Ben Coley's golf betting tips: FedEx St Jude Championship preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: FedEx St Jude Championship

3pts e.w. Hideki Matsuyama at 25/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2pts e.w. Tom Kim at 33/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1.5pts e.w. Justin Thomas at 40/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Sahith Theegala at 50/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

1pt win Will Zalatoris at 200.0 or bigger (Betfair Exchange)

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As the PGA Tour's regular season came to an end on Monday, courtesy of Matt Kuchar's famed humility, it struck me that the three best putters all fell well short of advancing to the Playoffs. In fact, under the old system, two of them would just have lost their cards and, having finished worse than 150th, would soon be heading somewhere else to try to earn them back.

On Thursday, those Playoffs will begin with the three best players from tee-to-green ranked 1-2-3 in FedEx Cup points having won 11 times between them, albeit this is a bit like saying Tiger Woods, Patrick Reed and Adam Scott have a combined 17 majors. The year 2024 has been the Scottie Scheffler show and not even Xander Schauffele winning both the PGA Championship and the Open can change that following Scheffler's stunning gold medal in Paris.

There are now just three events left and whether or not Scheffler can press home his advantage and win his first FedEx Cup is almost moot, in itself a damning indictment of the system. Just because some US sports have very successful end-of-season playoffs does not mean that golf can do the same. It's not that nobody cares about what happens from here to East Lake, it's that nobody cares enough.

Perhaps the content gods will at least deliver the dream scenario, which is Scheffler winning the FedEx St Jude Championship followed by the BMW Championship, to make it nine titles in 19 events and a massive points lead, which would still only generate the arbitrary two-shot advantage heading into the TOUR Championship. In this vision, Scheffler then loses by one, ideally to someone like Tom Hoge or Sepp Straka.

All jokes aside (this is how I do jokes), I wonder whether the fact that two of the three Playoff tournaments have permanent homes might continue to work against him. Scheffler's best in six tries here is 14th. At East Lake, where four-time FedEx Cup champion Rory McIlroy is oh so very comfortable, he is yet to rank better than 25th in putting in a field made up of just 30 players, which makes life very difficult.

Now, there is one strong piece of mitigating evidence when it comes to this first hurdle: the fact that TPC Southwind ought to be a good fit on paper. Scheffler is the best player in the game from tee-to-green and it's not close. Here, nine of the last 13 champions led that category for the week and that figure could easily have been 11 from 13, with two others losing play-offs.

It is the PGA Tour's version of a supreme test of ball-striking and that's why I was on Scheffler here at 16/1 in 2022 and 7/1 in 2023. I'm not about to tell you this isn't the course for him, because it probably still is.

Southwind is extremely (perhaps excessively) penal courtesy of small greens, bermuda rough, and water just about everywhere. That means you can do a lot right and come unstuck having done very little wrong. It also means that tee-to-green statistic is somewhat self-perpetuating: hit it in a pond and your chances of leading it take a big hit, as do your chances of winning. I wonder if all this might mean the opening event of the Playoffs continues to prove a little less predictable than the others, but Scheffler still merits prices around the 7/2 mark.

Finding value when the best players on the PGA Tour assemble is not easy but if Scheffler's poor course record does extend through another year then the door is at least ajar and I'm not surprised that the consensus seems to be that Collin Morikawa might be the one to walk through it. He averages a tidy 68 around here and while so far he's not had a winning chance, with his long-game purring that could change.

Unfortunately, he's 12/1 from 16s and that brings the negatives into focus. Morikawa has found winning a bit difficult lately, with one low-key title in almost three years and nothing in the US since February 2021. As he inches closer to the big three in the betting the risk, around a course like Southwind, outweighs the reward. At 12/1 I'd rather back him without that persistent thread of a double-bogey out of nowhere, or Rory McIlroy on the exchanges.

A more sporting bet at twice the price is HIDEKI MATSUYAMA, who was thrilled to secure bronze in Paris having narrowly missed out when under immense pressure in Tokyo.

Matsuyama's medal means it's been a fine year for the 2021 Masters champion, who stormed to a Signature Event win at Riviera in February. Since then, he's only really stumbled when playing links golf. Under more predictable conditions and in generally better weather, his results read 12-6-7-39-35-8-6-23-3, with four of those five top-10s coming in fields like this.

Key to his success, as ever, has been his long-game and unlike many of his elite contemporaries, that doesn't depend so much on the driver, which is a bit less important here. Instead, Matsuyama remains a supreme (albeit less consistent) iron player when on-song, and around the green he's absolutely dynamite.

The latter skill-set helped him to lead the field in strokes-gained tee-to-green here in 2021, when he lost in a play-off, and that was really the only time he'd teed it up at Southwind in top form. In fact, as is the case three years later, he'd just played well in the Olympics and, following a slow start having flown in from Japan, produced some of his very best golf to almost pinch this title.

He'd been going along fine in 2019 but by no means spectacularly, and hadn't played since a missed the cut in the Open at Portrush. In 2020 he had gone MC-22-21-MC before finishing a decent 20th here, then last year he was without a top-10 since March and had failed to make the weekend at the Wyndham. This time, having brushed off that disappointing fortnight in Scotland with third in Paris, he's in much better shape.

The same can be said of his putting, which has been good for a while with the exception of two weeks on slower, links greens, and as for that tee-to-green game, Matsuyama ranks fourth for the season, the best of the rest behind the big three. He looks likely to give his running.

We were on TOM KIM in Paris, where he stumbled over the final few holes and was visibly emotional afterwards. Though keen to downplay it, you have to feel that had something to do with the size of the prize for a Korean golfer who would've avoided military service with any kind of medal.

How he bounces back from that we'll see, but at a slightly bigger price I do like his chances at Southwind, where several shorter, straighter hitters have proven to be very comfortable down the years. Kim is no slouch off the tee but finding fairways is his bread and butter before the rest of his game takes over, and this should suit more than next week's 8,000-yard colossus, even if that event takes place at altitude.

Kim was a very decent 13th on debut two years ago, when six in strokes-gained tee-to-green but unable to back up the previous week's putting heroics. This was his first event as a full PGA Tour member having just won the Wyndham and he was probably a little weary having played six weeks on the trot, including two high-profile performances in Scotland and that storming win at Sedgefield.

Returning last year, he finished a respectable 24th while still nursing the injury he'd picked up in the Open, significant enough for him to skip his Wyndham defence. Despite that, he blasted out of the gates with a six-under 64 and was still right in the mix under a poor final round, that two-over 72 his worst in eight tries here.

Like all of his fellow Olympians, Kim could benefit from a better preparation this time. Each of the last two renewals since this became the opening event of the Playoffs went to someone who had played the Wyndham Championship while many big names took a post-Open break. This time, Paris removes that potential advantage, especially as the challenge is somewhat similar.

Eighth place at Le Golf National came despite a poor week with the putter for Kim, who was the second-best iron player in the field and ranked fourth from tee-to-green, and I'm hopeful he can quickly put it behind him with what would be his fourth PGA Tour win in little more than two years.

He's gone close in Canada and at the Travelers lately and it is significant that both were on courses which are hard to overpower, just like this one. The next step for him is to win in this kind of company, something he was a shot from doing in Connecticut, and it could well happen on Sunday.

Former champion worth chancing

At big prices, two typically excellent putters suffered poor weeks in that department at the Wyndham, which caught my eye. JT Poston is one and he has a solid enough record here, while Denny McCarthy is the other. With two top-20 finishes in his three Southwind appearances, including when setting the pace for a time in 2022, this longstanding maiden is one to keep a close eye on in alternate markets including daily match-ups.

Ultimately, I find it hard to envisage either man hitting the ball well enough to win and will head back up the betting to find 2020 champion JUSTIN THOMAS.

It's more than two years since he won anything, that being his second PGA Championship, but before heading to Scotland he had three high-class top-10s from six starts post-Augusta, his only failure coming in a particularly volatile US Open at Pinehurst, the one place that has stopped Scheffler in his tracks this year.

The pick of these, eighth in his home state when bidding for a PGA hat-trick, came despite the putter – Thomas led the tee-to-green stats – but there are two small positives where that club is concerned. One is that we're back on bermuda, and a couple of his better performances this year coincided with such a switch; the other is that he's gained strokes on the greens in each of his last three events.

It was a similar upturn with the putter which preceded his win at Southern Hills and Thomas's long-game certainly remains good enough to compete as he ranks 12th for the season, six times producing the kind of top-10 performance he'll almost certainly need here.

He's still a little unconvincing off the tee and I wouldn't be as keen to chance him at many other courses, but Thomas loves Southwind, where he won despite putting poorly and has ranked first, fifth and third in strokes-gained tee-to-green on his last three visits, the most recent of them two years ago.

It would be easy to assume that he's turned up in better form in the past but that's not necessarily true, especially as his links record is modest and he's generally stuck to taking a break after the Open. That's the case again, but he won on his return in 2018, and on his second start back in 2017, and at the prices I want to be on him around here.

Sam Burns was a play-off loser for us three years ago and is back out to biggish prices despite showing flashes of his best form lately, including when in the mix for the Open before a shocking final round. With four top-20s in his last five starts outside of that, and now returned to his ideal conditions, his bid for a Presidents Cup place could take off at last over the next three weeks.

He is respected but it's three years since he led any tournament from tee-to-green and while that's a harsh way to view him, Burns' long-game has only been close to the standard it'll need to be on two occasions this season.

By contrast, SAHITH THEEGALA's has really improved, particularly off the tee where he's up to 17th from 134th.

For one reason or another he's been comfortable with driver here anyway, gaining strokes in both appearances, and he's also putted well. Bermuda greens wouldn't be an obvious positive for a Californian, but Theegala moved to Houston several years ago and says it's been massively beneficial, not just on the greens but when playing from the rough.

Only his approach play has kept him on the periphery in this tournament and it's been hit-and-miss lately, but finishes of fourth in the Scottish Open and sixth in the 3M Open, where he'd previously struggled, mark him down as one of the form players in the tournament.

Indeed he's back in the sort of shape which saw him produce four top-10s in seven starts from February to April and is all but certain to make his Presidents Cup debut next month, where I won't be alone in expecting big things given his style of play and how popular a partner he would be.

For now, finishes of 13th in both 2022 and 2023 mark him down as a likely improver now that he returns to Southwind as a PGA Tour winner and if he continues to drive the ball well, small improvements with his irons would give him every chance at what looks a nice price.

Finally, I have to stray from the usual format to advise a win-only bet on WILL ZALATORIS, winner here in 2022 and unable to defend his title last year.

Zalatoris had been eighth on debut and it stands to reason that this tee-to-green machine would enjoy this rigorous ball-striking test, so while he was a little fortunate to take a play-off against Straka, there was really no fluke about where his breakthrough win occurred.

The fact that he's played fewer than 30 times in two years since then says everything about how badly a potentially top-class career is being affected by injuries but to be frank, the form book alone is enough to explain why he's 100/1 for those betting each-way and as big as 300 on the exchanges.

However, Zalatoris said last week that he's feeling great again and that his swing and ball speed numbers are back up to where they were, and having hit the ball well enough both at the Wyndham and at the Open before it, I can't resist taking a very small chance given where we are.

He's putted well on both previous starts at Southwind, which has to go down as encouraging, and while this year has petered out he showed what he can do with second place at Riviera, fourth at Bay Hill, and ninth in the Masters, despite finishes of MC-74 in his two previous starts.

If you can't access exchanges (300 available currently, we'll use 250 for settlement purposes) then a minimum-stakes bet at three-figure odds (take price over places) would be advised. This has the feel of an all-or-nothing wager, though, so we'll take the hugely inflated Betfair odds and hope he can turn another corner.

Posted at 1000 BST on 13/08/23

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