Players Championship Betting Picks and Predictions: Can Justin Thomas, Corey Conners Impress in Florida?

Players Championship Betting Picks and Predictions: Can Justin Thomas, Corey Conners Impress in Florida?

After a thrilling week in Orlando, the PGA Tour returns to Ponte Vedra Beach for its flagship event of the season, the Players Championship. The event now features the highest purse in golf, a whopping 25 million, which has doubled since 2019. The field consists of 144 players, and will certainly feature the strongest non-major championship collection of players we will be treated to all year.

The host venue is the iconic TPC Sawgrass, designed by Pete Dye in 1980, and defending champion, Scottie Scheffler, will look to build upon his victory at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, and become the first back-to-back winner in Players Championship history. Scheffler will be joined by the best that the PGA Tour has to offer, including former Players Championship winners, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Adam Scott, and Rickie Fowler. While other marque players such as Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, and Ludvig Aberg, amongst others, will look to etch their name in PGA Tour history.

Players Championship DATE, START TIME, AND WHERE TO WATCH

• Date: March 14 - March 17, 2024
• Where: Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
• Where to Watch: Golf Channel, NBC, Peacock

Players Championship: Course Preview

TPC Sawgrass

TPC Sawgrass is one of the most iconic and recognizable courses in the world, but it is also one that has undergone many transformations. For the first 30 years of the event, the tournament was played in mid- to late March. Between 2007 and 2018, it was moved to May, before returning to March in 2019. Since the return to March, Rye-grass and fescue have been added to the fairways and rough, and Poa Trivialis over-seed has been added to the greens. This change actually makes the course easier in many ways. The addition of Rye-grass and fescue mitigates a lot of the unpredictability of Bermuda, and the Poa over-seed on the greens roll far more consistently as well. This is the same type of over-seed that we see at PGA West, Harbour Town, Austin Country Club, and TPC Scottsdale. It should not be a surprise that lesser putters have had found success on this surface, as it is like putting on carpet and grain is taken out of the equation.

As well as the over-seed in 2019, there were also some notable changes to the design of the course in 2017. All of the bunkers were rebuilt, while green complexes on 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, and 14 were modified and enlarged to allow for more pin positions. Thus, I would tread lightly in terms of Sawgrass data prior to 2019. Justin Thomas summed up the changes aptly, "Well, I think as well as I was starting to learn it, it got switched to March, so I kinda had to re-learn it. I really, really love this place in May and how firm and fast it would play, and I felt like it was not many drivers. I used a 2-iron at this event and I just would get it on the ground a lot and really just focus on hitting the ball in the fairway. I'm still clearly focused on hitting the ball in the fairway because this is a course that, if you drive it well, being in March, it's always going to be softer, the fairways and greens, and you can make so many birdies out here." TPC Sawgrass is still a club-down course, but with the over-seed, players can now be a little more aggressive attacking this course with a driver under softer conditions and less unpredictable rough.

Last year, TPC Sawgrass ranked ninth out of 38 courses in difficulty, and since the over-seed shift in 2019, it has ranked between the 14th- and eighth-toughest course on the PGA Tour. Regardless of wind and softness, TPC Sawgrass is the most controllable course on Tour from a setup standpoint, and they generally have no problem getting the target score of 10 to 18 under par. The Dye design consistently features some of the toughest par threes on Tour, and the infamous island green 17th ranks as the sixth-hardest hole on the course, featuring a 10.4% bogey rate and a whopping 8% double rate. The eighth hole, which measures 237 yards, is even more difficult, ranking as the third-hardest hole on the course.

In terms of the big picture, TPC Sawgrass is an incredibly high variance course, and as we have seen at PGA National and Bay Hill, no great player is safe. The Pete Dye design is a thinking man's golf course that needs to be picked apart strategically, and while experience and know-how matters, unlike Augusta, it does not feature a strong correlation to course history due to amount of water in play. While one of the hardest courses on Tour to predict, I will primarily be looking for players who are incredibly accurate off the tee, in elite approach form, and have a strong track record of success on similarly correlated courses.

Players Championship Key Stats

• Recent Approach Play
• Driving Accuracy
• Strokes Total: Comparative Courses

Players Championship: Outright Picks

Justin Thomas (+2200) Click here to see which sportsbook has the best odds

While there have only been five players in its 40-year history to win multiple Players Championships, Justin Thomas is as deserving as it gets. After a disappointing 2023, the three-time major winner has approached the new season with vigor, finishing top-12 in four of five starts. Last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Thomas gained over a stroke off the tee and over 2.5 strokes on approach. Even more encouraging is the fact that he’s putting a lot better this season as well, and we never have to worry about Thomas’ short game and creativity. Now Thomas returns to a course where he has recorded four top-25 finishes in eight starts, including his win in 2021. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been nearly two years since Justin Thomas’ last PGA Tour victory, and I expect him to be as motivated as ever to get back into the winner’s circle at an event that conjures so many fond memories.

Corey Conners (+6000) Click here to see which sportsbook has the best odds

I was designing a golf course tailor made for Corey Conners’ skill-set, it would look an awful lot like TPC Sawgrass. Conners sets himself apart from over players via his elite accuracy off the tee and overall approach play. Just like players such as Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, and Cameron Young possessed a massive leg up last week at Bay Hill due to their distance, Conners possesses a similar edge on courses with a high missed fairway penalty such as TPC Sawgrass due to his precision. Outside of his accuracy off the tee, Conners is also in some of the best approach form in this entire field, gaining over five strokes on approach in back-to-back starts at the Cognizant Classic and Arnold Palmer Invitational. Lastly, Conners significantly raises his baseline on over-seeded Bermuda greens, and he has already experienced a tremendous amount of putting success on over-seeded courses such as TPC Scottsdale, Harbour Town, and Innsibrook, as well as TPC Sawgrass. Conners encapsulates the perfect marriage of course fit and recent approach form, and his betting number presents tremendous value.

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