The PGA Tour visits Fort Worth, Texas for the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge as Emiliano Grillo looks to defend his title after taking down Adam Schenk in a playoff last year. Let's get into our 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge best bets for Colonial.
Spencer Aguiar, Matt Gannon and Tony Sartori have expert picks as 132 golfers will clash with a 1975 Schwab Stingray and a royal tartan plaid jacket on the line this week at historic Colonial Country Club.
The course is a 7,289-yard par-70 designed by John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell in 1936. Fewer than 24 hours after last year's Charles Schwab Challenge concluded, Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner led a renovation of Colonial, and the PGA Tour golfers will be the first to play the course this week before Colonial opens to its members in a month.
Here's everything you need to know, along with our Charles Schwab Challenge best bets and expert picks for the weekend.
2024 Charles Schwab Challenge Best Bets & Expert Picks
Spencer Aguiar: Fade Taylor Moore
At what point does Taylor Moore's recent run of 18 consecutive made cuts make you completely ignore poor course history and insufficient statistical data for this track?
I am more willing to bypass his back-to-back missed cuts at the property over the last two years since this recent onslaught of made weekends does demonstrate a much safer golfer than he was leading into those events. However, I am not willing to overlook Moore's statistical profile that doubles down on why he has struggled at Colonial in the past.
Moore ranked 94th for me when running the data over a two-year perspective to fit this week's venue, highlighted by some extremely low-end marks that placed him 93rd in Weighted Strokes Gained: Total, 102nd Strokes Gained in Texas, 95th for Weighted Scoring and 108th for my favorite category of the week, a metric I labeled in my model as "Weighted Approach + Weighted Putting + GIR Percentage."
My favorite route would be to shop around and take Sepp Straka over Taylor Moore if you have that bet available, but I would take an equally strong stance for an option such as Tom Kim at -110 over Moore in a tournament matchup at DraftKings.
You can find my full betting preview for the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge on our Links + Locks Tournament Preview.
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Matt Gannon: Adam Schenk Top 20 +280 (FanDuel)
Rarely does a mid-tier golfer finish runner up at a golf course and win the next season. From time to time, an elite golfer will accomplish this feat, and Nick Taylor this year at the WM Phoenix Open is an exception to this as well. Nonetheless, I expect Schenk to play well this week.
While he did not play well and actually lost strokes on approach in each of his last two starts, Valhalla and Quail Hollow were big ballparks that don't favor his game nearly as much as a more positional course like Colonial does.
Before that, he started trending with the irons on courses that fit his game much more. This week, Schenk should be very confident as Colonial suits his game well, and he has the course history after nearly winning here last year.
Tony Sartori: Lucas Glover Top 10 +550 (bet365)
I am a big fan of Lucas Glover’s game. The only thing he doesn’t necessarily handle well is distance, but that problem is nullified at a course like Colonial, which is why he finished eighth here in 2021.
His elite combination of Driving Accuracy (sixth this year on the PGA Tour), Approach play (11th in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green) and short game (11th in SG: Around the Green) give him the upside to win this week.
We shouldn’t be too surprised with another top 10 finish here, considering how well Glover has resurrected his game over the past year. He has made the weekend in 21 of his past 24 tournaments dating back to last season, boasting two wins and three other top-10 finishes over that stretch.
Glover has also gained strokes on the field in seven consecutive tournaments, and with that recent eighth-place finish under his belt at Colonial, there are a lot of reasons to like him this week.
2024 Charles Schwab Challenge Expert Picks, Fades
Favorites We’re Backing
- Aguiar: Collin Morikawa +1300
- Gannon: Max Homa +2200
- Sartori: Scottie Scheffler +280
Mid-Tier Golfer to Back
- Aguiar: Brian Harman +4000
- Gannon: Si Woo Kim +4000
- Sartori: Justin Rose +6000
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Best Long Shot
- Aguiar: Mark Hubbard 90-1
- Gannon: Nicolai Højgaard 100-1
- Sartori: Webb Simpson 150-1
Biggest Bust
- Aguiar: Taylor Moore 75-1
- Gannon: Collin Morikawa +1300
- Sartori: Jordan Spieth +2200
Contrarian Player To Target
- Aguiar: Adam Scott 80-1
- Gannon: Maverick McNealy 66-1
- Sartori: Sungjae Im 45-1
Your Betting Strategy for the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge
Aguiar: There will be a lot of discussion this week about the impact of Gil Hanse's restoration of Colonial Country Club. Over 20 million dollars were invested in the property to restore it to its original design.
You likely are going to get two separate viewpoints on exactly how much influence that factor is going to have compared to past iterations of this contest since my model seems to believe this is a glorified 'pitch-and-putt' contest that somehow removes high-end birdie-making potential from the equation.
That is a weird answer since you typically attribute a short course to being more straightforward. However, length doesn't necessarily make a venue problematic, something we see here with the track grading as one of the more challenging stops yearly.
How much Hanse's construction deviates from that long-term expectation remains to be seen, but I didn't feel the need to alter past models to account for these changes.
Gannon: Don't take too much of the redesign into consideration based on how you handicap this golf course. Colonial will still play in extremely tight corridors, demand plenty of forced layups and reward precise iron play.
Some of the sight lines off the tee may be altered, so I am weighing course history a tad less than in years past. Knowing the sight lines off the tee around Colonial is a massive advantage that will lead confident drivers of the golf ball to pull the big stick more than the field. I do believe most players will take the safe route and play toward the layups.
This means approach play is even more important, so take a stab at players who are trending with their irons.
Sartori: Colonial Country Club is a par-70, 7,289-yard track designed by John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell. However, the course is going to play a bit different following a renovation by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner this season.
Hanse also renovated Tulsa’s Southern Hills Country Club prior to the 2022 PGA Championship, which is worth analyzing correlated performances considering that Southern Hills was also originally designed by Maxwell. Hanse also restored three of the last four host courses for the U.S. Open: Los Angeles Country Club (North), The Country Club and Winged Foot Golf Club.
Most of the guys who finished toward the top of the leaderboard last season did so with their putter, but Scottie Scheffler proved it's possible to flirt with winning with extremely dialed-in iron play, something he is pretty familiar with.
