Just 66 players will tee it up in the WGC Cadillac Championship this week and for the first two rounds they will go out in groups of three which gives us 22 three balls to have a look at ahead of Thursday’s opening round.
There is no doubt where the main attention is going to be on Thursday at Trump Doral. It will be on the top three in the world as Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy go out together in the 4.32pm tee off time UK time.
You would think Spieth will be left behind a little bit in that group given his lack of length over the other two but McIlroy is rumoured to be changing putting stance and stroke and Day’s record here leaves plenty to be desired so maybe Spieth can be competitive after all. That said I can’t be betting on that group.
The other high profile group on the first day is the 5.38pm grouping of our main tournament pick Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson. I think Bubba will win that group but given that I’m on him for the event I’ll leave that group alone and enjoy watching what will hopefully be a good round from Bubba.
A lot of these groups are quite tightly matched so kudos to the organisers for that. I nearly took Danny Willett to see off Hideki Matsuyama and Brandt Snedeker in their three ball. Danny looks to be a little underrated in that group against a potentially injured Matsuyama and a Snedeker lacking in length but I’m not quite tempted enough.
Scott Piercy was another one I nearly took. He has the length to take this course apart and should be hitting much further than Jamie Donaldson who is still recovering from that chainsaw injury and Nathan Holman who shouldn’t be too competitive but Piercy can be brilliant or awful, often both on the same day so again I’ve tentatively left him.
I will get involved in the all-European Tour three ball of Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Soren Kjeldsen and Marcus Fraser though. Kjeldsen and Fraser just simply aren’t long enough to score well around this course anymore. In fairness before the changes Kjeldsen recorded some fair finishes here but times have changed. Fraser has played here three times and never bettered a 24th placed finish.
Rafa Cabrera-Bello hasn’t played here since 2013 but the two times he has been here he has done little but the changes to the course to bring length into play really can’t be underestimated and Cabrera-Bello will be comfortably the longest of these three. He’ll hit plenty of greens and has been putting much better this season too.
Cabrera-Bello has fallacies at the weekend at the minute but he starts tournaments well and I expect him to begin this one better than his two European Tour rivals.
Back R.Cabrera-Bello to beat S.Kjeldsen & M.Fraser for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with 888sport
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