BMW Championship Betting Preview

Of the 125 players who set out on the road for the FedEx Cup playoffs, only 70 remain for this week’s event, the BMW Championship, which is to be played at Cog Hill, Chicago, Illinois.

Cog Hill was re-worked ahead of the 2009 season by Rees Jones and is amongst the toughest courses on the Tour. The 7300-yard course boasts in excess of 100 bunkers and water is a threat to players on six of the holes – not least the 18th, where the fairway slopes down towards the hazard, so any drives that are tweaked left could end up wet; the 3-hole stretch between the 12th and 14th holes are known as ‘death valley’ and are notoriously difficult. In 2009, only four players made it into red double-digits so scoring is pretty tough.

Those green shoots of recovery continue to sprout for Tiger Woods and the bookies haven’t been slow in slashing his odds again, so the double digit odds available the last two weeks have gone, and we now find the world number one trading at just 7/1. However, his chances of a first win since his much-publicised fall from grace can’t be discounted here. Woods has already won five times around this course, and while similar stats could be levelled at Firestone, he is much more like his old self than he was in the WGC Bridgestone. Since that lowly 78th place finish, Woods has carded finishes of 28th in the USPGA Championship, 12th in the Barclays and 11th in the Deutsche Bank and his recent Ryder Cup wild-card could have given him an extra bounce in his step. Add in the fact he’ll be itching to make the top 30 and progress to the next leg of the FedEx Cup means he simply can’t be ignored this week, even at such short odds.

A second Ryder Cup wildcard makes the shortlist this week, and the 2009 Open Championship winner, Stewart Cink is the player in question. Cink is slowly regaining the form which saw him triumph over Tom Watson at Turnberry, having taken some time to adjust to the new grooves regulations. Four straight top-20 finishes from his past four events and with 4th place and 7th place finishes at Cog Hill in the past, Cink’s credentials to mount a challenge this week should not go ignored. And like Tiger, he’ll be anxious to repay the faith shown in him by Corey Pavin, as well as book his place in the next FedEx Cup playoff event. Cink is currently 35th in the standings, so will want to do well and 55/1 is a must-take price.

Steve Stricker must once again enter calculations at 14/1 and the Wisconsin player has finished inside the top-10 in both previous FedEx Cup events this season. Stricker has carded 14 successive par-or-better rounds and is clearly the form player, although his finishing effort last week was a little disappointing.

Michael Sim fits the recent profile of young Australian golfers performing well at Cog Hill, and he can follow in the footsteps of countrymen Adam Scott, Marc Leishman and Aaron Baddeley who have all performed with immense credit here over the past few years. Sim is a player in form, and recently gave this column a placed finish in the Wyndham, courtesy of a last round 62, and with 2010 FedEx Cup finishes of 36-11, his odds off 100/1 are huge.

Selection: Tiger Woods
Savers: Stewart Cink, Michael Sim