Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Barracuda Championship preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: Barracuda Championship

2pts e.w. Patrick Rodgers at 28/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

2pts e.w. Chan Kim at 30/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Lanto Griffin at 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1pt e.w. Brandon Wu at 125/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Ben Taylor at 600/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Blaine Hale Jr at 1000/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

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If you're going to hold an event during the week of the Open Championship, best to make it as different as possible – and the Barracuda Championship achieves that goal. From California time to a tree-lined course far above sea level and even the stableford scoring system more familiar to us weekend hacks, the only thing this has in common with what's happening at Troon is that, technically, it is still golf.

Erik van Rooyen was the right favourite but he's withdrawn, leaving Keith Mitchell at the top of the betting. An undoubted sleeping giant who ought to be, and is, too good for this level, Mitchell's problem right now is that having once been a very good putter, he's become a very bad one.

Fixing that away from his favoured bermuda won't be easy and neither will the transition from Scotland last week. A year ago, he made the same journey and was never a factor on his way to a missed cut up here at Tahoe Mountain and he's surely a favourite to oppose.

I'll take two from the pack behind him, starting with CHAN KIM.

In the end, Kim was only three shots short of Sunday's play-off at the ISCO Championship and though 10th place was short of what we needed for a payout, it strengthens his form profile after 12th in the John Deere Classic.

All it took for Kim to get back up towards the top of leaderboards was an upturn in putting and having gained strokes through the bag across these two tournaments, he's really beginning to fire, sights no doubt set on the top 70 in the FedEx Cup which he'd all but secure were he to win.

Although this stableford event and its weak field always has the potential to throw up a surprise, every winner since Greg Chalmers in 2016 arrived in form. Many of them in fact had a top-10 finish to their names in their very latest start and the only recent exception, Chez Reavie, had one the week before that.

Kim not only ticks this box but he's second in this field in birdie average for the season so far, behind only Michael Kim and sixth overall. This is a bit of a flimsy statistical category in some ways – easier courses equal more birdie chances; the best players tend to play tougher ones – but it's been such a reliable pointer in the Barracuda and Akshay Bhatia ranked first among last year's field before going on to win.

Bhatia is from California as were four of the top nine and that move out west could also be important. Down the years, players who grew up on bentgrass/poa annua greens have often done well in this, with Collin Morikawa another winner from the Golden State along with Matt Bettencourt, and Andrew Putnam from Washington.

Kim has travelled far and wide since a promising college career, but that was in Arizona which has been home for a long time regardless, and a sense of familiarity can help a great deal on what's his course debut.

Finally, it's notable that he won in Boise, Idaho last year, which is up at almost 3,000 feet above sea level. Chalmers actually won there a long time ago and the course is similarly tree-lined to this one, but really the point is about being comfortable playing at altitude, which Kim should be.

PATRICK RODGERS is the other I like and some encouragement can be drawn from Robert MacIntyre's victory on Sunday.

MacIntyre was returning to the scene of a heartbreaking runner-up finish a year earlier and so now is Rodgers, a California college graduate who looked like he had this under his control before being edged out by Bhatia.

Still in search of his first PGA Tour win, hopefully Rodgers is able to produce the sort of determined effort that MacIntyre did and there are definite positives to be taken from his last three starts, with 11 under-par rounds in 12 and good signs off the tee and with the putter.

He's playing much better than he was this time last year, anyway, and while his approach work must improve, that seems perfectly plausible here. Rodgers has made the cut on all eight starts in the event with two top-threes, and since the move from Montreux to this course he's gone 19-13-2.

Nick Dunlap is towards the top of this field on talent and some of his recent play would merit shorter prices. As a winner in California on the PGA Tour whose victory in the US Amateur was at altitude, he'd be the one player towards the top of the market who I kept coming back to before omitting on the grounds that while his aggressive nature may help, this course could frustrate him a little.

Joel Dahmen was last year's headline selection and entered round four in second place, but he's a good deal shorter now and while signs of putting improvement bode well, I can leave him alone at a third of the price. He's definitely in better nick so it's not to say the shift isn't merited, just that he's a player I'd rather chance at longer odds, knowing that a putting horror show is never far away.

Part of the reason for selecting him was that he was very comfortable here in Truckee and enjoyed it so much that he'd been on a family trip without the golf clubs, and that's also true in the case of LANTO GRIFFIN.

He's another one-time PGA Tour winner and had been playing on a medical extension, which does bring with it pressure. Perhaps then it's not a coincidence that after failing to meet the terms of it at the John Deere Classic, he came out and finished 10th in Kentucky last week, which he had to do in order to earn a spot in this field.

Griffin spoke there of how he'd gone back to some notes he'd taken around the time of his 2019 win and realised that he needed to loosen his putting grip, which worked: he gained strokes in three of the four rounds and ranked 10th overall.

Generally solid off the tee and having produced some very strong approach play numbers earlier in the year, Griffin might only have needed a confidence boost on the greens to get really competitive at this low level. He was always someone who looked too good for the Korn Ferry Tour and for a time five years ago, he was bordering on elite, cracking the world's top 50 before injury intervened.

He has played here once, finishing down the field in 2020, but that was before his form really took off to close out the season and he might be better prepared to return to an area he's evidently very fond of.

"I love Tahoe," he said back then. "This whole area, Truckee, Reno, it's one of my favourite spots in the country. I actually came here on vacation last summer with my girlfriend and some other friends. I love it here."

Griffin has a top-20 finish at Silverado, which I think is probably the best course guide, and having been born in California (albeit raised in Virginia), perhaps he can be the latest winner from this part of the US.

Wu better believe it

If not, then BRANDON WU might well be.

Here we have a formerly top-class amateur who attended college at Stanford (like Rodgers) and is from California, where he was closest to winning on the PGA Tour when runner-up to Justin Rose at Pebble Beach.

He's consistently high in the birdie average stats and made a couple of eagles last week en route to 10th place at Keene Trace, his debut at the course and one you wouldn't necessarily expect to suit given his lack of firepower off the tee.

Wu is a first-timer here, too, but a tree-lined course which plays shorter than its yardage might be far more to his liking and we know how dangerous he can be anywhere when the putter is working. It has been red-hot in two of the last three events and if that continues, he'll be a big threat.

Wu produced his best approach work of 2024 last week, too, and is a former runner-up at altitude in Boise. Three-figure prices look well worth taking and he'd be my favourite bet in the tournament all things considered.

Zac Blair has a strong record at Silverado, grew up at altitude in Salt Lake City and is the sort of golfer who could enjoy this. Blair is one of the shortest hitters around but that doesn't necessarily have to matter when the air is thin and plenty of pragmatic, fairway-finding golfers have thrived in this event, like Putnam, Reavie, Chris Stroud and JJ Henry.

Blair though is especially short off the tee and as Reavie ultimately won because he bagged 10 points for two eagles, he'll need to be razor-sharp with his wedges to keep up if he can't drive a couple of the short par-fours. My suspicion is that, providing he's not spent following Sunday's play-off defeat, he'll play well without really contending.

Andy Sullivan could be the pick of the DP World Tour players as a winner at altitude in South Africa who did most things well last week and played nicely for three of the four rounds here last year. He seems on good terms with himself, but the PGA Tour dominated that event in the end and can be expected to do likewise here. Two surprise names cracked the top five a year ago but from a long way back entering round four.

I did consider Joe Highsmith, a fantastic young ball-striker who has been putting abysmally. He made his professional debut here two years ago having made phone calls to secure an invite and played OK in the first round before a narrow missed cut. Hailing from Washington, there's a chance he improves for the change in putting surfaces and at 125/1, the left-hander is certainly talented enough.

Highsmith has taken plenty of advice from Putnam, who is from the same part of the US, and I imagine they'll be pencilled in for a practise round providing the latter is over the jet lag having flown in from Scotland. It could all help Highsmith, a player I was keen to keep close this year, but backers will have to rely on something changing quite dramatically on the greens.

Throw a Hale Mary...

I'll split stakes on two at massive prices instead, starting with BLAINE HALE JR, who believe it or not was very quickly on my shortlist despite being 1,000/1 in a couple of places.

I've had half an eye on Hale Jr in recent weeks after he finally made a cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, did it again at the John Deere, and then missed out by a single shot last week.

This better form (from a very low base) was triggered by finishing 11th when dropping down to the Korn Ferry Tour in June and until last week, he'd shown some timely improvements with the putter. Typically, that department deserted him in Kentucky, where he was better both off the tee and with his irons than he has been all year.

Once a good amateur who then came through Q School at the end of last year, Hale Jr has won at decent altitude on the All Pro Tour and considering he began this season with basically no tour-level experience, it's no surprise he struggled for the first few months.

There have definitely been signs of life lately, with 15 consecutive rounds of par or better, yet he remains at the maximum odds in places and if he hits it just a tad better than last week, the putting improvements of the previous two would give him a bit of a squeak.

Thirteen birdies and an eagle in 36 holes certainly bodes well and we'd take the 31 points over the first two rounds here. No, it doesn't work like that, but Hale has started to build confidence, he's on a bit of a free shot from outside the top 200 in FedEx Cup points, and he can prove much more competitive than the odds suggest.

Finally, BEN TAYLOR emerged from a slump with 10th place in the ISCO Championship and I can't resist taking a chance on him.

Taylor may well be spurred on by seeing compatriot Harry Hall win that event and as his sole Korn Ferry Tour win came at altitude in Bogota, he has some form under these very different conditions.

Form figures of 36-25-30 on his last three starts at Silverado are definitely encouraging, too – the two courses look similar and the likes of Reavie, Martin Laird, Bhatia, Rodgers, Scott Piercy and Troy Merritt all help tie them together.

Taylor also has form here at Old Greenwood to help strengthen that connection, as he shot a second-round 62 to move into contention on his last visit, sticking around in the top 10 after rounds two and three until fading to 27th on Sunday.

That proved to be his best finish of the whole year on the PGA Tour and came after successive missed cuts, although he did go on to play well in Idaho later in the year, dropping in grade and climbing in altitude, as he does this week.

Arriving now on a top-10 finish which, admittedly, was out of the blue, monster prices make plenty of appeal. He'll know he was looking set to lose his card and might just be able to run with a strong through-the-bag display at Keene Trace now hope has returned.

Posted at 1100 BST on 16/07/24

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