Shriners Hospital Open, plus Champions and Korn Ferry picks

The PGA tour moves further West so later nights this week – I must admit I prefer the East coast events for betting times but there we go. I am going to play it cautious to begin with and have backed Zach Johnson mainly win only @ 85 average on Betfair with a view to trade, plus a small amount at 66/1 e/w. Ben Coley sums up a lot of why I like him, in the past few weeks we have seen Cink and Garcia win on the PGA tour for the first time in a few years after winning a Major and Johnson hasn’t won since the Open in 2015. He has had a couple of top tens in recent weeks including the US Open so he’s in decent nick. A rare visitor to this event, mainly due to being busy with Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup duties, but on his debut way back he did open with a 62 to tie the lead. I will mention young amateur Parker Coody who got an invite after winning a top collegiate event earlier in the year here in Las Vegas. He played in the Maridoe Invitational event back in May and finished 3rd behind Wu and Scheffler with players like Zalatoris, Jaeger, Munoz, Ancer and Hovland in behind – he can clearly play. I have taken the 1000 on Betfair and had small bets in the top 5/10 markets and even FRL.

On the Champions Tour at least we don’t have Phil Mickelson but we do have Jim Furyk to contend with and he is two from two so far on this tour. I have had a small e/w bet on Cameron Beckman who seems to be finding his feet on tour going 45/35/10 in his three starts so far. Any further progression could see him poach a top five place, though a small amount of my wager was on the 175/1 with 6 places.

We also have the Korn Ferry tour playing this week at Orange National County which is being played on the Panther Lake course – the KF tour Q School in 2019 and in 2016 played two of the four rounds here. Like a sad old sod I went through the two round scores played here last year to find who played the best. Curtis Thompson was co-medalist overall and shot the lowest two rounds on the Panther course – 69-62, the 62 was three shots lower than anyone else shot on the week. He won his first KF event last month and I’ve taken the 40/1 e/w with 6 places available with Stars. I have had a smaller bet on Dawson Armstrong @ 100/1 e/w – he shot 68/66 here back in December and has been playing well of late with two top five finishes in his last four starts.