Matt Cooper is stepping in for Ben Coley this week and has four bets to consider for the BMW Championship .
Golf betting tips: BMW Championship
1pt e.w. Adam Scott at 55/1 (Ladbrokes, Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Justin Rose at 66/1 (Ladbrokes, Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Ryan Fox at 110/1 (Ladbrokes, Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
It’s the second week of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the nomadic BMW Championship takes the elite field of challengers to St Louis in Missouri.
After last week’s action in Tennessee – which was dominated on the final day by Ben Coley’s pick Scottie Scheffler – 50 players remain in the Playoffs.
The system really ought to have volatility built in to it, of course. Fans and players should be thrilled by the prospect of moving in and out of the qualifying zone. But, in reality, movement was minimal.
Among those who confirmed their place in St Louis were Alex Noren (whose T3 took him from 46th to 34th in the rankings), Maverick McNealy (whose T19 was enough to sneak up to 49th from 50th) and Matt McCarty whose T63 saw him slip from 48th to 50th).
But only one man slipped out the top 50 – Keith Mitchell (whose T34 saw him drop from 51st to 49th). He was replaced by Korea’s Sungjae Im who, not for the first time this season, was in a handy position after 54 holes before struggling on Sunday. Nonetheless, his T5 saw him move from 53rd to 40th.
The task now is to remain in the top 30 after the end of play on Sunday and with that position move on to the final event of the Playoffs – the Tour Championship at East Lake.
The host venue this week is Bellerive Country Club which has hosted the 1965 US Open, the 1992 and 2018 PGA Championships, and the 2008 edition of this tournament.
It’s a Robert Trent Jones design that was updated by Rees Jones earlier this century and, like last week at TPC Southwind, the fairways feature Zoysia grass, a surface that tends to favour sweepers of the ball.
Last week, Ben wrote of Scheffler: “I’m surprised by the price (5/1). Truly, I wish he’d opened 3/1 and we could look to get him beaten.”
This week, in contrast, he is 3/1 in a couple of places, but is mostly shorter. Our task, therefore, is to look for a different strategy and my inclination is to stick to just three players at bigger prices.
First up in terms of interest is the New Zealander RYAN FOX whose return to action last week after his Open triumph was something of a rust-removal operation.
His stats in first round 73 were poor, failing to rank top 40 for any of the four Strokes Gained categories. In the second and third laps only his driving improved. But by Sunday he was ranking top 40 for all four and was fourth for Putting in a 67.
He can be forgiven for that performance because his life will have been a whirligig since his wonderful win at Royal Birkdale and there’s no doubt that it could take him a while to find equilibrium.
But there is another way of looking at the situation which is that the Kiwi has won three times in his last 34 starts and all of them were on the PGA Tour.
That in itself is a reminder of his qualities and, while the first win was in an opposite field event, the scene of it has something in common with this week: the course was designed by Robert Trent Jones.
The course in question is The Dunes and it’s unquestionably a different test to this week, one that yields more birdies. But it’s also true that Fox was also fourth on his debut at The Dunes – and that he also has a T12 at Royal Dar es Salam and T8 at Valderrama which are also Trent Jones designs.
Moreover, Fox was a creditable T27 when Bellerive hosted the 2018 PGA Championship, a week when his long game was in excellent shape. I’m more than happy to grab three figures.
Back when the 1971 Ryder Cup was held in the city of St Louis the Englishman Neil Coles travelled by ship from Portsmouth to Manhattan before hiring a car to complete his journey with a 1,000 mile road trip.
It was, it goes without saying, a remarkably old fashioned way of getting from A to B. In striking contrast, Coles’ compatriot JUSTIN ROSE has an RV (recreational vehicle) that is driven between tour stops while he flies.
To British readers an RV might be thought of as a campervan except that the Rosemobile is unlike anything you’ve been stuck behind on a narrow A road heading towards the Welsh coast.
It has a wet room (incorporating a hot and cold plunge pool and steam shower), an infra-red sauna, an oxygen machine, a therapy bed, a spin bike and a kitchen.
It’s a dizzying set up, but it cannot be argued that he hasn’t thrived using it and the veteran might still have another good week in him. Indeed, it is only 53 weeks since he won the first of the Playoff events and he was also a winner this February.
His ability to peak in elite company has also been ratified by T13 in the Players Championship, T3 at the Masters, T10 in the PGA Championship and T11 in the US Open.
He was a winner at the RTJ-crafted Valderrama and was T19 when Bellerive hosted the PGA Championship in 2018. The clincher was a closing round of 64 last week in which both his approach work and putting were on fire.
Finally we’ll add ADAM SCOTT who is another with plenty of RTJ form under his belt.
He was a two-time top 10 finisher at Valderrama early in his career, but more recently he has been T7 at Atlanta Athletic Club and T3 at Bellerive in the 2011 and 2018 PGA Championships, T5 at Wilmington in the 2022 BMW Championship, and T5 in the Bermuda Championship at Port Royal.
He’s also looked good in his last two outings when T9 in the Open at Royal Birkdale and T12 last week at TPC Southwind.
That T3 at Bellerive eight years ago featured middle rounds of 65 and a final round in the last group out with the eventual winner Brooks Koepka. Nice memories and they can fuel another good week.
Posted at 11:25 BST on 18/08/26
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