The PGA Tour heads to Delaware for the penultimate event of the season this week when the 70 players remaining in the FedExCup race go into the BMW Championship each looking to get into the top 30 to go to Atlanta next week.
Patrick Cantlay came out on top in a low scoring competition last year and he has made it through to attempt to defend his title but if he is to keep hold of the crown then he will need to win on a different course to the one he came out on top on.
Recent Winners
2021 – Patrick Cantlay
2020 – Jon Rahm
2019 – Justin Thomas
2018 – Keegan Bradley
2017 – Marc Leishman
2016 – Dustin Johnson
2015 – Jason Day
2014 – Billy Horschel
2013 – Zach Johnson
2012 – Rory McIlroy
The Course
The PGA Tour takes in the South Course of the Wilmington Country Club for the first time this week. The Robert Trent Jones designed track is a par 71 which measures 7,534 yards so immediately you are thinking that length is going to be a benefit. That might or might not be the case because the fairways are said to be quite tight around here and the four begins at four inches so the better players on the tour are going to get quite a test.
The greens are on the larger side here but they are protected with bunkers which are more hazardous than some this week. It might be that with the greens new to everyone in the field that ball strikers are the ones to be on here. It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if a poor putter isn’t as disadvantaged to the rest as he might normally be. There is a possibility of rain on the weekend but in the main conditions look good for a first step into Delaware.
The Field
70 players remain eligible in the FedExCup this week but two of the players who have qualified for the BMW Championship have chosen not to take their place in the first tee. They are Cameron Smith and Tommy Fleetwood so that leaves us with a field of 68 players. There is no cut this week so everyone will be getting 72 holes of golf to target a spot in the top 30 at the end of the week which will advance them to East Lake for the final event of the season.
Will Zalatoris is now the FedExCup leader and he will look to back up his first win at the St Jude Championship last week. Scottie Scheffler is now down to number two in the standings which makes them a bit of a joke given the season he has had. Others of note this week are the defending champion Patrick Cantlay, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth, each of whom go in search of a win to take them to East Lake with.
Market Leaders
Rory McIlroy is an 11/1 chance to win the tournament this week. I highlighted ahead of the St Jude Championship last week that him becoming the PGA Tour’s spokesperson was going to detract from his golf eventually so I’m not surprised he missed the cut there. He doesn’t need to worry on the cut making score this week but he is going to need to play well to win. I still wonder if bombing The Open is in his mind. I’m more than happy to oppose him at this price anyway.
Jon Rahm had a good spin at TPC Southwind last week and he is a point bigger than McIlroy to win at 12/1. He won at the Mexico Open earlier in the year but I think it is fair to say he hasn’t had the sort of season we would have expected from him. A win here will make up for all that though and with nobody hitting more greens than him last week he is clearly going well in the long game department. He holed nothing though and that remains enough of a concern for me to overlook him.
There are a quartet of players at 16/1 this week. They include three major winners from the season in Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and Matthew Fitzpatrick with the defending champion Patrick Cantlay the other one. Scheffler just looks like he has run his race for the season which is less than ideal. If length isn’t an issue this course should be right up the street of Fitzpatrick while Thomas played an amateur event here nine years ago. Cantlay finished down the field last week but had been in good form prior to that.
Two other players in the field are shorter than 20/1 and they are the winners of three of the last four tournaments in Will Zalatoris and Tony Finau. The former got off the mark last week and while it isn’t unknown for a player to win successive playoff events you would imagine the emotion of that win will catch up with him at some point over the 72 holes. Finau went well at Southwind last week despite his long game not as solid as it was in his two prior wins. If he has his long game he’s a danger here.
Main Bets
Collin Morikawa bounced back from a couple of missed cuts in Scotland with a T5 finish at TPC Southwind last week and he looks absolutely primed for the test ahead of him here. I say that for a couple of reasons, the first one being that we know the strength of his game is his long game and this looks like it is going to test out the driver this week. Few drive the ball or hit irons as well as the two-time major champion. The other reason why I think he is a leading contender this week is we all know his weakness is with the putter but the lack of knowledge anyone has on the greens may well mean that his putting isn’t the disadvantage it sometimes can be. I think the winner this week will excel getting to the greens rather than on them, certainly in the early stages, and few do that discipline better than the American.
I mentioned last week how Sungjae Im has been killing it from tee to green and nobody gained more strokes off the tee than the Korean last week. He was found wanting a little into the greens but that is very much a rarity for him as he is usually very strong on approach. Again where he tends to give up ground to the field is with the putter but I really don’t see anyone having that much of an advantage on the greens this week so I see no reason why the good recent form of the Korean can’t continue here. He comes here with form figures of 2-2-12 since The Open and in terms of strokes gained from tee to green where I expect this event to be won he recorded rankings of 5-7-17 for those weeks. He looks a big player here.
Outsiders
I’ll take a couple of outsiders this week too and one of those is Russell Henley who is picking up strokes on the field from tee to green most weeks at the minute. Henley missed the cut last week but shot under par for the two rounds so it wasn’t like he played badly. The two weeks prior to that he finished tenth and fifth and ranked third in strokes gained from tee to green in each week, picking up 10.964 and 9.754 strokes for those two tournaments. His putting hasn’t been as crisp as it usually is but we know he is usually a very good putter and that ability on greens nobody knows makes me think he can get deep in contention here.
Trey Mullinax really came to the party when he won the Barbasol Championship from out of nowhere. He proved that win wasn’t just a good week in a second tier event last week when he finished fifth and he looks to have the form to go again here. He was wise enough to get two weeks off out of the three between The Open and the start of the playoffs so unlike some in this field he should still be fresh enough to deliver again. He was fourth in strokes gained from tee to green last week and seventh on approach having led those categories when he won the Barbasol. Confidence is a big thing these days and Mullinax has it and I’ll pay to see how well he goes here.
Tips
Back C.Morikawa to win BMW Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 23.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-7)
Back S.Im to win BMW Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-7)
Back R.Henley to win BMW Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-7)
Back them here:
Back T.Mullinax to win BMW Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-7)
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