It’s do or die time on the PGA Tour.
This week’s event marks the beginning of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, a series of four golf tournaments that will help decide who takes home the 10 million bucks and the title of “2018 FedEx Cup champion.”
The players are in Paramus, New Jersey, at the historic Ridgewood Country Club, a stunning 27-hole venue designed by acclaimed course architect A.W. Tillinghast.
With Times Square and the center of Manhattan lurking just 22 miles in the distance, there will be no shortage of post-round activities for those who cracked the top-125 after last week’s Wyndham Championship.
I’d love to be perusing around the Big Apple myself and be on my way to watching the players tee it up, believe me. I’d head straight to Shun Lee Palace on E. 55th for dinner and cap the evening off with Broadway show in the Theatre District.
But instead, I’ve been stuck back home doing the dirty work. I have been browsing through the matchups and the prop bets on all the top betting sites, just as I normally do before a PGA Tour event begins. After doing some digging, here’s what I came up with.
I just love recency bias with casual bettors. Webb Simpson shot a final-round 62 on Sunday at Sedgefield Country Club to finish runner-up at the Wyndham Championship. Tommy Fleetwood spent the week in the Bahamas swimming with his wife and son, likely not touching his golf clubs.
So surely we have to load up on Webb Simpson in his matchup versus Tommy Fleetwood, right?
No, not the way I see it.
See, last week was a perfect storm for Webb, as he has absolutely dominated the Donald Ross design in Greensboro, North Carolina, during his entire career. Now he’ll play a much tougher and stern test where birdies will be fewer and farther between.
Most notably, there is a much stiffer demand on driving it long and straight at Ridgewood. Although Webb has played lights-out pretty much all year long, he has undoubtedly struggled with the big stick.
Webb is way down at 133rd in total driving on the PGA Tour. Meanwhile, Tommy Fleetwood clocks in at 3rd and is an absolute flamethrower with a driver in his hands.
All the 27-year-old Englishman does is show up and play well in bigtime events. Add in the fact that his supreme driving should help Tommy separate his name from the 120-man field, and this matchup has me salivating.
I expect the public to be on Webb, so give me all the Tommy I can have here.
By the way, you can snag him at BetOnline.ag at -115, rather than pay -120 on Bovada.
Billy Horschel and Kyle Stanley have similar golf games. They’ve both shown flashes of being world-class players, and neither man is afraid of the pressure that comes with contending in big golf tournaments.
I expected this to be featured as an evenly-matched head-to-head and was a bit surprised to see Billy being offered with “plus-money” incentive.
I know that Kyle finished runner-up to Justin Thomas a few weeks ago at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, but here’s what else I know. That was the only time Stanley has cracked the top 30 in his last 5 starts.
Flip the coin, and you’ll see that Horschel is playing arguably his best golf of the season, coming off an 11th-place finish at the Wyndham Championship. What I like is that he was 3rd in strokes gained from tee-to-green and 2nd in scrambling.
He shot 22-under and finished 2nd at the Barbasol Championship at the end of July, and I know he is hungry to get back into a position to contend for a FedEx Cup trophy.
I feel like Billy is on the verge of having a big week, so I’m not going to ignore this handsome price of +105 in a matchup where I’d happily lay -110.
I never thought I’d have the courage to place a wager against Justin Rose given his current form. But this Tiger Woods fellow hasn’t been playing too shabby himself, either.
This is strictly a value play, as the rest of the betting sheet tells me that Tiger Woods should actually be slightly favored here. So when BetOnline.ag has “Rosey” at -125 and Tiger at +105, I feel like I have to pounce.
The price attached to Tiger logging a top 10 is +175. Compare it to the +200 price tag on Rose, and it suggests that Justin should actually be the underdog. Tiger’s line to surface in the top 5 (+300) is far lower than the +450 odds Rose is sitting on for that same bet.
Tiger has done absolutely everything in 2018 other than win a golf tournament. And as ridiculously consistent as Rose has been this year, I can’t ignore the numbers that are staring me in the face on the various sports betting sites.
Tiger has three top-6 finishes in his last four starts, and he’s on the brink of being selected to the Ryder Cup team. I’m not going to mess with his positive momentum; I’m going to try and ride it out.
Here are two golfers who are historically steady players but perhaps are not playing to their peak potential at the moment.
Paul Casey had been a model of consistency in 2018, making 13/14 cuts with 11 top-25s as he arrived at Carnoustie for the Open Championship. After a disappointing 51st-place place showing at the British Open, Paul uncharacteristically finished 31st in Akron and missed the cut badly at Bellerive.
Now facing the pressure of trying to do something spectacular to make Thomas Bjorn’s European Ryder Cup team, Casey won’t be feeling nearly as comfortable as he was early on in the season.
While Paul might be feeling the nerves of trying to make the team, Patrick Reed simply cannot wait to get things going in Paris next month. I know that “Captain America” has missed two cuts sandwiched around a pair of 28th-place finishes, but I’m throwing that all out the window now.
The FedEx Cup Playoffs are starting, and he can smell the Ryder Cup looming. Do you really want to bet against Patrick Reed not performing well at this point in the season? Especially as an underdog in a matchup versus someone who is seemingly out of sorts?
I didn’t think so.
I love following the PGA Tour and all the regular-season events. However, the FedEx Cup Playoffs are when things really start to get exciting.
I plan on kicking my feet up all weekend long, enjoying a couple cold beverages and watching it all unfold. That’s why I made sure to lock in a quartet of matchup bets that should have me in line to have a big smile on my face come Sunday night.
You can do the same thing, as long as you have an account at BetOnline.
The time to start betting online and taking advantage of these attractive prices is right now.
Aren’t you interested in getting in on the action?
I’ll be back with my picks next week for the Dell Technologies Championship, so don’t miss out on the free advice. Which 100 golfers will be making the trip to Boston remains to be seen, but I’ll continue unlocking the value for your pleasure and delight!
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