The first round of the USPGA Championship saw some really good golf and low scoring with the early starters getting the better of the conditions and many of them taking advantage of that.
One such man to tee off early holds the lead going into the second round in the form of Dustin Johnson. Johnson is after his own piece of redemption this week and he has started well going six under for the opening round. He leads by one from David Lingmerth with a tasty group sitting two back on four under.
That group contains some real quality including our pre-tournament pick Matt Kuchar. Russell Henley, Jason Day, Danny Lee and JB Holmes are also in there and all of them will be looking to position themselves well ahead of the weekend when they play their second rounds on Friday.
The opening round has seen Johnson fly to the head of the betting but given what we’ve seen from him on weekends of majors before you’d be a brave man to take the 9/2 on him winning the tournament from here. Jason Day has propelled himself into a 6/1 second favourite slot while Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are 17/2 and 10/1 respectively despite being five shots back.
David Lingmerth can now be taken at a best price of 20/1 with Matt Kuchar 22/1 and Danny Lee 33/1. Lingmerth and Lee have both won on the PGA Tour this year which is one of the trends of this tournament but the leaderboard is packed with big names.
I hit one out of two of the three ball bets on Thursday and but for a double bogey from Chris Wood on the last to lose by one I’d have had them both. Although Wood lost for us I see no reason why we shouldn’t take him again. In fairness to Brett Jones he played a fairly decent round of golf considering his status in the game but you’ve got to think he might struggle to back that up.
Sean O’Hair recovered from a poor nine holes to post a birdie on his 17th on Thursday to ultimately beat Wood by one but I’m confident the Englishman can overturn that position. He took nine holes to get going but once he had he played some good stuff until that final hole but he wasn’t the only one to fall down on that hole. I still think this set up should be good for him and I’ll take Wood to win that group again.
I’m also going to side with the man who did win for us on the opening day in Rory Sabbatini. He played good golf to shoot one under on the opening day and probably felt he left a shot or two out there. Chesson Hadley began his round fairly well but as soon as the going got tough coming in he bombed away and I expect him to struggle more this evening. They’re out with a PGA professional who wasn’t at the races at all in the opening round. Despite winning the group by two shots in the opening round Sabbatini has still only shortened to 10/11 for tonight. That’s a price big enough to go in on again.
Finally I’m going to target the group which will get plenty of the TV coverage today and that is the Tiger Woods group. Woods wasn’t as bad as we’ve sometimes seen him on Thursday but the simple fact is you have to play this course from the fairways or it becomes a lottery as to what you can do when you miss it. I don’t trust him to hit enough fairways to get around this course.
His playing partners are Keegan Bradley and Martin Kaymer and they were chalk and cheese on the opening day. Keegan Bradley’s attitude was awful and unless he dramatically bucks his ideas up he’ll be going home on Friday. I was quite bullish about Kaymer’s chances before the tournament began and he was going along really nicely on Thursday until a double bogey on the final hole provided a nasty finish. That was a reminder not to get too carried away but the previous 17 holes he played some excellent golf.
I expect Kaymer to kick on from that though and given that he won the first round match between these three by five and six shots respectively I’m surprised he is still as big as 11/8 to win this evening.
Back C.Wood to beat B.Jones & S.O’Hair for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with Paddy Power
Back R.Sabbatini to beat C.Hadley & R.Helminen for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back M.Kaymer to beat T.Woods & K.Bradley for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Bet365
