The early stages of the PGA Tour season continue this week when we head to the desert for the Shiriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas, a tournament which kicks off a busy month in this pre-Christmas leg of the campaign.
Martin Laird fired himself into life here last year when he won a three man playoff to walk off with the title. The Scot is back to defend his crown and doesn’t have quite as many top notch challengers to overcome this year.
Recent Winners
2020 – Martin Laird
2019 – Kevin Na
2018 – Bryson DeChambeau
2017 – Patrick Cantlay
2016 – Rod Pampling
2015 – Smylie Kaufman
2014 – Ben Martin
2013 – Webb Simpson
2012 – Ryan Moore
2011 – Kevin Na
The Course
We are back at TPC Summerlin this week for what is always a popular tournament with those who like making birdies. The course is a par 71 and one of the easier of that par on the entire tour. It measures 7,255 yards but plays nothing like that yardage with the heat and altitude of Las Vegas. The rough is usually kept to a minimum here and the greens are enormous so it is very much a case of swing hard and make as many putts as you can.
There is no massive advantage in terms of length this week although it stands to reason with the rough down that the further you mow it off the tee the closer to the greens you’ll be. This will be a putting contest so players who hole lots of putts and who have shown some good recent form should be the ones to focus on. This isn’t really a week for the players who prefer the tougher courses.
The Field
This is a very competitive field, one which contains six men who teed it up in the Ryder Cup a couple of weeks ago. The European trio of Viktor Hovland, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter are in the field as are the winning trifecta of Harris English, Brooks Koepka and Scottie Scheffler. They all give the field star quality but none are in the form of the winner of the Sanderson Farms Championship last week in Sam Burns, a man who could easily have been teeing it up at Whistling Straits himself.
It isn’t all about USA and Europe this week though. There are some decent internationals in the field including the reigning Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama. Perennial major bridesmaid Louis Oosthuizen has a tee time this week as do Abraham Ancer, Corey Conners and Sungjae Im, all of whom are likely to be in the Presidents Cup next year. Other notables in the field include Webb Simpson, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott, Patrick Reed and the defending champion Martin Laird.
Market Leaders
The fact it is 22/1 the field this week highlights just how competitive the tournament is going to be. Those three men are Viktor Hovland, Abraham Ancer and Scottie Scheffler. I’m happy to pass on the latter at this price until he wins while I suspect the other two just want a bit of give in the course, especially as neither are the most reliable with the putter. I’m a huge Ancer fan though and he has two top fives here so if I was picking from the top of the market I would go with him over the Norwegian who plays here for the first time. I’m happy enough to leave all three though.
There are another trio of players who come next in the betting at 25/1. They are Will Zalatoris, Brooks Koepka and last week’s winner Sam Burns. Burns is a no go for me because I’m not one to back the winner of the previous week. Winning takes up so much emotional energy and there is always an effect on the market which isn’t a positive one. I’m not really interested in Koepka whose regular PGA Tour event record isn’t anything like as strong as it should be. Zalatoris made the top five on debut last year but he finished last week ordinarily after his second round 61 which dampens my enthusiasm a touch.
Two men make up those who are shorter than 30/1 this week. They are both 28/1 and are Webb Simpson and Hideki Matsuyama. The latter would have obvious claims on his Masters form but that was six months ago and although he has been competent since then you would struggle to argue that he has really kicked on from that win. Simpson won around here in 2013 and has had a very good five years but he didn’t make the Tour Championship last season and was only T30 in the Fortinet to open this term up so his form looks to be missing.
Main Bets
I’ll go with a couple of main bets here. The first of those is one of the players who were beaten in the playoff here last year in Matthew Wolff. The first thing to note is how Wolff said recently that he is in a much better place right now than he has been over the last 12 months or so. That mental struggle accounts for a lot of his poor form but he has a couple of top 20s in his last four starts and it wasn’t too much away from this time last year that he was chasing Bryson DeChambeau home at Winged Foot so he clearly enjoys his autumn golf. He carded a 61 in the third round here last year and has a 65 to finish the year before so this is a course Wolff gets on well with. This is a man who has won a low scoring event at the 3M Open and he’s far enough under the radar here to suggest he should be a major player.
You probably shouldn’t take debutants around here because the course does take some getting used to but we saw Will Zalatoris take to it like a duck to water last year and I’m hoping Erik van Rooyen can do likewise. This test should set up well for the South African who can give it a good crack off the tee and who has had a very warm putter in recent months. He won a low scoring Barracuda Championship and has follows that up with finishes of 37-7-5-16, the latter three in the playoff events at the end of last season with the 16 being because he was the last man in and starting behind almost the entire field. What caught my eye in those events if you include the Barracuda is his putting average rank. It has been 2-35-1-30-2 so he led the 125 man field at Liberty National and was second in the elite 30 man field at East Lake. Van Rooyen is playing good golf and if he can take to this course straight away he ticks every box to go well.
Outsiders
I’ll throw three darts at this one as well with the first of those being Lucas Glover who comes in here with three successive top 10 finishes in the tournament. You would have to put the form of Glover to once side, but he has always been a horse for a course sort of player, something he proved when he landed the John Deere Classic back in July. You wouldn’t normally attribute Glover to low scoring events but he won that one with 19 under and his three outings here suggest he can go low around here. Course form is often significant here and that win at the John Deere showed us the 2009 US Open champion can still get it done. He’s a big price here.
On the flip side of that Nick Watney has a terrible record around here since he was a runner up in 2011, recording just the one top 10 finish since then but there was a lot to like about him at the Sanderson Farms last week where he was the runner up, coming fourth in GIR for the second time in the two events he has played this season, and leading the field in strokes gained putting, picking up a ridiculous 11.658 strokes on the field on the dancefloors. He clearly knows how to putt on these greens so if those irons stay hot Watney could end his horror recent record here with the dubya.
Lastly I’ll go back to course form and have a shot in the dark dabble on Pat Perez. He has a good record here and in Mexico where altitude is a player so I don’t think his form around here is a freak or anything. We have to trust that a return to a course where he had top 10 finishes in the two attempts prior to last year where he shot -5 and missed the cut by two! He was third here the year before when he went 69-64-62-68 so he can score around here and with four top 20 finishes in his last eight starts he might just be beginning to come back into some form. He led the field in putting in the Rocket Mortgage Classic and was sixth for GIR at The Northern Trust so if he can combine those two he’s a runner here.
Tips
Back M.Wolff to win Shriners Children’s Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 41.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back L.Glover to win Shriners Children’s Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back N.Watney to win Shriners Children’s Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back P.Perez to win Shriners Children’s Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back them here:
Back E.van Rooyen to win Shriners Chidren’s Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 46.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-10)
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021
