Now that the Pebble Beach slog has finally ended, we can focus one of the best events of the year.
Making Waste Management Open picks has been given the major treatment, both in field strength and respect from the books — particularly DraftKings, which posted the odds weeks ago.
Basically anyone who can be here, is here, sans Will Zalatoris, who still hasn't looked 100% since returning from his back injury.
The Course
TPC Scottsdale measures 7,266 yards for a par 71, and really isn’t all that difficult. We can expect the winning score to be around 17-under par unless weather plays a factor.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there tends to be a lot of movement on the leaderboard over the last four holes. There is water in play on No. 15 (a reachable Par 5) and No. 17 (a drive-able Par 4), plus the closing hole is quite difficult, so there can be a lot of volatility down the stretch.
TPC Scottsdale tends to favor good iron players. Webb Simpson, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, Hideki Matsuyama and Brooks Koepka all have victories here and each of them are terrific with their approach shot.
The Favorites
Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy sit at the top of the board at around +800 and both have played well here. Rahm has the local ties as an Arizona State alum and never finished worse than 16th in seven tries. McIlroy has made one stop a couple years back, finishing 13th. They've also got three wins between them in 2023 and we're only about six weeks into the year, so the form couldn't be better.
In the teens, we have Xander Schauffele, the defending champ Scottie Scheffler and Tony Finau. Finau has a runner-up finish here to go with five missed cuts, which is enough to keep me away in this range. Schauffele fits well here. He's finished inside the top 20 in all five starts.
The +2000 range is loaded with Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im. I played Morikawa, who was in the +2500-2800 range but has since dropped down to +1800-2000, depending on the book. I wouldn't play him at that number now but it's worth a look. Thomas in the 20s is very interesting on a course he really seems to like. He's finished in the top 20 five straight times. Matsuyama has a great record here, winning twice. Cantlay lost to Scheffler in a playoff last year in his debut. Homa and Im have decent records here as well, but it's hard to stand out being priced in the same range as the aforementioned group.
The Midtier
It hasn't made much sense to dig too deep here. We haven't seen a winner longer than the +4000-5000 since 2014. It's a loaded field and usually one of the big guns takes it. It usually makes sense to pick two or three and just ride it out. Cameron Young made the card early with a +4500 on DraftKings but those numbers never were going to last long, so we'll shift though focus elsewhere for this column.
I'll open here with Tom Kim at +3300 on BetRivers. My though on Kim is bet him wherever Webb Simpson plays well. His two previous wins have come on courses where Simpson has won and his style of play has so far been and A+ version of Simpson. I keep waiting for his putter to cool a bit, because he was nowhere near this good in Asia. But he's always been able to hit fairways and greens at an elite rate over there and that's transitioned seamlessly to PGA Tour. This has been a Simpson track with a win and a runner-up, so Tom is back on the card.
The Longshots
Not much here. As previously noted, it's tough to take down every star on Tour from this range. But I will take a stab with JT Poston at 100/1 on BetRivers. Poston has made all three cuts to start the year, finishing 21st or better in each event. He's also made all four cuts here that he's played. It's a good course for him that rewards the ability to keep the ball in play over bombing and gouging.
Waste Management Open Card
- Tom Kim +3300 (1 unit)
- JT Poston +10000 (.33 units)
Total Stake: 1.33 units
