Free betting tips: Ben Coley's Sanderson Farms preview
Golf expert Ben Coley is looking for each-way value with six selections - including a 500/1 shot - for the Sanderson Farms Championship.
The fourth event of the PGA Tour season may well prove to be the toughest to solve, if history proves an accurate guide to this week's Sanderson Farms Championship.
Whereas the Safeway Open attracts a strong field - Phil Mickelson played this year's renewal, won again by Brendan Steele - the Sanderson Farms remains weak, in part because it sits opposite the WGC-HSBC Champions. Typically, weak means hard-to-predict and that's certainly been the case so far, with Nick Taylor, Peter Malnati and Cody Gribble all sent off huge prices before going on to win.
Drawing comparisons between the three isn't straightforward, but they were all Web.com Tour graduates and that makes sense. This is the first event which appears to offer a genuine opportunity for those who earned their promotion last month and the low-scoring conditions of Jackson Country Club are more alike to what they've experienced over the past year than Silverado, the tricky home of the Safeway.
Gribble and Malnati were both sure to be comfortable on these fast Bermuda greens, given that one grew up in Texas, the other in Tennessee, and it showed. Both men led the field in strokes-gained: putting for the week and Taylor wasn't far off, ranking seventh and making everything he looked at under the pressure of the final round.
Putting is the hardest thing to predict in golf. There are good putters and bad putters, of course, and over a season we can make fairly sound predictions as to who will populate which slots in the rankings. But, while Gribble and Malnati are both superb putters, forecasting that they lead the field on any given week remains a very difficult challenge.
Besides which, are three renewals in Jackson sufficient to label this event a pure putting contest? I don't think so. Some of those closest to Gribble - Lucas Glover, Luke List and in particular Xander Schauffele - didn't putt well and anyone who produces an elite ball-striking performance this week will, as ever, stand an excellent chance.
The head of the market is a smorgasbord of in-form Web.com graduates, formerly class acts seeking a route back to the top, PGA Tour journeymen and winners-in-waiting, none of whom make particular appeal.
Kevin Streelman started well here last year and has won at other old-fashioned courses with some similarities to Jackson, which Glover called "an old-school southern course", so might be the man to beat. But given what we've seen over the last three years, taking no more than 28/1 about an infrequent winner who often goes cold on the greens just isn't the way to go.
Instead, I'll start with a pair of Web.com grads who might be suited by this challenge, namely Stephan Jaeger and Talor Gooch.
Jaeger, from Eichenried in Germany, is famous for shooting 58 en route to the first of three victories on the second tier, two of which have come under easy scoring conditions. His ability to take an opportunity, acknowledged by former classmate Harris English, makes him an ideal candidate to pop up at a big price and so does that propensity to go stupidly low.
He made his first start as a PGA Tour cardholder in the Safeway Open, which represents a tough introduction, and performed well to finish 30th. Most impressive was his ball-striking - only one man in the field hit more greens - and it's easy to forgive this usually solid operator a poor week with the putter, which potentially cost him an opening top 10.
Having studied at Baylor in neighbouring Tennessee, these pure Bermuda greens will be absolutely fine and having been described as one of the hardest-working players on the circuit, there's every possibility that he's found his mojo with the putter in the two weeks which have passed since his sole start this season.
Jaeger actually played here last year and missed the cut after a poor second round, but he'd at least started with a bogey-free 70 and returns a better, more confident player who will have taken great encouragement from his last start. The experience he gathered then can only stand him in good stead.
He says he's good enough to be a top-10 player in the world at some stage and whether that proves to be true or not, strikes me as an ideal candidate to find some form with the flat stick and produce the sort of low numbers which will again be required here.
Another pointer towards Jaeger's chance might be his seventh place in the News Sentinel Open, played on the Bermuda grass of Fox Den Country Club in Tennessee.
Malnati won there in 2013 and so too has Patton Kizzire, who had a fine chance to take this title a couple of years ago. It may just prove a decent pointer along with Victoria National, which looks far less obvious a fit yet saw Gribble chase home Seamus Power in 2016, before the pair contended here, and throws up ties via Kizzire, Malnati and Greg Owen among others.
All of which is good news for Gooch, who won at Fox Den earlier this season, continuing his rise from stellar amateur career, through the minor leagues and now to this, the top table in world golf.
Gooch putted really well in the Safeway and was on course to finish somewhere alongside Jaeger before taking six at the par-three 15th in round four.
He grew up on Bermuda greens, also played well at Victoria National last year as well as down south in Louisiana, and is one of the few Web.com graduates I can find who comes here with the putter firing, who is confirmed as comfortable on the surfaces and appears to have the ability to win at this level.
Beau Hossler and Aaron Wise, to name just two, are better long-term prospects and the former is tempting here. Part of the reason he chose to study in Texas, having grown up on the west coast, was to learn how to play on Bermuda and you can be sure this studious approach will help him become an elite player in time.
For now, though, I'll keep an eye on those two and instead side with Corey Conners.
A beaten finalist in the US Amateur in Georgia a couple of years ago, Conners is probably the most promising player to emerge from Canada since Masters champion Mike Weir.
He got off to a blistering start on the Web.com Tour last season before a summer slump, which he appears to have emerged from having produced five top-30 finishes from his last six starts, including when finishing alongside Jaeger in California last time.
One of the best ball-strikers to graduate from the second tier (led GIR), he looks sure to set up plenty of opportunities and the hope is he can follow in the footsteps of close friend Mackenzie Hughes, who won the RSM Classic at around this time last year soon after he'd earned his PGA Tour card.
This event has been kind to Canadians in the past and Conners has a similar profile to 2014 winner Taylor, who also enjoyed a brilliant amateur career, showed steady but unspectacular Web.com form, and then took his first opportunity at this level in style.
If putting does prove to be decisive here, it makes sense to have someone like Aaron Baddeley on side. A class act relative to this grade, the Australian showed as recently as 14 months ago that he still has what it takes to win as he edged past Si-woo Kim at the Barbasol, putting as beautifully as ever on Bermuda greens.
Also fourth here on his only start two years ago, 80/1 could look a big price if something has clicked in Baddeley's game. Unfortunately, nothing he's done over the past six or so months suggests he's about to win again and while I wouldn't rule it out, there's a lot to be taken on trust.
Instead, my choice of the best putters in the field is Steve Wheatcroft.
Nobody in this field - Baddeley included - putted better than Wheatcroft last season, with Gribble and Malnati also just behind him in the charts.
He's a proven winner at Web.com level, his first title having come by a whopping 12 shots in 29-under, and the low-scoring conditions of the Sanderson Farms should be right up his street.
In fact, all of Wheatcroft's best form has come at similarly low-scoring par-72s. He should've won the Canadian Open in 2016, blading his bunker shot on the final hole into the hazard to fall to fifth, and has top-three finishes in the Humana Challenge and Puerto Rico Open, the latter an opposite event like this one.
His best effort last season came a couple of hours due north of this week's venue in the FedEx St Jude Classic, and he's made every cut dating back to the John Deere Classic in July to confirm that his game is in excellent shape.
Wheatcroft is at his best on Bermuda greens, perhaps no surprise since he now resides in Florida, and is expected to improve upon last year's solid tie for 29th here, which was his first start of the season.
Finally, while it hasn't happened here yet these end-of-term events do offer up an opportunity for those who've fallen from grace, such as Luke Donald who loves Bermuda and will go close here if in the form he showed two starts back on the European Tour.
Donald is tempting but I'd rather back Hunter Mahan and, believe it or not, Steven Bowditch.
Mahan is much easier to explain. He produced his best PGA Tour finish in over two years last time, sharing 13th in Napa, and there had been signs over the preceding months that his work with Chris O'Connell is beginning to pay off.
O'Connell is the man credited with resurrecting Matt Kuchar's career and there's definite scope for something similar with Mahan, at his best a genuine major contender, frequent winner and, infamously, Ryder Cup player.
What really catches my eye is the fact that Mahan hit more greens than anyone in the Safeway Open. Again, it's a long time since he did that - in fact, you have to go all the way back to the 2014 Barclays, his most recent win.
Greens-in-regulation charts are out of fashion these days, rightly replaced by strokes-gained data which dives much deeper, but they can still be useful. With Mahan, the trigger for wins was so often an upturn in greens hit - in fact, he'd led the field in both starts prior to The Barclays to suggest that his turn was near.
Given that he also ranked among the top 15 for strokes-gained putting in the Safeway, everything could be coming together for a genuine title challenge. Mahan played really nicely last time and while he has no experience of this course, there's no reason it won't suit.
As for Bowditch, one of his two PGA Tour titles came on Bermuda putting surfaces and there were signs of life last time as he fought to save his card at the Wyndham Championship.
Having faltered over the weekend, he now has to rely on weak fields if he's to get a chance at this level and I found it interesting to read that he'd just installed some state-of-the-yard practice facilities at home before, in his words, 'losing my job'.
Fitting out a golf studio.. any recommendations for camera systems would be greatly appreciated.. thanks 👍
— bowdo (@bowdo83) August 6, 2017
That suggests a player who used to be known for spending more time fishing than grinding might find renewed vigour in his situation and with those hints of something good across the first 36 holes of the Wyndham, I can't resist a small bet at 500/1.
We know what we're getting with Bowditch - no player in this field is more likely to shoot a pair of 80s - but he's popped up to win twice before, and has also finished second on his seasonal return at around this time in 2014. Perhaps this Texas resident can do so once more.
Recommended bets: Sanderson Farms Championship
Posted at 1010 BST on 24/10/17.
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