No recommended bets
As I alluded to yesterday the place to be at the cut was up with the pace and so it has transpired. Of the nine players I concentrated on after 36 holes, four of those fill the top four places.
The 11 winners here in the past were all in the top five heading into Sunday and none were more than four shots behind so it would appear that the winner will be between Viktor Hovland, Martin Laird and Josh Teater.
Laird matched the course record with a round of 63 yesterday, but Hovland only took one shot more and as a result takes a one stroke lead into Sunday.
Patrick Rodgers was the only player who made it past a few who were in contention, but I think he is too far back. No player under 50/1 pre-tournament has ever won, which counts against Rodgers and Hovland. It's probably irrelevant and the latter, 11/1 before the event, is justifiably odds-on now.
Hovland actually tops the PGA tour final scoring average for the final round over the past 12 months with a mightily impressive 68.09, but so far this year he hasn’t been great including a lacklustre 77 at Pebble Beach. I really do think that is one of the few crumbs of comfort other players can take although the only time he has taken the lead into the final round of a professional event, at last year's Boise Open, he lost by a shot.
For those of you on Laird at 50/1 I wish you well as it is far from a done deal and he certainly has experience on his side, something that has been crucial here in the past.
All of that basically leaves us looking for a player to place or a two-ball bet, and as there are limited companies offering place only markets I have scoured the tee times to find if there is anything on offer.
I was actually hoping for three-balls and was looking to oppose Bill Haas and K.H. Lee, who rank 180th and 172nd out of 183 in round four scoring average, but we have two-balls and oddly enough they are paired together so that throws that plan out of the window.
The only large discrepancy in final round scoring averages between players paired together is Brice Garnett, who lies eighth with 69.07 strokes, and Joseph Bramlett, who is 147th with 71.28. The problem with this matchup is that only Sky Bet seem to deem it worthy of pricing up at the time of writing and whilst they make them the same price (clearly wrong based on simple scoring averages) I cannot put it up with just one bookmaker available to bet with.
