Great Golf Betting at Fed-Ex St Jude Classic!
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Frank Doyle
Frank Doyle hopes to pick his fifth winner of the season at the St Jude Classic in Memphis, Tennessee!
The field is thin in Memphis this weekend. Former World No 1 Lee Westwood is there, but there’s a long drop to the next player with a world ranking – David Toms, 27th in the World.
Westwood and Toms are the ante-post favorites, and rightly so. Westwood is the current Best-Player-Who’s-Never-Won-a-Major and a tune up before Congressional would suit the Englishman just fine.
David Toms is playing well, he’s a winner on tour this year already and he’s historically successful at TPC Southwind.
For all that, it’s still hard to endorse either as value bets. Westwood is just too short at that price. It’s also possible that his high world ranking has more to do with how the rankings are calculated than talent. How many players see Westwood’s name on the leaderboard and think: well, maybe I can lay up for second. Lee just can’t be caught?
Toms is the outstanding candidate in this field while the big guns of the golf world are taking time off to get ready for the US Open at Congressional, but the price is prohibitive. Call me greedy, but when I’m golf betting I want more back than twelve bucks on the dollar when I pin my hopes to David Toms.
The good news is, of course, that if we can pick a winner we’ll be handsomely rewarded. So with that in mind, here are Sports Interaction’s
Fore! to Follow
Brian Gay (+2000). TPC Southwind isn’t an especially long course, but the greens are small and hard to hit. Driving accuracy counts, and Brian Gay leads the PGA Tour in driving accuracy this year.
Brandt Snedeker (+3300). Snedeker has three top five finishes this year, including a win at the Heritage. He’s second in putting on Tour this year. And he went to college at Vanderbilt and lives in Nashville. He’ll be right at home at TPC Southwind.
Scott Verplank (+5000). Scott Verplank hasn’t the distance from the tee to be a threat in modern golf. But he’s a veteran who’s accurate off the tee and, perhaps most importantly, he knows now that a payday is a payday. For Verplank, the St Jude Classic is his US Open.
Chris Couch (+6000). Chris Couch was on a Florida Gator NCAA Championship team (with Brian Gay) in 1993 but he’s been plagued by a shoulder injury in recent years. But that may be coming to an end – Couch hasn’t missed a cut this year and he was fifth at the Transitions Championship. Worth an each-way look.
World Golf Rankings, June 6th, 2011
| Rank | Change | Last Week | Player | Nationality | Average Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | - | 1 | Luke Donald | England | 9.21 |
| 2 | - | 2 | Lee Westwood | England | 8.59 |
| 3 | - | 3 | Martin Kaymer | Germany | 7.42 |
| 4 | +4 | 8 | Steve Stricker | USA | 6.55 |
| 5 | -1 | 4 | Phil Mickelson | USA | 6.06 |
| 6 | +1 | 7 | Matt Kuchar | USA | 5.67 |
| 7 | -1 | 6 | Rory McIlroy | Northern Ireland | 5.5 |
| 8 | -3 | 5 | Graeme McDowell | Northern Ireland | 5.45 |
| 9 | +5 | 14 | Dustin Johnson | USA | 5.16 |
| 10 | -1 | 9 | Paul Casey | England | 5.16 |
| 11 | -1 | 10 | Charl Schwartzel | South Africa | 5.1 |
| 12 | -1 | 11 | Bubba Watson | USA | 4.96 |
| 13 | -1 | 12 | Ian Poulter | England | 4.89 |
| 14 | +1 | 15 | Nick Watney | USA | 4.78 |
| 15 | -2 | 13 | Tiger Woods | USA | 4.69 |
| 16 | - | 16 | K.J. Choi | Korea | 4.47 |
| 17 | - | 17 | Jim Furyk | USA | 4.29 |
| 18 | - | 18 | Hunter Mahan | USA | 4.22 |
| 19 | - | 19 | Jason Day | Australia | 4.19 |
| 20 | - | 20 | Francesco Molinari | Italy | 4.11 |
| 21 | +1 | 22 | Adam Scott | Australia | 4.1 |
| 22 | -1 | 21 | Ernie Els | South Africa | 4 |
| 23 | - | 23 | Robert Karlsson | Sweden | 3.9 |
| 24 | - | 24 | Alvaro Quiros | Spain | 3.79 |
| 25 | - | 25 | Martin Laird | Scotland | 3.73 |