Golf expert Ben Coley previews the opening round of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
- Scheffler tees off at 12:52 UK time
- Afternoon double under way at 16:42
- McIlroy an injury doubt ahead of defence
Golf betting tips: The Players round one
1pt Scheffler, English & Knapp to win their three-balls at 7/1 (General)
2.5pts Mitchell and Rai to win their three-balls at 3/1 (General)
1pt Mitchell, Rai & Hodges to win their three-balls at 11/1 (General)
0.5pt six-fold the above selections at 100/1 (General)
The weather forecast for The Players Championship is largely excellent, but Thursday's first round could be interrupted by a cold front which threatens to delay play at some stage. As of now, the PGA Tour describes thunderstorms (they call them T-storms, obviously) as 'likely' and that's enough to temper enthusiasm in the first-round leader market.
Were we assured of an uninterrupted day then the early starters would look to have the best of it, with the worst wind of the week set for the afternoon. We've seen big draw biases emerge in this tournament in the past, one of them knocking SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER off his stride before he gained revenge by going back-to-back, but if another does emerge this week I've no clue who will benefit.
As such we'll stick to the three-balls where Scheffler makes clear appeal at just a shade of odds-on to beat Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Thomas. The latter returned from injury last week and plainly wasn't ready, shooting 79-79 to finish last at Bay Hill. He's a former Sawgrass winner but that alone isn't enough to anticipate a significant turnaround, especially as he's almost never started well here.
I believe this is a match and 5/6 Scheffler in a match with anyone, anywhere is good business. Around Sawgrass, after Fleetwood played so poorly in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, it looks a bit of a gift. He's been a step below where he'd like to be the past three weeks but even that level would make him hard to beat over 18 holes around a course made for him, so we don't need to complicate things here.
Other morning options I considered were Bud Cauley, sixth in this last year and grouped with two players who are struggling badly with their long-games, and Max Homa, who is a big price versus debutant Michael Thorbjornsen and a wounded Daniel Berger. Who knows how the latter will respond to Sunday's disappointment, though the fact that he has a good Players record is enough to resist taking Homa as the outsider.
HARRIS ENGLISH is the other solid option and again we're taking on someone who was very poor last week in JT Poston, who had only Thomas behind him. That's the second event in a row where Poston has been all at sea and as his round-by-round record here is feast or famine, he's at risk of shooting a big number.
The third member of this group is the highly talented Michael Brennan, but his powerful game isn't particularly well-suited to the Stadium Course and as he can't buy a putt at the moment, he too may struggle. English however has been as solid as you like this year with a top-30 finish on every start. He's produced two of those in succession at Sawgrass, too, and is fancied to set the bar high as the class act.
Outright selection Matt Fitzpatrick may do likewise but Sami Valimaki has made the cut on both starts here and can hole anything on his day, while Lucas Glover was third last year and showed more last week. That's enough to put me off those two and turn to JAKE KNAPP instead.
His withdrawal prior to the API is a bit of a worry but it was due to illness rather than injury, and this is one of the form players on the PGA Tour. Knapp has form figures of 11-5-8-8-6 this year and in eight rounds at Sawgrass has shot nothing worse than 73, a number that should be good enough to win this three-ball.
Sungjae Im shot 76-72 on his return from surgery at Bay Hill and has never started well in this, while Aldrich Potgieter was 11-over for his two rounds there. The argument for ignoring his Riviera top-five was that a rain-softened version of that course played into the hands of the bombers, and we can roll it out again. Sawgrass is likely to catch him out early and often.
Onto the evening and three players appealed, with KEITH MITCHELL and AARON RAI the pick of them.
Mitchell is about as solid as it gets, likes Sawgrass, often starts well, and is in good form. Erik van Rooyen on the other hand hasn't made a cut since the first week in September. As it happens, that's when Mitchell last missed a cut, which underlines the difference in the state of their respective games.
Mitchell should comfortably account for the South African and leave us with Michael Kim to beat. He's a player I like and there have been some good signs lately, but in a dozen rounds here he averages 74.42, more than two strokes higher than Mitchell. If we isolate the renewals both have played in it's 3-1 to Mitchell overall, all of his wins comfortable, and the sole defeat was by a single shot.
Drill down further to look at the round-by-round record and it's 6-2 to Mitchell, who is the current and course-form pick. Kim's record in this reads 60-MC-MC-MC-MC and until he shows he can handle Sawgrass, he can be taken on. That he's putting badly at the moment is a bonus.
Rai lives near the course and has put that familiarity to use with finishes of 19-35-14 so far. He's a good fit on paper and returns in solid form, improving week to week in four starts this year and doing enough to look a lively outsider. I've put him up for this before and considered doing so again.
Bar an off day at Pebble Beach he's been starting fast lately but he might not need to to beat Karl Vilips and Brian Campbell, one long and one short but both out of sorts. Vilips shot 72-78 last year and his irons right now are poor. Campbell has made just two of six cuts this year, is without a top 50 so far, and wasn't a factor on his Sawgrass debut.
There's one other player I like and that's LEE HODGES.
He's in with Sam Stevens, favourite despite a course record of MC-MC and a poor performance at Bay Hill, which ought to have suited. Powerful driving is his main weapon and it might take him to a first PGA Tour win soon enough, but surely not here.
Andrew Putnam is hitting his irons well but he's a weak driver who relies on his putting, which isn't in a good place either. That explains three modest performances since he was runner-up on the west coast, where he's more comfortable, and a course record of MC-MC-MC-MC-53-MC makes for grim reading.
Hodges isn't exactly flying at the moment but he's more comfortable at Sawgrass than the other two, having carded four rounds of par or better for a mid-pack finish on his last start here. And he's at least ticking over, ranking inside the top 20 both off the tee and with his approaches at the Cognizant in what could represent a nice way to prepare for this.
He's value at 7/4 and upwards and I'd rather stick to these known quantities than look to take on Austin Smotherman, who injured himself during the third round last week. That he's in with two badly out-of-sorts players helps avoid that temptation but I would still advise against rushing to back the favourite given that his condition is uncertain.
Likewise it seems Rory McIlroy isn't fully over the back problem that forced his Bay Hill withdrawal, but whereas Smotherman might feel he needs to tee it up regardless, McIlroy will withdraw if he's not fit. Yes, he's the defending champion and he'd dearly love to attempt to emulate Scheffler in winning this back-to-back, but a month out from the Masters his priority will be arriving fit and well at Augusta.
Posted at 12:45 GMT on 10/03/26
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