The West Coast swing ended in dramatic fashion at the famous Riviera Country Club as fan favorite Max Homa claimed the title in a playoff over Tony Finau. The win qualifies him for the WGC this week so the no-cut event will feature a field of 72 golfers. As with all WGC events, most of the top golfers in the world will be in attendance.
The event, typically held in Mexico, will this year be played in Florida and will essentially serve as an intro to the annual Florida swing. An interesting factor for the week is that this will be played at a course that has not been seen on the PGA Tour so almost all of the golfers will be coming in blind.
The course
The golf course for this year’s WGC will be the Concession Golf Club in Brandenton, Florida. The course was co-designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin. Being designed by the Golden Bear, it should give us some comparable courses to find similarities from. Some of those to look at would include Muirfield Village, PGA National, and Riviera Country Club. The course itself is a par-72 that stretches just over 7,400 yards. The greens are rolled with Bermuda, as with most Florida courses.
Four par-3s and four par-5s lead to the par-72 scorecard. Again, we are coming in a little blind being that we haven’t seen a PGA Tour event held here before but just looking at the scorecard, we can find some trends to look for. Three of the four par-3s will play over 200 yards, with the 3rd hole stretching to almost 240. The par-5s are long as well. The 17th hole will reach almost 600 yards during the event. The 13th should be reachable in two and should bring eagle into play.
As with all Nicklaus designs, the golfers who are able to be strategic with their tee shots (accuracy over distance) should find the most success. His courses are known for utilizing dog legs both to the right and left. This takes distance out of the equation and instead places the emphasis on accuracy and strategically placing the ball off the tee in order to have the best angle for approaches.
Notable stats
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Off the Tee
- Proximity over 200 yards
- Strokes Gained: Putting (bermuda)
- Strokes Gained: Around the Green
Outright value
Justin Thomas +1850
| Player Name | SG: APP | SG: T2G | SG: OTT | SG: Tot | Prox: 200+ | SG: ARG |
| Justin Thomas | 5 | 7 | 31 | 6 | 27 | 14 |
Justin Thomas is coming off one of the worst events of his professional career. He lost 7.9 total strokes for the week and this was due to the 5.8 strokes that he lost putting. Thomas had some personal family struggles that he was dealing with and we can hopefully write off last week to being in an inconsistent mental state. Looking past that, he is still one of the best golfers in the world. Throughout the past 36 rounds, he is top ten in approach and tee to green. In his past ten starts, he has been gaining a total of 6.2 strokes on the field.
Throughout his career he has dominated these types of tournaments. Of his 13 wins, eight of them have come at events where every golfer plays all four rounds. This includes the WGC – St Jude and the Tournament of Champions last year. Take last week out of the picture and there is no way JT should be the 8th favorite to win. I’ll hop on these odds while they exist.
Tyrrell Hatton +2250
| Player Name | SG: APP | SG: T2G | SG: OTT | SG: Tot | Prox: 200+ | SG: ARG |
| Tyrrell Hatton | 9 | 25 | 30 | 25 | 1 | 53 |
This number just feels off to me. Hatton is the 10th favorite to win based on the odds. He is playing far better than that as of late. 2021 has been great so far for him. We haven’t seen him yet on this side of the Atlantic but he has been in great form on the Euro tour. He picked up a win in Abu Dhabi in the last week of January. After that he put up finishes of 22nd and 6th in his next two starts. It’s not like these were bad fields either. Some of the world’s top golfers have been playing in Europe and Hatton has been as good if not better than all of them.
He leads this field in proximity over 200 yards which will certainly be needed around this track. He is also in the top-10 in approach which will be crucial no matter what course they are at. Hatton is currently the 5th ranked golfer in the world and his playing has backed that up. 22/1 looks great for him to battle in Florida for four days.
Joaquin Niemann +3500
| Player Name | SG: APP | SG: T2G | SG: OTT | SG: Tot | Prox: 200+ | SG: ARG |
| Joaquin Niemann | 20 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 45 | 29 |
I had mentioned earlier this year that Niemann is certainly a golfer to watch out for throughout the season. So far in his three starts in 2021 he has posted finishes of 2nd, 2nd, and 43rd. The first 2nd place finish of the year came at a no-cut event, which is what we find ourselves in this week.
He had a rough weekend that took him out of contention at Riviera but still gained 2.8 strokes off the tee throughout the event. He typically is solid with the irons as well. Over the past five events he has gained over 2 strokes on approach. Niemann is a solid all around player without many weaknesses in the game, which should fit perfectly at a Nicklaus course.
Tournament matchups
Webb Simpson -110 over Daniel Berger
Webb is known for performing well on Bermuda courses. Typically those would be short, par-71 courses but there may be some similar traits this week to those events that Webb prefers. A few of the par-5s may require strategic layups for all the golfers which would take driving distance out of the equation. This would mean that short irons and Bermuda putting would be the important factors and there is no one better at those skill sets than Webb Simpson. Yes, Berger won his last start but he missed the cut in Muirfield last year and I love targeting Webb over him this week in Florida.
Sungjae Im -110 over Scottie Scheffler
Sungjae gets back on the course after a few weeks off but prior to that break he posted three straight finishes inside the top-32. He started the year with a top-5 and appears to still be maintaining that good form. I love his all-around consistent game at a course that will require many different skill sets. Sheffler looked fine last week and had a resectable 20th place finish but he lost a full stroke off the tee which is something that has been a struggle for him recently. If you are weyward with the driver this week, it will be difficult to contend. I’ll take the consistency of Im over the up and down game of Scheffler.
Finishing positions
Xander Schauffele top-10 +138
This won’t be the only time this week you hear that Xander excels in no-cut events. A few of his career wins are WGC – HWBC, the Tour Championship, and the Tournament of Champions. All three of those are smaller fields where all golfers play four rounds. Xander has been the definition of consistency as of late. His last nine events have resulted in finishes of 17th or better, including six top-5s. I love the plus money odds for him to post a top-10 here.
Ryan Palmer top-20 +150
Palmer enters the event in great form with three top-5 finishes in his last five starts. In these events he has gained 2.6 strokes on approach and 3 tee-to-green. One of the main trends we are looking at this week is past performance at Nicklaus courses and he checks that box as well with a 2nd place finish at Muirfield Village in 2020. I’ll probably take a stab at the 55/1 outright odds but especially love the top-20 bet.
Check out our other WGC Concession content
- Betting preview from Geoff Ulrich
