Golf betting tips: The Travelers Championship final round preview
0.5pt each way Shane Lowry 66/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook 1,2,3 1/5)
2pts Sungjae Im to win three-ball against Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa at 3/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, Betway, BoyleSports)
Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook
It is sometimes instructive to think of the progress of a golf tournament as being a little like a track and field event.
I’ve always, for example, considered that the difference between stroke play and match play as akin to the difference between individual 400 metres and the relay. In the former there is a staggered start and only towards the end do the leaders come together, hopefully with three or four of the top contenders scrapping towards the line. In the latter, once the first 500 metres is done, the runners are on each other’s shoulder and it possesses an entirely different flavour. Old timers will recall 4×400 experts Phil Brown and Brian Whittle who were like Ian Poulter in the Ryder Cup in a relay.
Stroke play events are also, of course, a lot like long distance races in which the field becomes ever more stretched out but you hope that no-one runs away with it, that a little group will emerge to fight out the conclusion. Golf also has a nasty habit of seeing quite a few of the top names drift backwards in any given week.
What we rarely get is what the final round of this year’s Travelers Championship has delivered. This particular long distance race is rattling towards the final lap, we’ve got significant group bunched as they pass the bell, and it is a ridiculously high quality pack, too. We might be setting ourselves up for a fall, but the promise of an outstanding race to the line off the final bend is a very real one.
Korea’s Tom Kim has been setting the pace all week and leads on 18-under 192 after rounds of 62-65-65. He has Akshay Bhatia and Scottie Scheffler on his shoulder, one shot back. Xander Schauffele and Sungjae Im are tucked in behind them two strokes back, Collin Morikawa is alone in sixth three adrft, then come Tony Finau, Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas four in arrears. Five back are Patrick Cantlay and Cameron Young (who carded a 59 on Saturday).
It’s a truly tremendous first page of a leaderboard and you’d expect the winner to come from it. 27 of the last 28 winners at TPC River Highlands have been T10 or better with 18 holes to play and 25 of the 28 were T6 or better – and few of those past events had leaderboards of this quality.
Kim has been typically great fun all week, celebrating his 22nd birthday in style. Incredibly it is his eighth week of action in a row and he has made every cut in that stretch. It’s his first solo lead at this stage on the PGA Tour but he’s twice shared the lead and both times converted the win (on both occasions the Shriners Children’s Open). In various world tours he’s had seven solo leads, always finished top two and four times won. This chasing pack is a very different kettle of fish but he’s done what he’s had to in the past. He’s 7/2 for the win.
Scheffler is the favourite at best price 7/4 as he chases a sixth win for the year. The last man to win half a dozen or more times in a year was Tiger Woods in 2009. It’s more proof that Scheffler is playing truly elite level golf in 2024. Aside from not taking to Pinehurst at all and being arrested at the PGA Championship he’s not finished outside the top two since the middle of February. It’s dizzy stuff.
Bhatia is chasing a third win at this level and spent the first 36 holes of his last two starts – in the Memorial and US Open – in the top 10 before drifting back into the pack. He’s 7/1.
Schauffele is 5/1 as he looks to land this title for a second time (he won by two in 2022). You’d think that he’s already wrapped up a fifth top 20 on the course from his six starts – and his 12th top 25 finish in a row on the PGA Tour.
Im is now 4-for-4 at making the cut on the course and is chasing a first top 20 finish. He missed the weekend in the PGA Championship and US Open but they are tournaments that seem to befuddle him. Before both he notched a pair of top 10s so he’s in form and is available at 12/1. As is Morikawa who has finished T16 or better in his last seven individual starts, four of them top fours, but he’s only once broken 70 in the final round during that run and he’ll need to change that to land a seventh PGA Tour win.
Finau (45/1) has been in and around the top 20 in recent starts but is yet to finish top 10 at River Highlands in eight previous starts. He might well change that this week but the win might be beyond him. Thomas (55/1) thrashed a 62 to land third from way off the pace at River Highlands in 2016 but you’d be hoping his putter would behave rather than trusting it to any degree.
Young (150/1) needs to back up his 59 with another low one and Cantlay (80/1) needs to revive memories of striking a 60 at this event when an amateur in 2011.
Of the big-priced chasers Lowry is the pick at 66/1. He probably wouldn’t return to River Highlands were it not a signature event but in having to do so he’s played well there. He opened and closed last year’s event with 64s and carded a 62 on Friday which he backed up with a 65 yesterday. He ranks third for Strokes Gained Tee to Green, fourth for Approach and fourth Around the Greens. He can give us a run for our money.
They will play in three-balls this evening and Im looks of interest in the penultimate group out. He’s up against the high class Schauffele and Morikawa but we’ve already discussed the latter’s difficulties in the recent final rounds and the former was quite downbeat after the third round.
He missed a short putt to make bogey on 18, which he put down to a lapse in concentration, and then said: “I’m putting well but that’s literally like all I can do right now. I got in as good a flow as I can with how I’m playing. Just not really super aggressive with certain shots, wiping a lot of shots right now. Actually wish the sun was still up, I would love to go hit some balls right now. I’m fighting pretty hard right now, relying on my putter to get me through most of these rounds.”
Schauffele and Morikawa have the class to turn things around but Im jumps out at 3/1.
Posted at 0930 BST on 23/06/24
