CareerBuilder Challenge – Tournament Outright Betting Preview

After a couple of weeks on the wonderful island of Hawaii the PGA Tour returns to mainland America this week for the start of the West Coast Swing. For the next five weeks the Tour will go up and down the West with some big tournaments to come.

Before the big events though comes the first pro-am of the season which is the CareerBuilder Challenge. Those of a certain era will know this as the Bob Hope Classic or the Humana Challenge as it was last year.

Bill Haas won the tournament 12 months ago when he was a shot too good for a group of players that included Charley Hoffman among others. Haas returns to defend the title but as is so often the case in golf these days he will defend on different courses.

I say courses because this tournament is held on three different courses. La Quinta Country Club remains one of the three courses in use but The PGA West’s Nicklaus Private and Palmer Private have been bumped off to be replaced by the Nicklaus Tournament Course and the TPC Stadium Course, a course used once before but was criticised so much by the players it was taken off the rota until this year. TPC Stadium will host the final round.

All three courses are par 72s and none of them measure as much as 7,200 yards so there is no need for bombers to be singled out. We are looking for low scoring though. The courses are attackable and they’ll be set up relatively easy with the amateurs involved in the event as well.

With this being a pro-am we see some of the stars and not so stars of stage and screen and sport alongside a professional golfer with each playing one of the three courses on the first three days before those who make the cut going back to the Stadium Course for the closing round on Sunday.

With so many players on each course it is a bit of a slow burner this one and can be quite tough to watch the coverage, a lot of which actually focuses on the amateurs rather than the actual tournament which is going on in front of their eyes.

Patrick Reed is the biggest name in the field this week and he’s the 10/1 favourite to win the tournament ahead of Matt Kuchar and Zach Johnson who are double the price. Haas is 28/1 to defend the title ahead of the 30/1 poke Ryan Palmer and it is 33/1 bar those five which shows how open this event is and how anything could happen.

As you can probably tell this isn’t my favourite tournament of the year. I don’t really like pro-ams per se with the obvious exception of the Dunhill Links and tournaments with three courses annoy me. Two is bad enough. Three is rotten so there is an element of throwing darts at the field this week rather than going too big on anyone in particular. Hopefully one of the darts gives us a strong run.

My main bet which I’m slightly more confident with is Brendan Steele. Steele is such a good scorer that I always like him when shootouts come around and this will be a shootout. He was the runner up here last year and has already gone well in the Malaysian tournament this season which turned into a shootout too. He was third there.

Steele sits third on the all-around ranking on the PGA Tour this season which shows his game is in good order and back at a resort he has good memories of I’m expecting the American to be a leading player this week.

Another player who I think can score well around these courses is Tony Finau. In fact we know he can score well around here because he has done it back in 2013 when qualifying for the Web.com Tour. He finished third at Q-School there which took in the two new courses being used this week so that could give him an advantage.

Finau is full of power so with four par 5s on each of the courses in use this week, most of them reachable in two, particularly for him, he could steal something of an advantage over the field on them. If he keeps the bogeys off his card I’m expecting a really strong tilt at this from Finau.

Another man with the power to take care of the par 5s is Jamie Lovemark and he has been playing well enough this season to suggest a tournament like this isn’t beyond him. He was the leading scorer on the par 5s on the Web.com Tour last year so I’m expecting him to have plenty of joy on these ones.

With the swing he has got going and the form and confidence he is carrying Lovemark looks overpriced to deliver a decent run in what is a busy but overall fairly weak field this week.

William McGirt has been putting up some decent numbers this season both in the statistical side of the game and on the leaderboards themselves and if his all-round ranking of seventh on tour rings true this week he is likely to be a threat to the top of the board.

McGirt has performed with distinction in Vegas and at the Sandersons Farms this season and blew any Christmas cobwebs away with another solid effort in Hawaii last week. I’m not sure if the scoring will be too hot for him this week but I’ll pay to find out.

Finally I’m going with a real shot in the dark based on that Web.com Tour Q-School in 2013 which actually saw Scott Pinckney finish second. I don’t know if that carries any advantage this week but if it does that will be a positive.

Pinckney is pretty up and down as a form horse but it might be significant that one of his better weeks came here in the Humana Challenge last year where he was inside the top 20 despite a final round of 72. With a better final round he could have been right in the mix down the stretch and it is worth paying to see if he can repeat that this year with a better final round on top.

Back B.Steele to win CareerBuilder Challenge (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 41.00 with Paddy Power (1/5 1-7)

Back T.Finau to win CareerBuilder Challenge (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Stan James (1/4 1-6)

Back J.Lovemark to win CareerBuilder Challenge (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with Skybet (1/4 1-6)

Back W.McGirt to win CareerBuilder Challenge (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Skybet (1/4 1-6)

Back S.Pinckney to win CareerBuilder Challenge (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 251.00 with Paddy Power (1/5 1-7)