HSBC Championship

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5-8; -7.44pts

Round 1 play (2pts):

Patrick Reed to beat Branden Grace -111 @ Paddy Power  LOST by 2
Opposing Grace for another week. He has finishes of 62nd and 39th in this limited-field event and was opposed last week as he had only played a Tour event in one of the previous eight weeks. He is likely to be less rusty this week, but this is not ideal preparation. Reed, on the other hand, is fully prepared for this event. He played in the Hong Kong Open on the European Tour two weeks ago instead of the PGA Tour event in Las Vegas and finished 3rd; he then finished 10th in the CIMB Classic last week and is clearly taking this Asian Swing very seriously. He looks set to improve on his 22nd place finish on his course debut last year.

FWIW Shane Lowry is +160 to beat Chris Wood @ Carib, but I think it will be ruled as a 'palpable' so I won't include as a play.

Round 2 plays (4pts unless stated):

Anirban Lahiri to beat Kevin Kisner +109 @ Pinnacle [also available @ 5Dimes, The Greek and Carib]  LOST by 9
Round 2 is typically a round in which players bounce back from poor rounds and rebound from good rounds the previous day. The first three plays are of this type and that is typically where the value should lie in rd2. Lahiri has been in very good form recently and finished 28th on this course last year; he should bounce back and go close to matching that feat again this year. Kisner had a great run of form in May-June, but his last top-10 finish was four months ago so today's 64 was unexpected.

Luke Donald to beat Steven Bowditch +107 @ Pinnacle [also available @ 5Dimes, The Greek and Carib]  WON by 6
The same goes for Bowditch - he has just one top-10 finish in the last 12 months, but he also shot 64 to finish the day in 2nd place. That suggests that he should struggle today, as does the fact that he ranked 47th in greens in regulation today. Donald has shown much better form recently - 5th in the British Masters last month - and should bounce back to some degree today, but this is primarily a play against Bowditch.

Hideki Matsuyama to beat Patrick Reed +102 @ Pinnacle [also available @ 5Dimes, The Greek and Carib]  LOST by 3
Matsuyama is another who will be disappointed with his rd1 score - he finished bogey-double bogey to drop from a top-20 position to 54th. I backed Reed to have a good week this week and he almost delivered yesterday - he shot 65 to finish the day in 5th place - but Matsuyama is the one who really should bounce back today. He has finished ahead of Reed in 10 of their last 14 common events.

Branden Grace to beat Danny Willett -150 @ 5Dimes [2pts]  WON by 3
Yesterday, I backed Reed to have a good week and said that Grace would be less rusty this week. He certainly is ... he shot 63 to lead the field after day one. This is a position in which he feels very comfortable. Ignoring the first time that he was in this position on the European Tour - the 2009 JBWere Masters - in each of the last two occasions that he has been the rd1 leader - 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and 2014 Alfred Dunhill Championship - he has not only been a wire-to-wire winner on both occasions, but he also extended his lead to five shots on both occasions in rd2. Willett is not as comfortable near the top of the leaderboard and deserves to be a sizable underdog in this rd2 matchup.

Chris Kirk to beat Cameron Smith -150 @ 5Dimes [2pts]  LOST by 6
Smith only got into this event on Wednesday when Billy Horschel withdrew and that might explain his poor first round. But he also missed both cuts in the last three weeks on the PGA Tour and finished 37th in the limited-field CIMB Classic last week, so he is not in good form anyway. He is certainly worth opposing this week.

Round 3 plays (2pts):

Harris English to beat Thomas Pieters +111 @ Pinnacle [also available @ 5Dimes, The Greek and Carib]  WON by 1
I don't see why English is such a large underdog. He hasn't missed a cut since May and has hit more fairways and greens in regulation than Pieters. Worth a small punt at these odds.

Russell Knox to beat Kevin Kisner +100 @ 5Dimes, Pinnacle, and The Greek [also available @ Carib]  WON by 2
Opposing the leader is a standard play, particularly when he ranks 36th in greens in regulation so his ball-striking hasn't matched his leaderboard position. He has never led a PGA Tour event after 36 holes previously and is 0-for-2 on the Web.com Tour from this position, so he is certainly a player to oppose tomorrow.

David Lingmerth to beat Robert Streb +105 @ 5Dimes  LOST by 8
A matchup between two players at the other end of the leaderboard. The Swede has been in better form recently than Streb, finishing 10 shots ahead of him last week, and so looks more capable of showing some form tomorow. Again, worth a small punt at these odds.

Round 4 plays (4pts unless stated):

Marc Leishman to beat Bernd Wiesberger +144 @ 5Dimes  [also available @ Pinnacle and The Greek]  WON by 2
I don't see why Leishman should be a clear underdog in this matchup. He is in better form than his opponent and finished in the top-10 on this course last year - he is only two shots off repeating the feat this year.

Patrick Reed to beat Branden Grace +101 @ Pinnacle [available generally]  LOST by 2
A repeat of the rd1 play and while that play lost, Reed has moved ahead of Grace over the next two rounds. Now in 5th place, he has continued his good run of form and shouldn't be the underdog in this matchup.

Scott Hend to beat Hao-Tong Li -110 @ SkyBet [2pts]  LOST by 1
Easy to oppose Li who faces huge pressure as a home player in 3rd place at the start of the round, particularly as confidence in his game cannot be very strong: last week's 26th position in the Turkish Airlines Open followed a run of eight events in which he had failed to finish inside the top-60, missing the cut six times. Hend won on the Asian PGA Tour three weeks ago, so shouldn't have any problems with his confidence.

Thorbjorn Olesen to beat Hao-Tong Li -114 @ 5Dimes [also available @ Pinnacle, The Greek and Carib] [2pts]  LOST by 1
Similar reasoning in this play. Olesen's confidence should be high after winning the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship last month and he finished 6th in this event last year, so it is no surprise that he is currently 8th. Li is a player to oppose today.