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8-0; +2.52pts Pre-tournament plays: LAY 20pts liability Phil Mickelson 46 3rd
Matt Jones 60 34th
Charley Hoffman 65 mc
Brendan Steele 75
Tony Finau 65 mc
With a new course (at least since 1987) as the host course and set to be rather challenging, I'm not seeing any value in the pre-tournament back odds. Rather, I'll oppose those who I think will struggle more than their odds suggest and look again after the course rotation is complete. Won this event 12 years ago, but hasn't recorded a top-10 finish here since and his last outing was over four months ago; Jones is a steady player - four top-10 finishes last year - but I don't see him adding to his 2014 Houston Open title; Hoffman has a very good record in this event and so his odds are much shorter than usual for a player who has missed his last two cuts, plus those finishes were on courses that did not include this year's host course; Steele is another with a good event history - 2nd last year - but he has also missed his last two cuts and this is a new course for two of four rounds this week; while Finau finished a lowly 64th last week in his first event with new clubs - he signed with Nike ahead of this year. Pre-Rd4 plays: LAY 20pts liability Bill Haas 150 8th
Brendan Steele 250 34th
Phil Mickelson 34 3rd
A good position with the pre-tournament lays, but adding one more before the final round and re-opposing two more. Haas is a double-winner of this event (2010, 2015) and so is available at much shorter odds than a player eight shots off the lead should be - of his six PGA Tour victories, his largest deficit at the start of the final round was three shots, so eight shots is far too many for him to overcome; Steele is also eight shots behind Dufner and so I'd price him pretty close to the 1000 ceiling; while Mickelson does have the advantage of being two shots nearer and in 5th place, but he ranks 38th (of 70) in driving accuracy and 30th (of 70) in greens in regulation, so his game is clearly rusty even though he has scored better than he has played. |
