Stephan Jaeger heads our five selections for the Corales Puntacana Championship, the latest 'opposite event' on the PGA Tour.
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Golf betting tips: Corales Puntacana Championship
2pts e.w. Stephan Jaeger at 25/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1.5pts e.w. Austin Eckroat at 40/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Thomas Rosenmuller at 55/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Alejandro Tosti at 66/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Tyler Duncan at 110/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Wind will be the talk of the week and while that largely relates to the 154th Open Championship and its absence, there's room too for the 11th edition of the Corales Puntacana in the Dominican Republic, where in its own way scoring will also depend quite a bit on conditions.
First brought to the Korn Ferry Tour and for now part of a stable of 'opposite events', this is a place very good golfers do not want to be, for all the island's undoubted splendour. Occasionally, a few of them wind up here and there are three examples where such a golfer has gone on to show their class in a grade beneath them: Billy Horschel, Matt Wallace, and Graeme McDowell. Branden Grace did it in Puerto Rico once, too.
For those not yet of that standard, this can do a lot for a career and the best example comes courtesy of Wyndham Clark, who built layers of confidence when sixth and within three months was a major champion. Is there a Clark lurking among this lot? Not on the face of it, but when Clark departed the Dominican, not even his sports psychologist could've sold him the tale of what was to come, let alone us.
Back to that wind. This is a long golf course at almost 7,700 yards and its receptive fairways are wide, so it's natural that long driving can be advantageous. The extent of that advantage depends on the wind in two ways: when especially strong it has sometimes made this more about the skills exhibited by McDowell, but counterintuitively it was a steady wind last year which helped longer hitters reach the 12th, despite it stretching well beyond 600 yards.
The forecast is for a good breeze but nothing more, which has been a common theme in recent renewals. My estimation is that it will therefore best suit long drivers and there were five of them in the top six last year, headed by Garrick Higgo. He fit the bill given that he'd won by the coast on a broadly similar course in Spain and some of those who made him work, such as Michael Thorbjornsen, Keith Mitchell and Alejandro Tosti, are extremely powerful.
If your brain works ('works') anything like mine, those names will immediately make you think of Memorial Park, home of the Houston Open, and further digging reveals this to be the best form guide. As well as that trio, 2023 runner-up Nicolai Hojgaard has subsequently put his power to use there, so too Clark, while Thomas Detry, Sam Stevens, Kevin Tway and Alex Smalley all help to underline what seems to be a strong connection. Both courses allow driver to be hit hard and often.
As with last week, though, there's an even more significant factor to begin with and that's the fact that the DP World Tour players are up against it. Perhaps the paspalum grass and resort course will help versus last week's southern country club, but with respect to Jeon Weong Ko, never did it appear that the raiding party would wrestle the ISCO away from the home team. It will take a big effort for one of them to do so here, too.
We also saw that class goes a long way and it took 40/1 selection Lucas Glover a long way into the tournament. He traded at about 8/11 during the final round only to falter late as two other proven winners, Steven Fisk and Taylor Pendrith, fought out the play-off.
Pendrith was high on my shortlist but he's more than halved in price and that underlines to me the value to be found in backing STEPHAN JAEGER.
Jaeger was ahead of Pendrith for much of last week, including midway through the final round, but a stumbling finish saw him fall to 15th. To my eye that's a sound demonstration that he's close, his four top-20s in six starts including one at major championship level in the PGA.
Given the two poor efforts in this run came when he suffered a minor injury, there's a case to be made that he's just about the form pick and whereas Pendrith odds have been slashed for an admittedly excellent final round in Kentucky, Jaeger's haven't budged.
Playing with the winner for three rounds might be a bit of extra inspiration and one thing we can be sure of is that the course is a good fit. He was halfway leader on debut a decade ago and round one leader on his last visit in 2021, since which time he's bagged his PGA Tour breakthrough at the aforementioned Memorial Park.
Jaeger also says as much himself and his comments from a year ago could easily be repeated if he starts well again: "I played good last week, which kind of gave me some momentum this week. I've always enjoyed this golf course."
Ninth in strokes-gained tee-to-green at Hurstbourne, he has a big chance if he holes a few putts.
The same is undeniably true of Pendrith and I'd find them hard to split, with Christiaan Bezuidenhout probably less likely to be effective here and Blades Brown short enough in the market. The same goes for Mackenzie Hughes, again a fair bit shorter than last week having played similarly to Jaeger, so it's the German who looks the value.
Sticking with the Houston theme, I'll take my chances with the talented firebrand that is ALEJANDRO TOSTI.
Runner-up at Memorial Park when Jaeger won and later tied for fifth when selected on these pages at 200/1, we know what this powerhouse wants: space off the tee and driver in his hands. He tends to hit driver regardless of the course make-up, but at least here doing also happens to be the right choice.
Tosti was runner-up here last year when again selected at 40/1 so he's done us a couple of favours and while there's always a risk he bombs out completely, focusing on the handful of courses which definitely suit can make him a handy one to follow.
This has applied since he won at a 7,500-yard course on the Korn Ferry Tour, where other champions include the giant pair Christo Lamprecht and Seth Reeves, and Tosti returns to the Dominican with his driver firing and some signs that the rest of his game is rounding into form too.
He was first in strokes-gained off-the-tee in Canada last month and then equally good despite missing the cut in the US Open, before predictably struggling at Deere Run. Then, at a course where length is an advantage, he did better in the ISCO Championship, ranking among the best drivers, improving his approach play (18th), but holing very little.
Perhaps it'll come together now back at a course he enjoys because that's precisely what happened at Houston last March, where he never left the top five one year on from his near-miss. I think he can produce a similar performance.
Back up the betting, AUSTIN ECKROAT isn't a big-hitter but he is a class act in this sort of company, and there's enough wind forecast to suggest he might have conditions to suit.
Eckroat showed he can play this course when fifth on his sole visit three years ago, all four rounds sub-70, and that was in a good breeze which somewhat levelled the playing field.
That it came after six missed cuts in a row surely speaks to how much he enjoyed the course and the drop in grade, and since then he's not only won twice but demonstrated that, for all he's largely accurate, wider courses do seem to suit.
He was runner-up at Craig Ranch within a couple of months of his performance here and then, having broken through in the Cognizant the following spring, Eckroat won for us at a wide-open El Cardonal in Mexico.
Both these victories were telegraphed by improvements to his iron play, the staple of his game, and having ranked 10th in elite company in Scotland last week, that makes him of significant interest now returning to this side of the Atlantic.
Of course, the travel is a bit of a worry but after a run of nine cuts made and having shown his ball-striking class only to be let down by the putter in Myrtle Beach, this looks a good opportunity to land win number three.
Kevin Roy is another returning from Scotland and this is his grade, but I'm less sure it's his course and will side with the bang in-form THOMAS ROSENMULLER instead.
This powerful driver returned to form with a top-20 finish on the Korn Ferry Tour, flew to his native Germany to be sixth in the BMW International Open, then returned to Kentucky to be 10th last week, ranking second off the tee and 24th with his approaches.
His driving had been good at Eichenried as well as his short-game so everything appears to be coming together nicely ahead of his second crack at Puntacana, where last year he was 12th. That was his 10th start for the season and the previous nine showed zero top-50s.
Two summers ago, Rosenmuller also found form around this time to bag his first pro win in the NV5 Invitational, a Korn Ferry Tour event which tends towards big-hitters and low scores. It's been won by Cam Young, Curtis Thompson and Johnny Keefer, while Karl Vilips was runner-up to Rosenmuller to underline that point.
Vilips of course went on to win the Puerto Rico Open and Rosenmuller, who went 14-29-25 across these mid-tier PGA Tour events last summer (the Corales took place in the spring), can have a big say given his prowess off the tee.
Luke Clanton hit the ball well again last week and his eye-catching effort in Puerto Rico makes him of some interest, while there's a case for Danny Willett given a couple of good spins on the DP World Tour lately, both in the wind. He has a contending top-10 from three cuts made here and might be extra motivated given that he's not in the Open field.
Preference though is for a couple of less flashy options and I'll take TYLER DUNCAN over Ben Silverman.
The latter was third last week, has won in the Bahamas and has form in a handful of opposite events, but Duncan has a big edge in terms of course form having been third in both 2017 and 2023.
His win came by the coast in the RSM Classic and it's significant that he's since contended again for that title, as well as the Honda Classic. Both are somewhat comparable given the breeze involved, but most of all it tells us he can find something when returning to a course he likes.
Duncan missed the cut last week but his ball-striking was even better than when he'd been 12th at Deere Run previously, so we're left hoping the putts drop back on paspalum grass.
That can never be assumed given his profile but this supremely accurate player has a pretty high ceiling for this kind of field and given that he's overcome the power handicap more than once here in the past, I was expecting him to be chalked up closer to the 66/1 mark.
By the way, that's where we find Aaron Wise, who I was very close to siding with at 300/1 last week. It was great to see him looking in such a good place and who's to say what the correct price is with that behind him, given that he once held world-class potential.
Wise has won a low-scoring event on a wide-open course and was a sound 30th here in 2017 (second after round one), but I can't help but feel we've missed the boat. With his putter a clear concern too, we'll stick to five selections.
Posted at 12:00 BST on 14/07/26
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