In 2015, Jon Rahm offered the first real glimpse of his awesome ability in the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Still a year-and-a-half away from turning professional, the Spaniard finished fifth in what was just his second taste of life on the PGA Tour, putting to use the experience of Scottsdale he'd gained in a record-setting stint at Arizona State.

Five years on, Rahm returns to his adopted home as favourite to win this tournament and, with it, potentially take over at the top of the world rankings. It would be a key milestone in the career of a player who has made the ascent to this level appear so straightforward that it almost serves to undermine his own brilliance. Rahm has won 10 titles already as a professional and hasn't yet played a hundred events.

It's hard to envisage anything but a strong bid for the title here in Phoenix, at a course where he's yet to finish worse than 16th and, in 16 rounds, has only once failed to break par. Rahm arrives as arguably the world's in-form player and while failing to convert a 54-hole lead in California last week, the way he rallied over the closing stretch has to be considered encouraging. There's too much talk about his temper, but if he continues to grind out results like that runner-up finish when things have gone seriously wrong from the start of the final round, we really will be talking about the complete package.

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Rahm is the right favourite, but what's striking about this market is that every single player priced at under 50/1 - and there are more than a dozen of them - comes with some kind of ready-made case. Even Tony Finau, whose course record is poor, at least has last week's top-six finish to call upon, plus the fact he's decided to make Scottsdale his base and, fundamentally, ought to find this course to his liking.

That makes it quite hard to unravel, and while naturally inclined towards those at around the 33/1 mark, in Rahm and Justin Thomas we should prepare ourselves for something similar to Torrey Pines, where Rahm and Rory McIlroy looked like being hard to keep out of the frame and so it proved. With Rickie Fowler, Hideki Matsuyama and Webb Simpson boasting impeccable course credentials and Xander Schauffele also having taken to this place along with former winner Gary Woodland, it's hard to find a gap to be exploited here.

Perhaps the way in is through Bryson DeChambeau, who is every bit as good as all of these bar perhaps Rahm and JT, who could so easily have won last week, yet who can be be backed at 28/1. It does rather stand out, and the Tour's experimenter-in-chief could so easily bounce off the ropes to make people look like dopes at a course where he was fifth in 2018 on a less impressive preparation.

Speaking of preparation, it's possible that taking part in the Dubai Desert Classic proves beneficial - as several European Tour raiders have hinted at here in the past. Ultimately, desert golf is desert golf and this risk-reward par 71 is closer tied to the courses we've seen recently in the Middle East than Torrey Pines, where Rahm, Fowler, Matsuyama and Finau played last week.

That being said, there's still a little inconsistency in DeChambeau's game which I find a little worrying, and conditions in Dubai made it more of a grind than this Super Bowl party ought to be - notwithstanding the final round last year, as conditions turned. He might well be capable of winning here having been fourth when last playing a full-field PGA Tour event, but he'll have to do so unbacked, a comment which applies to all of those at the front of the market.

An, Conners, Homa, Laird or Spaun to win -

Any of the five to finish T5 or better -

Any two of the five to finish T5 or better -

Any three of the five to finish T10 or better -

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Posted at 1035 GMT on 28/01/20

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