Players Championship preview
Published:
Fowler supported to go in again
Big-time sport continues to come at us thick and fast this week, and as well as goings on in the horse racing world at Chester and the Champions League semi-finals, punters also have The Players Championship marked out from Thursday.
No matter your bet of choice, Coral have everything you need to back a winner. Click now to make your opinions count. We are the home of sports betting.
Question marks over the market leaders
Focussing on matters at TPC Sawgrass, Florida for our weekly look at the golf betting and a star-studded field line-up to contest the renewal of the ever-popular Players Championship. Dustin Johnston goes in as the market leader, and that will come as no real surprise to followers of the game. DJ is, without doubt, the form player of the bunch, but saw a stop-start Wells Fargo put a line through his chances, the weather playing its part.
He’s currently no better than 6/1, and although that’s a perfectly understandable stance by our traders, we’re after a bit more for our money, especially over the course of four days play.
Heading the chasing pack and patriotic punters will find joy in Rory McIlory at 10/1. Rors does show decent formlines in this part of the world, but he has been a bit hit-and-miss on this course in recent years, and is far from the most active player this year. Keeping that in mind, I feel there’s better 10/1 shots out there.
Fowler can repeat the feat
Moving to the man who will carry our support and that is former winner Rickie Fowler. The 28-year-old Californian banked the prize money here back in 2015, coming off best in a play-off, and there’s every reason to suggest that he could go and do something similar again here. Although, thankfully for punters, the betting doesn’t seem to agree.
The fact that defending champions have a poor record in this format means we can rule out last year’s champ Jason Day, but in Fowler we have a man who knows exactly what it takes to get the job done, and one who arrives at course with his tail up, on the back of a solid start to the year.
His numbers have been impressive in the early exchanges of 2017, none more so than that winning effort in the Honda Classic. A score of 12 under-par couldn’t be matched in Florida, with Morgan Hoffmann ending four shots behind.
Big odds Rickie’s the right call
That would’ve done plenty to boost confidence in the Fowler camp, and he’ll have fond memories of this course, although he did fail to make the cut 12 months ago. We will forgive him that and have a go on the 20/1 that’s currently available.
Supporters who’d prefer a bit of a safety net should keep in mind that we are offering up our usual each-way terms of 1/5 the odds the top seven finishing players. That’s better than you’ll find with most of the competition.
