The birdies were cooking — as usual — in Silvis, Illinois. The John Deere Classic is always a bleak, cookie cutter, birdie fest, but there are still plenty of ways to enjoy the golf. The rain during the week kept the greens soft on Thursday and the fact that we saw a 59 and a scoring average around -3 proves how easy the course was. There was some wind on Friday that slowed the scoring a tad, but there were still plenty of birdies to be made.
Over the weekend, expect more of the same. No matter where you are on the leaderboard, you can gain ground around TPC Deere Run. Let's take a look at the both the leaderboard and odds board to find some live options ahead of Round 3. We had a great week in Detroit and I am expecting more of the same. Here are my John Deere Classic Round 3 Best Bets.
Leaderboard:
Aaron Rai -14 (+360)
CT Pan -14 (+1000)
Harry Hall -13 (+2000)
Sungjae Im -12 (+700)
Davis Thompson -12 (+900)
Eric Cole -12 (+1200)
Denny McCarthy -12 (+1000)
Luke Clanton -12 (+1400)
Hayden Springer -14 (+4000)
John Deere Classic Round 3 Best Bets
Adam Svensson (Top 5) +360
Svensson is striping the golf ball through two rounds. He is 11 under and just three strokes off the lead. The iron play is elite as Svensson sits at fifth in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach. The putter has yet to heat up, but he is in the green. He has missed a ton of makable putts over the first 36 holes. Svensson can flirt with a 59 and loves these types of events. I bet Svensson going into the week and believe he is live to stay in the mix over the weekend. Grab Svensson at +360 to have a great weekend.
Brice Garnett (Top 20) +1800
Garnett made the cut on the number and will play the weekend. Garnett's stat profile is very intriguing as he's fourth in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 127th in putting. By no means is Garnett an all-world putter, but that's surely due to regress in the other direction. As long as Garnett keeps up the solid iron play, he will give himself a ton of birdie looks. He doesn't need to do anything special to sneak inside the top 20 and has plenty of holes to make up ground. Garnett is a easy conditions merchant and has a great chance to make a charge and cash an 18-1 bet.
Sami Valimaki (Top 10) +750
Valimaki was in or around the lead for a majority of the first two rounds. He had a double bogey on the eighth hole, which was his 17th hole of the day, that derailed his position. Valimaki plays very aggressive and loves a birdie fest. He's gaining over three strokes on both approach and with the putter. That is an elite combo for birdie making and he's very capable of getting that done.
