US Open round four two-balls preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: US Open final round

2pts Sergio Garcia & Tom Kim to win their two-balls at 13/5 (General)

1pt Sahith Theegala to shoot the lowest final round at 35/1 (General)

1pt Denny McCarthy to shoot the lowest final round at 66/1 (BoyleSports)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Bryson DeChambeau moved clear at the top of the US Open leaderboard on Saturday night and will now seek to complete the transformation from pantomime villain to crowd favourite by winning it for a second time.

Thanks to his laudable YouTube efforts and perhaps the fact that for many fans, he’s now an occasional presence, DeChambeau has never been more popular than he is today and with Matthieu Pavon alongside him in the final group, he’ll be roared on by the locals.

I wonder just how much the end of the third round could influence this tournament. The combination of Rory McIlroy dropping a shot at the 17th, where Patrick Cantlay went on to make birdie, plus Pavon’s scrambled par on 18, means that things have fallen really nicely for the leader and favourite.

Cantlay and McIlroy are not friends, it would be fair to say, and since their Ryder Cup spat also involving Cantlay’s caddie, McIlroy has offered up some thinly-veiled criticism of the American. That adds a dynamic to the penultimate two-ball and while these are two high-class professionals used to cutting out noise and focusing on the job at hand, it feels like the sort of unnecessary complication McIlroy could do without.

He will be kicking himself for bogeys at the 15th and 17th holes, both the consequence of pushed approaches when the left miss would’ve been better. They undid so much good work at the end of an otherwise first-class round which saw him drive the ball superbly along with solid wedge work and an improved putter. He’ll know he should be in that final group and it’s a shame for everyone that he isn’t.

At the prices I can’t see that McIlroy represents great value at 7/2 versus 8/1 Cantlay and 16s Pavon, but with a further two back to Ludvig Aberg and Hideki Matsuyama, followed by Tony Finau and Tyrrell Hatton, the winner ought to come from the final two groups. Hand on heart, I expect it to be DeChambeau. He’s loving life at the moment, that much is clear, and everything has fallen perfectly for this awesome talent to win his second major championship.

Two-ball double and two for lowest score

There are some fascinating pairings further up the tee sheet and I’d include Tom McKibbin and Scottie Scheffler in that. McKibbin is the brightest young star on the DP World Tour and 9/2 that he shows it alongside the world number one looks a big price on the face of it, though Scheffler has struck the ball very well and I must confess I was tempted by Sky Bet’s standout 11/1 that he shoots the low round of the day.

One of the sub-plots that will rightly go unnoticed by many is the battle to be on the Canadian Olympics team and it’s going to go down to the wire. Taylor Pendrith needs to finish third so has a job on his hands from 12th, while Corey Conners currently has no margin for error from ninth given that he must be solo 11th or better.

You can see this as unwanted pressure or added incentive but given the way SERGIO GARCIA has hit it this week, ranking sixth in strokes-gained ball-striking, I do like him to beat Pendrith. The latter may have no option but to be aggressive in the circumstances and that’s a potentially costly formula around Pinehurst.

Rather than take Collin Morikawa to beat Conners at what looks a short enough price, I’ll add TOM KIM for the double. He was the best player in the field in strokes-gained approach yesterday and with Aaron Rai riding an uncharacteristically hot putter, the Korean looks a very strong favourite to end another good major on a high.

On Kim, he trails Matsuyama by two in the battle for top Asian, and with our top South African pick six ahead, a pre-tournament trixie could come down to Brian Harman versus Akshay Bhatia for top left-hander. Bhatia’s stumbling finish after Harman had made a couple of excellent par saves means there’s now just a shot between them.

We’ll see how that develops but for those reading in time for tee-off, I’m taking two in the lowest final-round market.

SAHITH THEEGALA ended round three on the front foot and his birdie-making potential is clear. He’d been five-under for the day with five remaining in round two only to stumble, but at upwards of 30/1 can make up for it.

There’s a very good chance the winner of this will tee off early, which Morikawa did yesterday, and as he demonstrated we probably need a lights-out putting display over 18 holes. Theegala is very much capable of that.

So is DENNY MCCARTHY and he’s been particularly eye-catching so far, putting a fair bit below his usual levels but striking his irons very well over the last couple of rounds.

More of the same and we’re relying on the best putter on the PGA Tour getting them to drop at last, which seems a fair deal at 66/1. He closed out this championship really well two years ago and alongside crowd favourite Min Woo Lee, perhaps he can ride the wave to something in the mid-60s.

Sepp Straka also made the shortlist in this market having struck the ball far better than he’s scored and he’s worth considering if you want to get stuck into one of the early two-balls at 8/11. He’s up against Martin Kaymer, champion here 10 years ago. Hopefully tonight’s conclusion offers more in the way of drama at the end of a fabulous tournament.

Posted at 1000 BST on 16/06/24

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