Niall Lyons has a two-pronged attack on the BMW Championship in Colorado.
BMW Championship
The final curtain is just about ready to be faced on this year's edition of the FedEx Cup and what has largely been a disappointing season in terms of entertainment will be behind us.
Golf has a big problem which doesn't look like being solved any time soon. Rory McIlroy is finding that elusive Major victory beyond his grasp and the PGA Tour poster boy Jordan Spieth is now two and a half years without a win and faces the prospect of a lengthy lay off with surgery.
There is no sign marriage counselling between the two tours has worked and the prospect of getting all the best players in the world together again feels further away than what it did in January.
Throw in the fact that after the next couple of weeks we get a bunch of tournaments without the best players in the world, and no doubt some surprise winners then the interest in the great game will continue the decline.
The annual nonsense next week at East Lake is another long, lingering infection. For this week though at the BMW Championship in Colorado, we have a solid market and trying to find the winner is a much more exciting prospect than next week’s finale.
BMW Championship Tips
Patrick Cantlay @ 22/1 (Five Places)
The BMW Championship continues to hop around venues and this week we arrive in Colorado and the Castle Pines golf course. Those familiar with the PGA Tour 20+ years ago will remember this venue holding The International and previously named Sprint International.
It was a Modified Stableford scoring system which is akin to the modern day Barracuda. The Nicklaus design is fairly generous off the tee but could provide problems from off the fairway with reported thick rough. Thunderstorms could also play their part so hitting it long and straight is fairly advantageous.
They will hit it long. This course is at high altitude so the yardage of 8000+ yards is a slight red herring and although still fairly stretching, the shortest hitters in the field will all be bombing it past 300 yards here.
It was a fair effort from Patrick Cantlay last week finishing 12th at Southwind playing reasonably well through the bag. It was a particularly strong performance off the tee and that will help here at Castle Pines and give him a good chance to attack from the short grass.
I'd be surprised should Cantlay not find something following on from his best Major performance at Pinehurst and he is well versed in getting things done in these FedEx playoff events. He has three victories in these events and of course in 2021 was the FedEx Cup champion.
Nicklaus courses tend to usually be second shot golf courses and it remains to be seen how this one plays out but Cantlay has two victories and a further two top four finishes in the Memorial at Muirfield.
TPC Summerlin in Vegas which holds the Shriners is one of the other courses played at altitude on the PGA Tour and Cantlay has a victory and three runner up finishes there.
Everything points towards him being a factor here this week and 20/1 or above looks like one of the better prospects in a week where it isn't easy to find a lot of value in the market.
Collin Morikawa @ 16/1 (Five Places)
I'll be keeping things simple with a two pronged attack this week and I'll finish with Collin Morikawa. Morikawa has been a nearly man in 2024 not able to find a victory since his Zozo win back in October last year.
Not much has been made of him finding his best year to date on tour both on and around the greens. That was the area of his game that needed improvement and he has worked hard to deliver the numbers. However, as we so often see that impacts other parts of the game and his elite iron play has just not quite been to the same standard as the previous couple of years.
Nevertheless, plenty would settle for Morikawa's iron game this year and a return to previous levels in the next year together with an improved short game could see him land some of the game's biggest championships once again.
He can start this week on a Nicklaus layout having won at Muirfield before and the onus on yardage and iron play that will inevitably play out here at altitude should play right into his hands.
The irons had an off week at Southwind but that rarely turns into two or three weeks for Morikawa and he can be expected to bounce back in the approach play department. His putter is performing extremely well and he's a prime candidate to score well around this Colorado venue.
McIlroy was the other of interest this week given he has drifted to a top price of 14/1. The price is almost everything when considering the Irishman and he definitely becomes backable when he comes out to these odds.
He failed to fire through the bag last week at Southwind but he is yet to better 3rd place there in many attempts so not looking too deep into that 68th place may prove fruitful. It just hasn't quite happened since the Pinehurst debacle though and he may be booked for a largely disappointing end to 2024 following the heartbreak in North Carolina.
Aberg is another I'm closely watching but I'm surprised the layers haven't dangled a bigger price in recent weeks given his current drop off. Finishes of 27-4-CUT-18-40 is not what we are used to with the swashbuckling Swede and he may best be closely watched in the fall part of the season.
