The first round of the Quicken Loans National takes place in Virginia on Thursday with everyone in the field looking to get off to a fast start ahead of what is a big week for a number of players teeing it up.
The draw has sent players out in groups of three over two sessions of play with players starting on the 1st and the 10th tee to keep playing time down to a minimum. Coverage in the UK will be of the later session and it is surely no surprise to have the likes of Justin Rose, Jimmy Walker and Tiger Woods out in that session on Thursday.
There are some good groups scheduled for the opening two rounds. Early on in the day Michael Thompson partners a couple of former US Open champions in Retief Goosen and Angel Cabrera while shortly after that recent winner Danny Lee goes out with John Senden and KJ Choi.
The marquee groups in the later session include Bill Haas, Tiger Woods and Nick Watney while Justin Rose and Jimmy Walker are joined by David Lingmerth in a group which has three tournament winners this year together. My eyes are on another group out in the later section for a bet though.
The group in question sees Charles Howell III out with Ernie Els and Jonas Blixt. It is fair to say that none of the three are going particularly great guns this season. Howell III is 76th on the FedEx Cup points list but that is still well ahead of his playing partners who are 181st and 143rd respectively.
Blixt is having a pretty poor year. He has only made three cuts since The Masters back in April and last week in Canada was the first time he has cracked the top 30 since then too so something needs to change drastically just for him to be here over the weekend you would think.
Ernie Els isn’t going a great deal better it has to be said. He has only broken the top 20 once all season in 15 events and you get the feeling he has no confidence at all at the present time. I’m not sure this is the course to be playing if you have no confidence so I’m very reluctant to take Ernie here despite his opening 66 at the Travelers a few weeks back.
Charles Howell III has seen his form tail off since Houston but he did at least open with a 64 in the John Deere Classic three weeks ago so we know he is capable of shooting a decent score. Howell III is the longest of the three off the tee which should stand him in good stead and he’s playing well enough to get a score on the board from the positions he’ll get into. Els looks shocking at the minute and Blixt hasn’t put many scores together so at 7/4 Howell III looks the bet here.
Back C.Howell III to beat E.Els & J.Blixt for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Ladbrokes
Blog golf record: +3.51pts
