After nine weeks of PGA Tour golf the average starting price of winners of rank-and-file events continues to climb. Setting aside the three Signature Events won by superstars from Europe and Asia, we've had six champions defy odds ranging from 66/1 to something like 300s, with Joe Highsmith the latest to spring a surprise.
Here in Puerto Rico, the first opposite event of the season (that being it takes place at the same time as the Arnold Palmer Invitational), there are something like 40 players we should all feel confident in ruling out altogether, but that still leaves close to a hundred we can't. It is, as these tournaments tend to be, wide open and hard to decipher.
But while the Puerto Rico Open will pass by unnoticed for golf fans who simply enjoy watching the game on television, for those betting on it this might be more enticing a proposition than the question of whether Scottie Scheffler can win at Bay Hill for the third time in four. Here, everyone is dealing with uncertainty and that means your impression of the right price could differ wildly from a handful of golf odds compilers and an illiquid Betfair market.
That market has Niklas Norgaard vying for favouritism with Ryan Gerard and of the two I'd strongly favour the American. Norgaard is a serious ball-striker with effortless power at his disposal, but I still worry a little about his short-game and how big winning on the PGA Tour might be for his career, whereas Gerard's rate of progress has a nice look to it and he may be ready to do so himself.
Among my selections last week and now dropping in grade with 11th place at this course behind him, Gerard is among the most appealing among the first half-dozen in the market without looking overpriced in the way I feel MATT WALLACE clearly is.
Granted, it's been a bit of a slow start to the year for the Ryder Cup hopeful whose prospects of making it to Bethpage were boosted by a strong end to the last one. A winner for us in Switzerland, he went on to finish third and 11th in the two Middle East events to end the DP World Tour season and had his long-game in excellent shape.
Since then, he's been rather beset by putting problems and they hit rock bottom last Thursday when he ranked 144th of 144 players in the Cognizant Classic. However, he was much better in round two, gaining a stroke on the greens, ranking seventh off the tee, and producing a five-under 66 which only six players in the entire field bettered.
This former amateur star almost won the ISCO Championship last year but went on to lose his card and couldn't get it back at Qualifying School, which is why he's largely played on the Korn Ferry Tour so far this season.
Finishes of 7-9-2 at that level contrast with two missed cuts on the big tour and perhaps demonstrate the class divide, but the first was under brutal conditions at Torrey Pines and then he missed out by a single shot at PGA National last week.
Two rounds of 69 there offer ample encouragement and so does the fact that when he arrived here with form figures of MC-MC-MC-WD-MC 12 months ago, he still managed to finish a solid 32nd before his rookie season really got going.
As well as that play-off defeat in the ISCO, another opposite event, he's been 12th at the short and less suitable Port Royal in Bermuda, while one of two Korn Ferry Tour wins came in Panama to offer some potentially correlating form. Josh Teater, Sam Saunders, Carson Young and a handful of others suggest there are worse clues on offer.
Also a play-off loser in Mexico, he's often played well outside of the USA and like Coody, last week's brace of 69s to miss the cut by one aren't a worry whatsoever. He finished off with a back-nine 31 and should feel optimistic retruning to Puerto Rico, where he'd been fifth before winning in the Dominican.
Ramey was inside the top 10 through 54 holes in Bermuda late last year so is always one for the radar in these tournaments, and having been mid-pack in Mexico a fortnight ago he doesn't look to be too far away.
Yes, his driving is about accuracy rather than power but the only real issue lately has been the putter, which has been below-average in five of his last seven starts. That said he's well capable of much better and has four top-five putting displays over the past 12 months, so with his approach play firing that's a chance I don't mind taking.
Ramey's top-five here came courtesy of a rock-solid tee-to-green display in one of the softer renewals, the one won by Brehm, and it came at a time when his overall form had been worse than it is today. At 50/1 and bigger he rates a solid option.
Danny Walker caught the eye with a top-20 finish in Mexico following a strong start to the Farmers but namesake DANNY WILLETT is even more tempting at three-figure prices.
Clearly, there's risk attached here but Willett says he's injury-free to begin the year, which he certainly wasn't in 2024 when he somehow made his comeback in the Masters after more than six months away and was competitive early on.
Another break followed and it's taken time to find even a semblance of form, but a strong finish to the Nedbank (21st) offered some hope before the putter cost him on his return in the AmEx, and then followed ninth place in the Farmers.
Goodwin was a top-10 amateur, one of just five players in history to win consecutive AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year award having captured the US Junior Amateur, beating Matt Wolff in the final a year after he'd lost at the same stage to Min Woo Lee.
Clearly, his pro career hasn't quite taken off despite a couple of wins in Canada but he's caught the eye a couple of times lately, sitting 25th and 17th through 54 holes in his last two starts only for poor final rounds to undermine plenty of good work.
However, talent-wise few come close to him and there was just enough in last week's effort, which began with a round of 64 and ended with a 67 which only five players bettered, to believe he's worth chancing at a price which isn't far off where he was in the market against the world number one and co.
Two years ago he was close to winning at Bay Hill, a performance which came after a step up in the Honda, so how about a repeat in these calmer waters as he wonders what exactly he's doing here?
Posted at 1300 GMT on 04/03/25
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