Ben Coley is steering clear of the outright market for the Cadillac Championship, with the favourite hard to beat and little value on offer elsewhere.
Golf betting tips: Cadillac Championship
2pts Adam Scott top Australian, Tommy Fleetwood top Englishman at 7/1 (bet365)
2pts Adam Scott top Australian, Scottie Scheffler top American at 13/2 (General)
2pts Scottie Scheffler top American, Tommy Fleetwood top Englishman at 15/2 (General)
2pts Scott top Australian, Fleetwood top Englishman, Scheffler top American at 24/1 (General)
It's been a dizzying fortnight in the world of professional golf and there will be no shortage of talking points now that the PGA Tour returns to Doral, or Trump National Doral to give it its full name, for the reborn Cadillac Championship.
The tangled web of this sport is especially difficult to navigate at the moment, but I'll try my best to set the scene: this used to be a World Golf Championship, but limited-field, no-cut, international events never caught on and it disappeared from the schedule. Then, LIV Golf – limited-field, no-cut, international – created a new version and Donald Trump's course was a key part of it, hosting LIV Miami on four occasions.
Now, just as LIV Golf appears on the brink of extinction, the PGA Tour returns to Doral's Blue Monster for a limited-field, no-cut cash cow of its own, the first of two more Signature Events in succession and made all the more jarring by last week's news that the Tour would cut its staff by about 4%. There is only one indisputable truth of a discombobulating five years in men's pro golf: the rich are richer than they were.
Forgive me if you've heard this before but I can't quite get my head around a schedule which presents Scottie Scheffler with a big dilemma and asks the best players in the world to play a run of three massive tournaments in three weeks. We'll see what next week's field looks like, but Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Aberg and Matt Fitzpatrick are among the absentees here and others will skip Quail Hollow, including the world number one. There was room for one of these events, but both?
Meanwhile, if you're a Korn Ferry Tour or DP World Tour graduate, most likely you've been sat on the sidelines since before the Masters with one exception, that being last week's team event. You'll get an overdue crack at individual golf in Myrtle Beach, a watered-down, opposite-field tournament, and have little hope of sneaking into the PGA Championship which follows it. The gap between haves and have-nots is wider than ever and while in general the model seems to be working, this represents the worst of it.
Onto matters at hand and the return of the Blue Monster should guarantee a stern examination for those who elected to play. Befitting of its name, this is a 7,739-yard brute which was renovated by Gil Hanse ahead of the 2014 WGC-Cadillac, and with the desired effect. Tiger Woods had won in 19-under the previous year but subsequent totals were four, nine and 12-under on the PGA Tour, then 11 and six-under in 54-hole LIV Golf events.
The demands of this course stretch beyond its yardage but do begin there. Driver is going to get a thorough workout, with par-fives getting longer as the round progresses at 578, 590, 608 and 667 yards. Six of the eight par-fours stretch beyond 450. Hanse made everything bigger and bolder, expanding greens, adding water, and turning what was planned as a restoration into a redesign. "It's a brand new course," he said.
It has been a decade since the PGA Tour came here and as Brooks Koepka failed to qualify, there's nobody with recent course form to call upon, but that doesn't mean there aren't clues we can put to use and first among them is a strong tie to the Masters. The two courses are so very different in many ways – for every ounce of Augusta subtlety there are two ounces of Doral brutalism – but both are high-pressure, driver-heavy, demanding courses, and they throw up strong leaderboard correlations.
In 2025, Marc Leishman beat Charl Schwartzel, Sergio Garcia, Carlos Ortiz and Bryson DeChambeau – two Masters champions, two who've almost won it – and a year earlier we had two more Masters champions and several more contenders in the top few. The picture from 2016 is even more vivid, with the contenders all Masters champions now, and the three before it all displayed clear Augusta ties.
Then there's the 2012 edition which featured Peter Hanson, who a month or so later led the Masters through 54 holes, and Bubba Watson, who won the Masters that year. Watson had finished runner-up to Justin Rose here at Doral and we all know his Augusta story, so it seems eminently possible, even likely, that Sunday's leaderboard throws up similarities with the first major of the year.
The other obvious course correlation is with Torrey Pines, the longest regular PGA Tour stop. Between LIV and the PGA Tour's respective visits, six off the 11 individual Doral champions had or now have also won at Torrey Pines: Nick Watney, Marc Leishman, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson, and Tiger Woods. Adam Scott, Ernie Els and Dustin Johnson have done everything but, and even Dean Burmester fared well there on his one attempt.
Throw in Riviera (Genesis Invitational), Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer Invitational) and Memorial Park (Houston Open) and you've a collection of the biggest golf courses on the circuit, each some sort of help in resolving this latest Signature Event. The problem? Once you do so the conclusion is that this tournament will be won by a bang in-form, world-class player, likely one who hits the ball a good way. And there are plenty of those to choose from.
What's more, I feel the market has cottoned onto this and can't find a way in. The natural contrarian in me could write good cases for Tommy Fleetwood and Patrick Cantlay, allowed to drift as support comes for less rounded, less capable golfers, but the latter group do have plenty in their favour. There's a clear chance this leaderboard is heavily stacked in favour of one particular skill and there's no use arguing otherwise.
Nor is there any sense in betting outright prices that are too short, so there are no recommended bets and I'll pivot instead to a trixie of top nationalities players. Many will choose to place this bet in one go wherever they can, but I'd note that by shopping around and separating out the individual doubles and treble, you might just squeeze a bit more out of it.
First up is SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER.
I strongly considered putting him up in the outright market at 7/2 win-only after back-to-back runner-up finishes and he's going to take some beating. Scheffler is firmly back on track after just a minor blip, right around the time his second child was due, and his rattling finishes to the Masters and the Heritage set him up perfectly for Doral.
He'll skip next week so this is his final start before his PGA Championship defence and it comes at the sort of big, difficult course he so enjoys. He's won four of his last 10 in Florida, including twice at Bay Hill, and is of course a two-time Masters champion. That he hasn't yet won at Torrey Pines, Riviera or Memorial Park doesn't worry me unduly and I can't stress this enough: the biggest dangers are almost all absent.
Cam Young is the one most likely to deny him in the top American market but after that we've short-hitting Russell Henley and then Collin Morikawa, who was still not back up to full speed at Harbour Town. Chris Gotterup and Jake Knapp both look too short to my eye, and without Xander Schauffele the biggest threats might be his friend Patrick Cantlay, and Scheffler's friend Sam Burns.
Still, I don't need to tell you that Scheffler sets the standard and upwards of 2/1 to be the pick of the USA players, which he has been on each of his last two appearances, is more than fair.
Next is the aforementioned TOMMY FLEETWOOD, who has five players to beat including newly-minted PGA Tour member, Alex Fitzpatrick.
Right now it's difficult to argue against either member of the Fitzpatrick brotherhood doing something spectacular but it will be some achievement if Alex, without Matt by his side, can go again following the lifechanging week he's just had in New Orleans.
Harry Hall, Jordan Smith and Matt Wallace are swimming in deep waters here and it looks a match between Fleetwood and Justin Rose, a former Doral champion. However, Rose has a full new set of McLaren golf clubs in the bag and as I'd already have given Fleetwood the edge, that fact makes him a confident selection.
Fleetwood also played some of the best golf in the field over the final 54 holes at Harbour Town, his first round something of a Masters hangover. Rose has been absent since missing another big chance to win the Masters and, with new sticks, his expectations for this week may be modest. It'll be about getting used to them in time for the PGA Championship, the majors all he really cares about now.
Also worth noting is a remarkably strong head-to-head record in favour of Fleetwood. Over the past year, these two have played in the same event 16 times, and Fleetwood has won the battle on 12 occasions. For my money their respective prices are far too close together and there's no big-hitting curveball lurking here.
McLaren Golf is born!! 🧡🖤
— Paul McDonnell (@PaulMac69) April 27, 2026
Been a long journey this last year and a half as so much has gone into these clubs… JR has not left any stone unturned. #MclarenGolf pic.twitter.com/HKp70AdlR4
Finally, ADAM SCOTT can upstage Min Woo Lee and Jason Day to be the best of the Australians.
Lee is favourite but he was thoroughly disappointing at Augusta and not that much better at Harbour Town. OK, the latter isn't really for him but Augusta really ought to be yet he shot 78-77, his newfound approach play improvement conspicuous by its absence, and both that department and the putter let him down in the RBC Heritage.
This is a good place to bounce back but he remains a high ceiling, low floor golfer and I much prefer the wonderfully consistent Scott, whose distance is up and approach play markedly improved. The putter has been holding him back a little but otherwise, this really isn't far off the player who won here a decade ago.
Also third, fourth, sixth, ninth, 13th and 25th down the years, Doral was always one of his favourite courses and so are those which correlate: he's a Masters champion with two wins at Riviera, has gone close at Torrey Pines, and one of his other career highlights came here in Florida when he captured The Players Championship.
Scott has six PGA Tour wins dating back to his Masters triumph and the lowest score required was 12-under here, so tough conditions are also precisely what he wants and I expect him to play well. With Min Woo, that wouldn't surprise me, but nor would something much closer to last than first.
When you combine Scott's course form and a 9-7 head-to-head lead over the past 12 months, I think they have the wrong favourite with Scott longer now than he's ever been. Hopefully Day doesn't scupper things but he never really took to Doral when at the height of his powers and his two Florida starts this year show MC-59, while he missed the cut at Riviera too.
To summarise then, I don't like the outright market, and with a smaller-than-usual investment elsewhere, we could end up with a bigger return than had we found the winner, with two from three enough to double our money. That seems the right approach on this occasion, rather than take under the odds on the big-hitting profile that the market reacted so quickly to on Monday.
Posted at 11:00 BST on 28/04/26
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