10-0; +3.15pts Pre-tournament plays: LAY 20pts liability Charles Howell 48 49th Byeong Hun An 60 49th Ollie Schniederjans 65 mc Luke Donald 70 mc Webb Simpson 70 41st This is another event in which Howell has recorded lots of high finishes, but failed to win; he finished outside the top-15 for the first time this year in the Honda Classic, but he remains a player to back in matchups, but one to oppose in win-only markets An's odds are rather low for someone who has struggled this year apart from the Phoenix Open, but then he player poorly under the pressure of leading at the end of the 3rd round; making his debut on this course is another reason to oppose him at these odds Schniederjans has recorded a couple of top-10 finishes this year, but with a missed cut here in his only previous visit (2015) and no top-5 finishes on this Tour, he is another to oppose at the available odds Donald has a great record on this course with a run of finishes of 6th-1st-4th-4th from 2010 to 2014 (dnp in 2011), but that is old history and even though he is playing better with finishes of 23rd-17th-27th in his last three starts, he still looks a long way short of the player that was World #1 It is six years since Donald and Simpson battled it out for the FedEx Cup and both are a long way from winning a tournament let alone the FedEx Cup. Simpson did play well in the Phoenix Open, but he has otherwise continued to struggle with the short putter and looks more likely to extend his run of missed cuts to three in this event than be a real contender. Pre-rd3 plays: LAY 20pts liability Wesley Bryan 19 7th Charl Schwartzel 190 6th Ian Poulter 260 41st J.T. Poston 350 14th Bryan is certainly a player in firm with back-to-back 4th place finishes and currently 7th after 36 holes this week, but he has struggled off the tee this week - ranking 74th in strokes gained - off the tee - and this has meant that he ranks a lowly 63rd in greens in regulation so far this week, which is not the profile of a likely winner In 32nd place and eight shots off the pace after 36 holes, I would price Schwartzel at much higher odds than this and itc can only be the fact that he is the defnding champion that these odds are so low for a player in this leaderboard position One shot closer is Poulter whose only win in the U.S. was in the 2010 WGC World Matchplay - his ball-striking stats are also poor this week, so I can't see him challenging for the lead Poston is also seven shots back in 20th place and has poor ball-striking stats this week, so is looks unlikely that he will record his first top-10 finish on this Tour, let alone win this event Pre-rd4 play: LAY 20pts liability J.J. Henry 140 22nd A pair of 67s have seen Henry recover well and climb 72 places to 5th place since day 1, but he is still seven shots behind Hadwin whose play has been the best of the week by some distance - he ranks 1st in both strokes gained - tee-to-green and strokes gained - approaches. Hadwin has converted a one-shot lead at the start of rd4 into a win on the Web.com Tour and finished 2nd by a single shot when holding a one-shot lead at the start of rd4 in the CareerBuilder Challenge in January, so I doubt that he will shoot a big score to bring the field back into this event. That means that Henry will need to shoot at least 64 to be a live challenger and given that his best round here is 67 across his 14 visits, I can't see that happening.
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