he may be in 3rd place and a shot behind the leaders, but that is a lot of pressure on such a young player, particularly with the lack of home winners in this eventSnedeker has played poorly this week - he found only three fairways off the tee on Thursday and just eight greens in regulation yesterday - so these looks rather short odds for a player in 16th place who is struggling with his ball-striking
Outside the top-100 in the FedEx Cup standings and without a top-10 finish since October, Tringale looks very unlikely to make any significant move up the leaderboard from his current 16th place position
At 47th on the leaderboard overnight, I would have put Grillo in the 'no chance' catgory and expected to see him priced at the max 1000 odds
Noh is another player outside the top-100 in the FedEx Cup standings and is unlikely to make a significant improvement on that position unless he can climb from his current 10th place position; with only one top-15 finish in the last year, the opposite direction looks far more likely
Furyk has made eight starts since his return to the Tour from an eight-month layoff for a wrist injury, but he has managed just one top-20 finish since his return; ranking 108th in greens in regulation over the first two days, it would take an improvement in his ball-striking to be able to maintain his current 16th place position let alone contend for the lea
With very poor ball-striking stats so far this week, Hadwin is another who could struggle to maintain his current position - given that he is in 21st place, he looks very unlikely to be a home winner this year Pre-rd4 plays: BACK 1pt Jared Du Toit 21 9th
Steve Wheatcroft 38 5th
Du Toit certainly has 'bouncebackability' - he recovered from a triple-bogey on Friday and a poor opening seven holes yesterday - and is now only one shot behind the leader; he will face a lot of pressure as the home player today, but he shown enough resilience this week to suggest that he should be priced lower than this
I would normally oppose a player who had just shot the low round of the day, but Wheatcroft was only returning to the top-10 where he had been after rd1 so it was a case of just one bad round on Friday and he is back to the form that has seen him finish 5th and 20th in the last two PGA Tour events; with Wheatcroft in this form, these odds look rather high for a player in 4th place and two shots off the lead LAY 20pts liability Matt Kuchar 13 9th
Kuchar climbed four places up the leaderboard yesterday, but after a fast start he was 1-over-par for the last 16 holes and only 5 of 14 fairways; he will need to play much better if he is to avoid finishing just short yet again so I will bail out of the previous BACK play on him and lay him in this position |
