Scottie Scheffler didn’t play the Valspar Championship last week and wouldn’t you know we had another long-shot winner on the PGA Tour.
This time it was Peter Malnati that cashed as a 325/1 outsider.
Malnati became the eighth player with triple-digit odds to collect a win already this season.
Let that sink in. There have been 12 PGA Tour events this season (not including alternate field tournaments) and eight of the winners went off with odds of at least 100/1, and one of the four other tournaments was won by Hideki Matsuyama, who was 80/1 before teeing off.
Long-shot punters will be disappointed to see Scheffler tee it up as a +260 favorite at this week’s Houston Open, but the rest of the field is certainly beatable.
Which long shots should you back at Memorial Park Golf Course?
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Robert MacIntyre (130/1, DraftKings)
There’s a reason that long-shot seekers love to back MacIntyre when he tees it up on the PGA Tour: He has winning upside.
It may sound simple, but when you get down to this part of the betting board you really have to go through a lot of layers to find a player who could actually upset the field and MacIntyre certainly fits that bill.
The 27-year-old from Scotland has long been circled as an up-and-comer on the Tour and while he hasn’t won in the States just yet, he does have two wins on the DP World Tour and has a handful of impressive showings at major championships.
MacIntyre is a great driver of the ball and seems to enjoy playing on difficult tracks, so he makes sense as a triple-digit flutter this week.
Cameron Champ of the United States plays his shot from the seventh tee during the final round of the Valspar Championship. Getty Images Cameron Champ (125/1, BetMGM)
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more boom-or-bust player on the PGA Tour than Champ.
One of the longest hitters on Tour, Champ can get a leg up on the competition if he’s dialed in with his driver.
If he’s not, he will almost certainly miss the cut.
The good news for us is that Champ seemingly has his game going in the right direction after finishing T26 at Innisbrook, which is a course that will punish you severely for erratic driving.
It’s also a plus that Champ, who has three wins on the PGA Tour in his career, played his college golf at Texas A&M and should have some familiarity with the conditions.
Betting on golf?
Justin Suh (200/1, FanDuel)
It’s difficult to apply recent form to this week since we’re moving on from the Florida Swing to the ramp-up to the Masters.
There are some similarities between Memorial Park and Innisbrook, but for the most part I won’t fret too much about players (especially in this range) who didn’t put things together during their time in Florida.
That’s part of the reason why I landed on Justin Suh, who missed four cuts in a row before posting a T33 at the Valspar.
Suh’s ball-striking numbers trended in the right direction at Innisbrook, but he didn’t make a push up the leaderboard so the market is not paying much mind to a player who had four top-10 finishes last season and seemed to be trending toward a win.
