Most golf tournaments give us the opportunity to look down the betting market to seek out some value but possibly none more so than this week’s Quicken Loans National in Virginia.
The reason I say that is this tournament is wide open outside the main three in the field and that is highlighted by the fact that everyone apart from Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler or Jimmy Walker is 30/1 or bigger to win this week.
I’ve already highlighted a couple of stronger fancies in my main preview but just like last week where I nabbed a place on Fitzpatrick in Switzerland at 125/1 I’m going to produce another article highlighting a couple of outsiders who I think will go well.
As with my main preview I’m looking for a long hitter off the tee and someone who has a good all round game so that I’ve got all bases covered.
The all round game man I like is Stewart Cink. In fairness I had been quite disappointed with Stewart Cink this season but he clearly found something in his game at St Andrews where he defied his odds to come in inside the top 20 that week and then he came home with a wet sail last week in Canada to finish just in a tie for fifth.
Cink isn’t the longest off the tee but he finds more fairways than he misses which will be important around this track and his approaches to the green aren’t rivalled by many. He is fourth in greens in regulation and eighth in proximity to the pin. Clearly his problem in the early part of the campaign was getting the ball in the hole but he’s done that well in the last fortnight and if the putter continues to co-operate for him here then he should outperform his 80/1 price.
My tournament preview contained a couple of young Americans that I rate highly and I’m going to include another one here in Daniel Berger. I’ve backed Berger at various times earlier on in the season and nearly landed a punt in the Honda Classic when only Harrington was too good for him in a playoff.
Since then his form has dipped slightly but we’ve been to some technical courses in that time which probably don’t suit him too well. What I like about him this week is few have experience of the course so the fact he’s a tour rookie doesn’t go against him here. Like most young Americans he bombs it off the tee and actually stands 16th for driving distance and 25th for total driving this year. That should get him in some good positions to attack from and we saw at the Byron Nelson not so long ago that given the opportunity he can score well.
With nobody having a massive advantage over him this week this could be the tournament that Daniel Berger launches his career with a huge bang.
Back S.Cink to win Quicken Loans National (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with BetVictor (1/4 1-5)
Back D.Berger to win Quicken Loans National (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Coral (1/4 1-5)
