Author: Brady Cannon August 20, 2024
Our experts rate Rory McIlroy as likely to win this week.
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Welcome to our weekly column featuring PGA Tour gambling tips handpicked by GOLF.com expert prognosticator Brady Cannon. An experienced golf bettor and commentator, Cannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network dedicated to sports and sports betting. You can follow him on Twitter. Las Vegas Golferand you can read his predictions below for the BMW Championship, which begins Thursday in Castle Rock, Colo. In addition to Kannon's recommended plays, you'll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that features both free-to-play and daily fantasy golf contests, where you can win cash and prizes for every round and tournament.
Wow. Congratulations and apologies to everyone who follows our predictions every week in this column. I correctly spotted Hideki Matsuyama last week in Memphis, but I think his back nine on Sunday took years off my life. Leading by five strokes with seven holes to go, Matsuyama nearly lost it all, but luckily he recovered just in time and we cashed our tickets. Now, with the second round of the playoff looming, let's see if he can get two wins in a row.
The BMW Championship will be held at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado. This is the first time the course has been on the PGA Tour since hosting the last edition of The International, a tour event that began in 1986 and was the first tournament to use a modified Stableford scoring system, in 2006. Less than 30 miles from Denver, the golf course sits at about 6,300 feet above sea level. At just over 8,100 yards, it will be the longest course to host a PGA Tour event. A Jack Nicklaus-designed par 72, it is the longest course to ever host a PGA Tour event.
Developer Jack Vickers hired Nicklaus to design “Augusta National in the mountains,” and there are certainly some similarities. The fairways are wider than tour average, and the mostly bentgrass greens are faster than tour average. And like Augusta, Castle Pines has a large elevation change throughout its route. But what sets it apart from Augusta National are the greens. Castle Pines' greens are a bit smaller than average, and the rough is very thick.
Going over 8,000 yards seems like a nearly impossible challenge, but consider the elevation. The course is close to 7,300-7,400 yards at sea level, which is standard length for a par 72 on tour. Players will need to adjust and get used to the elevation change, so I think Total Driving and Strokes Gained: Tee Shot will be key. There will be a lot of approach shots from 200+ yards this week, many of which will miss the green in regulation. So I focused on scrambling and bogey avoidance. Again, I factored in “getting used” to playing at higher elevation. I also focused on birdie or better, thinking there will be low scores this week. As is common in the Rockies at this time of year, there are afternoon thunderstorms in the forecast. This could soften the golf course a little, and the wind is not expected to blow much. I also saw a very well-respected oddsmaker in Las Vegas put the Under/Over winning score at 22.5 under par. That means I'm not the only one who thinks scores may be lower at altitude this week.
2024 BMW Championship Odds: Any pro with two wins in 2024 is our longshot pick. Author: Kevin Cunningham
As for correlated courses, Castle Pines is a unique venue, so it's hard to pinpoint anything. As mentioned, I considered Augusta National; Bay Hill, with its many long approach shots and a preference for total driving; I considered Club de Golf Chapultepec, played at the WGC Mexico from 2017-2020; it's a course at an elevation of 7,600 feet; and other Nicklaus-designed courses, such as Muirfield Village (Memorial Tournament) and Valhalla, the site of this year's PGA Championship.
Following the conclusion of last week's FedEx St. Jude Championship, the deck has been reshuffled to leave us with the top 50 in FedExCup points. There is again no 36-hole cut this week. Only the top 30 in points at the end of this BMW Championship will advance to next week's season finale, the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Here are my picks for this week:
Rory McIlroy (16-1)
McIlroy was second from the bottom at TPC Southwind last week, but I think that adds a little value to his numbers. If there are only 50 players in the field, and 30 of them have a realistic chance to win, shouldn't McIlroy be lower than 16-1? It's been a rollercoaster of emotions for McIlroy since the U.S. Open, but he has two top-five finishes since then. He has five top-10 finishes at the Memorial. In three appearances at Chapultepec in the WGC-Mexico, McIlroy has a 7-2-5 record. He was 12th at Valhalla earlier this season, but of course he won in 2014. He has also had six top-10 finishes at Bay Hill, including a win and a runner-up finish. When the BMW Championship was held in Cherry Hills, Colorado (at an elevation of 5,300 feet) in 2014, McIlroy finished 8th. More on that later.
“I feel like this golf course is going to be about hitting the golf ball, and there are very few players in the world who do that better than Rory McIlroy. It was a big deal for him to drop from third to fifth in the standings last week, and I think he'll adapt well to this course this week and bounce back.”
Ludvig Aberg at the 2024 Genesis Scottish Open. Getty Images
Ludwig Aberg (25-1)
Maybe we're feeling a bit of a loss in value from Aberg's 40th-place finish at Memphis last week. He's 18-40 in his last three starts, but before that he's 5-12-27-4, with his fifth-place finish coming on a Nicklaus-designed course at Memorial. Behind McIlroy, Aberg is third in Tour Total Driving. Over the last 24 rounds, Aberg ranks 13th in the field in SG: Approach, 18th in Birdies or Better, and 14th in Hole Proximity from 200+ yards. Like McIlroy, I like to pick one of the best drivers in the world at a price that might be a little too high.
Billy Horschel (51-1)
This seems to be an outlier that I found. Most are 40-1 or lower. I might wait to see if I get something better than the widely available prices as posting time approaches, but I think 40-1 is fair. Horschel has been in the top 15 at the Memorial six times, including his win in 2022. That same year, he was runner-up at Bay Hill. In May, Horschel finished eighth at Valhalla in the PGA Championship. As of late, his last three starts are 2-7-10. He is very accurate off the tee and has ranked in the top 10 of this field in both hole proximity and scrambling over 200 yards in the past 24 rounds. I mentioned the 2014 BMW Championship held in Cherry Hills, just 17 miles from Castle Pines, and Horschel was the champion that year and ultimately won the FedEx Cup.
Justin Thomas (52-1)
I've actually seen that number go up a bit, but I view Thomas as a player who does well on Nicklaus courses and on courses with elevation changes. In four WGC-Mexico tournaments at Chapultepec, Thomas is 5-2-9-6. He has two top 10s at the Memorial and lost in a playoff at the 2020 Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village. He has never missed the cut at Bay Hill and finished eighth at Valhalla this season. He also finished runner-up in the 2020 Zozo Championship at Sherwood Country Club, another Nicklaus-designed course in Thousand Oaks, California.
Who will Chirp Golf players pick this week?
The top three Chirp Golf players for the BMW Championship.
To create your own Chirp pick and win some great prizes, download the app here.
