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12-5; -2.82pts Pre-tournament plays: BACK 2pts Francesco Molinari 100 & lay 4pts @ 38 33rd
Four sub-70 rounds on his debut last year and extremely consistent. Should go even better on his second full season on the PGA Tour. Steve Stricker 150 & lay 4pts @ 60 64th
Not the player that he was, but he did finish 4th-4th-23rd-3rd-9th-38th in his last six appearances here (2007-2012), so certainly has the course history to get to lower odds during the event. Jim Herman 270 & lay 4pts @ 110 MDF
Not a great record on this course - hence the large odds - but he did finish 10th, 17th, and 18th in his last three starts of 2015 so comes into this event in far better form than previously. LAY 10pts liability Jimmy Walker 16.5 13th
Brandt Snedeker 22 2nd
Kevin Kisner 24 5th
Adam Scott 32 56th
Kevin Na 40 28th Opposing the leading players in this first given the early-season nature of the event. Walker is attempting the three-peat which has only been achieved by three players since 1981; Snedeker is 0-for-2 in cuts made in this event and has avoided it since 2008; Kisner has similarly failed to make the final round in any of his four previous visits and so doesn't warrant such short odds; Scott has skipped this event in six of the last nine years, so this is clearly a course that doesn't suit and is coming off his second-worst season on the PGA Tour; while Na has finishes of mc, mc and 64th in three of the last four years here and struggles to win on this Tour. Post-rd2 plays BACK 2pts Zac Blair 30 & lay 4pts @ 11.5 3rd & MATCHED
A good price for a player who is in 3rd place, just two shots off the lead, and finished 6th here last year and was also a top-10 finisher in his penultimate start of 2015. Chez Reavie 36 & lay 4pts @ 16 42nd
Another player in 3rd place and who, like Blair, is ranked 1st in birdies this week. He showed similar form last year when being the earnings leader in the Web.com Finals and winning the Small Business Connection Championship. LAY 10pts liability Danny Lee 40 33rd
Marc Leishman 50 28th
Daniel Summerhays 60 13th
It's a crowded leaderboard with 24 players within five shots of the lead and these three have at least 11 players to pass to reach the top of the leaderboard. Lee and Summerhays have indifferent records on this course, while Leishman has struggled on the greens which is the winner cannot do on this low-scoring course. I would price Lee and Summerhays at 50% higher odds and Leishman at double these odds. Post-rd3 plays LAY 10pts liability Matt Kuchar 48 13th
Jason Dufner 95 9th
Zach Johnson 110 9th
There is now separation on the leaderboard with Blair and Snedeker tied for the lead, with Kisner and Kim one and two shots behind respectively, before a gap of two further shots to Gomez on his own in 5th. That leaves Kuchar and Dufner in 6th place, but five shots back and Johnson a further shot back. Dufner has never won an event from 5+ shots back at the start of the final round, nor has Johnson from 6+ shots back, while Kuchar has managed it just once - The Barclays in 2010. The big difference on that day was that Martin Laird held a three-shot lead over the field at the start of the final round and so it was a much easier task than given today's leaderboard. It was also made much easier when Laird three-putted from inside 25-feet on the final round and so there was a playoff which he lost. Given today's leaderboard, I think that there is a much less than 1-in-50 chance of that The Barclays occurance happening again. |
