Two of Scottie Scheffler's best friends might be the biggest dangers to him in the Phoenix Open according to golf expert Ben Coley.
Golf betting tips: Phoenix Open
3pts e.w. Sam Burns at 25/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Tom Kim at 33/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Si Woo Kim at 60/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Matt Fitzpatrick at 66/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Cameron Young at 66/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Rickie Fowler at 70/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Everyone involved in golf in some way has spent a lot of the last few years talking about what's wrong with it, but the Waste Management Phoenix Open is a fine example of something that is right. This tournament, which corresponds with Super Bowl Sunday, knows exactly what it is and has spent years building an identity such that it cannot possibly be confused with any other on the PGA Tour.
Of course, encouraging adults to booze from sunrise to sunset within metres of professional athletes is bound to cause issues and no doubt the line, that famous line, has been moved one way and then the other, no doubt it has been crossed from time to time; but at least everyone knows what they're signing up for. Players have to brace themselves for Phoenix and maybe it's no coincidence that we've had several repeat winners.
TPC Scottsdale is a quite bland course in places but again, that's just fine – particularly as it builds to a spectacular crescendo, the full suite of watery par-five, short par-three, driveable, watery par-four, and... OK, so the closing hole could be better. Nevertheless, course and tournament and field and crowd work largely in harmony for one of the genuine highlights of any season.
It's officially tournament week. Who's excited? We're excited. pic.twitter.com/WQCY1eGCFq
— WM Phoenix Open (@WMPhoenixOpen) February 3, 2025
Now, without pretending the Phoenix Open is a particularly significant title, this is a particularly hard tournament to win. Not even the best in the world are used to playing in front of such large and vocal crowds and when you stand on the 16th tee on Sunday, when you hit that tee-shot down towards the 17th green, you can't escape the tension. In the world of golf a Phoenix Sunday is a pretty intense spotlight.
Look at the last 10 renewals and you'll see that as this tournament has grown and grown, it's gone to a small group of players. Eight of these have been won by a current or subsequent major champion, with Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama and Scottie Scheffler bagging two each, Gary Woodland and Webb Simpson one. The others have gone to Rickie Fowler, who is everything but a major winner, and Nick Taylor, the most prolific non-elite golfer on the PGA Tour.
Also worth saying is that, partly because of the pressure factor but also the tougher holes before we reach the 15th, this is a tournament for premiere ball-strikers. That's always been the case and is underlined by the fact that last year's top six in the tee-to-green stats all finished in the top six and ties, just as the top five had a year earlier. Some iffy putters have won here, including a couple of those named above, and many others have gone close to doing so.
Scheffler was around a 4/1 chance when bidding for the hat-trick last year and has gone up another level since, so in a slightly weaker field his price is pretty much as you'd expect. Last week's return to action suggested few if any lingering effects following an accident over Christmas as his approach play was as good as ever, and no doubt he'll take some stopping if the claw putting grip continues to do the job.
I have a bit of a Scheffler problem in that I don't like taking short prices on the PGA Tour, where the talent pool is so deep, and the bottom line I suppose is that if you are inclined to back him, there's really not much else to say. The form is right in front of you and it'd be a disingenuous waste of time were I to try to find negatives that are not there. He might win this comfortably and I wouldn't blame anyone for backing him, or looking to markets which remove him from the equation.
We do at least get inflated prices in his presence, a point underscored last week when Rory McIlroy was allowed to go off at 14/1 and bigger on the exchanges, and I'm happy to take Scheffler's friend SAM BURNS to beat him just as he did at Colonial a couple of years ago.
Burns certainly wouldn't be someone I'd expect to be overawed by the prospect of going up against the world number one on Sunday and having been sixth and third in the last two editions of this tournament, that's very much a possibility.
He was in undeniably good form prior to each of them but that's the case again following eighth in The Sentry, 29th in the AmEx and 22nd at Pebble Beach, where he missed 10 putts inside 20 feet on Sunday and fell down the leaderboard having been unable to get anything going.
Those poa annua greens and the nature of the course can be blamed and it's not an event he'd have on the schedule but for the inflated prize fund, whereas he's been a Phoenix regular down the years, often showing promise before putting everything together more recently.
Clearly, his putter has been a key contributing factor and there's a nagging worry over his approach play, but Burns' tee-to-green display last year was his best of the season, the previous one up there too, and with his driver improved since this one began he looks close to putting everything together.
The combination of the change in putting surfaces and this weaker field could see him do that as no doubt this is the best course for his game since last year's customarily strong run in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, so he looks as big a danger to Scheffler as anyone bar Justin Thomas, who took a backwards step last week.
Thomas is respected but there are two potential areas of weakness, his driver and his putter, and both were very poor at Pebble Beach. Given that he was also among the worst iron players in two of the four rounds, there really aren't enough positives to go diving in at 12/1 in a field which features the best player in the game.
Preference is for TOM KIM, the first name on my list but one I'd expected to have to leave out after he played so well last week.
Despite making a hash of the 18th hole, seventh place was a big step up on previous visits to Pebble Beach and all facets of his game looked good, apart from the speed at which he plays it.
Notably, putting improvement can be traced back to the return of a blade-style putter to the bag, the one which helped him to win three PGA Tour titles in a couple of years including two in the Nevada desert at Summerlin, a course with natural similarities to this one.
Should Kim continue to hole his share then his reliable long-game can carry him into the mix once more and as with Burns, the fact that he plays so much golf with Scheffler means he would be one you could see beating him as he so nearly did at the Travelers last summer.

It's been a mixed bag since then but Kim lipped out a putt to win on the DP World Tour, came close to a medal at the Olympic Games, and for much of last weekend looked like the biggest danger to McIlroy at a set of courses where he'd had limited success in the past.
Here at Scottsdale, a second-round 66 on debut vaulted him into the top 10 and last year he climbed from 111th after a first-round 74 to finish 17th, shooting 13-under across the final 54 holes, three better than the eventual winner. Only one other player shot 74 or worse on Thursday and so much as made the cut.
Back then, Kim had made a very slow start to the campaign and 17th here would be his best result until June. Since then, he's bettered it on six occasions and with the sort of personality to cope well with the undoubted heckling, and a far better preparation behind him, a third desert could be on the cards.
Ben An and Sahith Theegala both have strong Scottsdale records but aren't wholly convincing at the moment, so I'm going further down the betting to SI WOO KIM, my favourite bet in Phoenix this week.
Kim is an elite ball-striker and following statistically his strongest season on the PGA Tour in 2024, he finally got this one up and running with 12th place at Pebble Beach, where historically he has a very patchy record with five missed cuts set against one top-10.
He's actually yet to manage one of those here in Phoenix but has improved with just about every visit since 2016, returning each and every year for an event he presumably enjoys. Based on his Presidents Cup exploits, you can see why as Si Woo definitely revels under the gun.
While not really a major contender as yet save for the odd flash, he is a former winner of The PLAYERS Championship and has the mettle required to go close on Sunday here, at a course where his supreme long-game looks an obviously good fit.
Kim has finally shown as much in recent appearances, finishing 26th, 23rd and 12th over the last three and shooting par or better in 15 of his last 16 rounds. Two of these finishes came courtesy of top-10 tee-to-green displays, the kind we expect from him, but notably he's putted better than average in each of the last two and ranked as high as eighth in 2023.
That club was excellent over the closing 36 holes at Pebble Beach and more of the same would make Kim, a winner in the California desert, one of the most interesting threats to the favourite if you ask me.
CAMERON YOUNG, eighth as recently as three starts ago and eighth in this event last year, when he spent all week inside the top 10, is next on the list on the basis that the price outweighs concerns around his approach work.
That top-10 here came after he'd been 70th at Pebble Beach so finishing 72nd last week doesn't worry me too much and Young at least finished with his best round of the week, a three-under 69 which featured seven birdies and actually a few nice putts.
Clearly, that club needs to take a big leap forward as he ranked 77th of 78, largely due to a shocking first round, but again there are parallels with last year. In fact his numbers through the bag were virtually identical across these two starts at Pebble Beach.
We do also need to overlook a poor effort in the AmEx but prior to that Young was eighth in a strong field in Hawaii and all thanks to his short-game, to offer at least some hope that he might turn things around on the greens.
Good morning from #thepeoplesopen. pic.twitter.com/cDad3X1zkq
— WM Phoenix Open (@WMPhoenixOpen) February 3, 2025
He's actually putted well here twice in three starts and the contrast in surfaces is a marked one, so with his driver having started to purr he becomes a fascinating option at a big price given both his course and major credentials, for all that one or two of his finishing efforts have attracted deserved criticism.
I like the fact that his desert record extends to third in Dubai and second in Saudi Arabia and having been dangled at a big price for what I'd consider to be a really suitable event, one won in the past by several players with his kind of profile, he looks worth the associated risks.
Billy Horschel loves it here and has been the best putter across the last five renewals combined, so with his irons firing at Pebble Beach it's no wonder he's attracted support, but I prefer RICKIE FOWLER at a similar if not slightly bigger price.
Fowler seems to have slipped under the radar a little bit but since returning to action in October, he has four top-25s in five starts and was one good round away from making it a clean sweep on Sunday, only to fall down the leaderboard because of two mistakes at par-fives, which cost him effectively five or six shots.
His record at Pebble Beach is poor, though, so to be 20th at halfway and still within touching distance of that kind of finish entering the final round of a Signature Event is all positive as far as I'm concerned, especially as there's big room for improvement with the putter.
He now drops in grade and returns to Phoenix, one of his favourite events on the schedule. Fowler should've probably won here when second to Hunter Mahan in 2010, was unlucky when second again in 2016, finished fourth and 11th the following two years, then clung on for an overdue and emotional win in 2019.
Since then it's been more negative than positive, three missed cuts in four having followed, but he was 10th in a better field behind Scheffler two years ago and that despite a slow start to the tournament and Scottsdale remains a great course for him when firing.
There is of course a bit of a doubt as to where he is with his game right now but fourth in the ZOZO was good and Scheffler aside, this isn't the deepest event. Given how common multiple winners have been, perhaps Fowler will be the latest.
US Open winner Fitz the bill
Gary Woodland is seeking to do the same and both his current and course form are similar to Fowler's, but at the risk of siding with one too many an out-of-sorts golfer, MATT FITZPATRICK is next.
Finishes of 10th, 29th and 15th in this event highlight that Fitzpatrick is comfortable at Scottsdale and his desert record, which includes two wins in the DP World Tour Championship, is very good.
He's obviously a major champion and now a two-time winner in the US, the other in a Signature Event, so he has that box ticked and while plainly not firing on all cylinders over the past 12 months, he was 18th and 28th in Playoff events to end last season and, in the main, has been solid albeit unspectacular on a light schedule since.
Fitzpatrick shot 65-66 during the middle rounds of The Sentry, where he was 20-under for his final three rounds, and after a month off played reasonable at Pebble Beach, where a combination of a slow start at Spyglass and a rare off-day on the greens during round three kept him down the leaderboard.

I thought there were some positives though, especially the way he drove it on Sunday, and it's worth noting that his form entering this event last year was 14-MC-58, yet he was among the very best drivers and finished close enough to the places.
Top-fives in The PLAYERS and the Memorial both came after quiet spells at courses he enjoys and with several members of the European Ryder Cup side making statements at Pebble Beach, this looks a good opportunity for the 2022 US Open winner to remind us all of his class.
On balance I'd rather side with Fitzpatrick than someone like Kurt Kitayama, although he did make the shortlist on account of his strong course and overall desert form. It's not hard to forgive him Torrey Pines, where Thursday's second round caught him out, but the price seems about right whereas with Fitzpatrick, there's definite upside.
At bigger odds, Chan Kim has played Scottsdale countless times having been raised and gone to college in Arizona so he's of some interest after an improved display last time, while it was here in Phoenix that Bud Cauley made his PGA Tour comeback and his long-game is getting close to the levels which once made him one of the most promising players on the circuit.
Back up the betting and Sam Stevens, a player I like a lot and one who drives the ball beautifully, could build on his debut effort. He's gone close to winning at some big courses now, including Torrey Pines a couple of weeks ago and in the Texas desert in 2023, and come the end of this year may well be a PGA Tour champion.
He'd be the last name off the list but I'd rather go a bit bigger on Burns, who I expect to serve it up to his friend and hopefully do as Taylor did and get the better of Scheffler at what is admittedly a great course for the latter.
Posted at 1730 GMT on 03/02/25
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