The PGA TOUR trades the picturesque backdrop of Manhattan in for the Maryland countryside on Friday (AEDT) as the BMW Championship tees off from the Caves Valley Golf Club.
With the FedEx Cup Playoffs field now reduced to 70, this weekend promises to be the perfect encore to Tony Finau’s thrilling playoff win at The Northern Trust.
Runner up Cameron Smith will again fly the flag for the Aussies, but this is a very difficult tournament to get a feel for with Caves Valley hosting its first PGA Tour event.
Like last week, the course features Bentgrass greens, placing emphasis on ball striking and approach. To make matters even more complicated, humid temperatures are also expected right throughout the weekend.
With no shortage of value on offer, we’ve got you covered with our best bets, value and roughies inn our 2021 BMW Championship Preview below!
BMW Championship 2021 Best Bet
Rory McIlroy at $26.00
We’ve seen a bit of a trend emerge over the last few weeks with “unbackable” guys like Abraham Ancer and Tony Finau winning the WGC St Jude and last week’s Northern Trust.
Everyone knows those guys are great golfers, but given their inconsistency, nobody really wanted to bet on them.
Rory McIlroy’s resume speaks for itself, but he’s sort of slipped into that category recently after finishing outside the Top 40 at the PGA Championship, The Open Championship, and last week’s Northern Trust.
Still, what we’ve seen unfold in recent weeks reads well for the Irishman, and so too does the fact he won the Wells Fargo Championship earlier in the year on a Tom Fazio-designed course.
McIlroy’s biggest concern recently has been putting, but considering he still ranks fifth in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, I think he can surprise a few people on a course that calls for plenty of precision with the driver.
BMW Championship 2021 Best Value
Scottie Scheffler at $31.00
There aren’t many guys playing better golf at the moment than this man.
To be fair, Scheffler finished outside the Top 40 last week at the Northern Trust, but his middle rounds of 68 and 69 were super impressive for a guy still chasing his first TOUR win.
Prior to that, the American finished T7 at the US Open, T8 at The Open Championship before an outright 14th at the WGC St Jude.
He’s crept all the way into 20th in the official world golf rankings and is definitely worth a wager to become the first player since Camilo Villegas to claim his first PGA Tour victory in the Playoffs.
BMW Championship 2021 Best Roughie
Joaquin Niemann at $46.00
The Chilean flashed more of his potential last week with a third-round 65 at Liberty National.
Niemann has been flirting with a win all year, most notably finishing T2 at the Rocket Mortgage and T10 in Tokyo earlier in the month.
He’s a long bomber, which might work in his favour this week, particularly on the par 4’s.
Sungjae Im at $61.00
This is the longest price I’ve seen the Korean in quite some time, which doesn’t make sense considering he finished T16 last week at Liberty National.
Im also finished eighth in the PGA’s Ball Striking metric, which is a key stat heading into an unfamiliar course like Caves Valley.
The 23-year-old is really starting to heat up now, and as we’ve seen in the past, normally spells danger for his opponents.
BMW Championship Betting Strategy
- 1 Unit Rory McIlroy
- 1 Unit Scottie Scheffler
- 0.5 Unit Joaquin Niemann
- 0.5 Unit Sungjae Im
- 1 Unit Dustin Johnson to Finish Top 10
