TULSA, Okla. — Ah, a tradition unlike any other: Previewing the next week’s tournament while still on-site at the previous week’s major championship.
I’ll keep this one regrettably truncated for the upcoming Charles Schwab Challenge, but thankfully there’s plenty of data to employ for a tournament that has been contested at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, for decades longer than any of the current competitors have even been alive.
We know what we’re getting with Colonial, a 7,209-yard par-70 that requires an emphasis on precision off the tee and ball-striking more than the bomb-and-gouge strategies of other PGA Tour venues.
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One quick note as we travel from one Perry Maxwell design at Southern Hills to another: Last Wednesday, during his pre-tournament press conference, Jordan Spieth compared the two courses, saying, “It reminds me a lot of Colonial, just a little bit on steroids, a little more undulation and driver in your hands more.”
While neither of the eventual playoff competitors at the PGA Championship has much Colonial experience — Justin Thomas has played it twice, Will Zalatoris once — I do think we can extrapolate this comparison to understand which players fared well last week and might do so on a shorter version of a similar track at this one.
With that in mind, I’m looking at a bunch of players who fared well in different aspects of their games at Southern Hills — and especially toward the end — while passing on those who are fresh off a serious title contention.
Charles Schwab Challenge best bets
Odds courtesy of BetMGM.
Outright winner – Brian Harman (50/1):
The final-round leader in Strokes Gained: Approach shots last week wasn’t Thomas or Zalatoris or any of the ball-striking contenders. It was Harman, who gained 2.90 strokes with his irons. This is a metric where I’ll be targeting many of my plays this week, as Chris Kirk, Maverick McNealy, Justin Rose, and Collin Morikawa were all inside the top 10 on Sunday.
Harman posted only a 1-under 69 in that final round, but it wasn’t an inability to post red numbers that held him back. For the weekend, he tallied an eagle and eight birdies, but it was nine bogeys that kept him from seriously climbing the board.
At a course where he owns three top 10s and six top 25s in nine starts, I’ll play him outright here, though it’s not such a confident play that I won’t have a handful of others on the card, as well.
Top-5 finish – Collin Morikawa (+400)
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Morikawa didn’t have anything close to his best stuff at Southern Hills, but as mentioned earlier, the ball-striking numbers looked to be his usual top-shelf stuff in the final round. Following a runner-up result in his first career start two years ago, he was T14 last year, showing that this is a course that is right up his alley.
Top-10 finish – Chris Kirk (+350)
If you’d asked me early on Sunday for a favorite outright at Colonial, I likely would’ve offered up Kirk, but a T5 finish has me thinking he’s a bit too chalky and perhaps a bit too short in the books.
Even so, the 2015 winner here is clearly worth a play, even if he’s been a bit all-or-nothing lately. He’s cashed three top-10 tickets in his past seven starts but also has three MCs during that time. I do like the upside, though.
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