PGA Betting Guide for The RSM Classic
Picking winners of a golf tournament is hard. Doing it consistently is downright impossible. However, finding value is something all bettors must practice in order to give themselves the best chance to make hay when the day finally comes that they select a champion.
Below, we will cover the best bets for The RSM Classic based on current form, course fit, and -- of course -- the value of their odds over at Golf odds.
The final PGA Tour event of 2021 brings us to a split event in Sea Island, Georgia, where golfers will play one round each at the Seaside Course and Plantation Course, followed by two rounds at Seaside over the weekend. The Plantation Course is the more inland of the two and less susceptible to coastal winds, but in truth, both of these courses skew to the easier side.
Week in and week out, we look for ballstrikers who give themselves birdie opportunities with consistency. That won't change this week, but specifically at the RSM we are looking for accuracy and putting performance on Bermuda greens more than eye-popping power. Golfers who have had success here and at the correlated Wyndham Championship keep it in play off the tee and seal the deal on the greens. That streakiness on the greens has opened this event up to random winners of late, with Tyler Duncan and Robert Streb winning as huge long shots the past two seasons.
For more info on the Seaside and Plantation Courses at Sea Island Resort, along with this week's key stats and comparable courses, check out the numberFire course primer.
At the Top
Webb Simpson (+1400) - It was kind of a strange year for Simpson. He didn't play poorly, per se, but he tumbled down the Official World Golf Rankings all the same. This time last year was the 6th ranked player in the world, and he arrives this week at 26th having missed out on the Ryder Cup team. In the 19 events he's played since the last RSM Classic, he finished inside the top 20 in half of them, including four top 10s.
The lack of upside makes him a concerning favorite, but in this field at this event he rightfully leads the way alongside Scottie Scheffler (+1400), himself beginning to bear the burden of questions regarding his closing ability. All four of those top 10s came on Bermuda courses in the Southeast, and this week marks his first sight of bermudagrass since he was T7 at the Wyndham. Simpson has a runner-up and a third place in the last three seasons, and he's available at a nice number for a Top 10 Finish (+320).
Value Spots
Harris English (+3000) - One of the golfers who leapfrogged Simpson and earned a spot at Whistling Straits, English comes off here at twice the price of Simpson despite two victories already in 2021 and a T6 here last year. A withdrawal in round 4 at THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT is surely to blame for the longer odds, but with another month off after this week, it would seem foolish to tee it up if he were not healthy enough to play.
He missed the cut at the Shriners in his only other start of the young season, mostly because of a ghastly putting performance. This Georgia Bulldog is arguably the best player in this field and is at least 10 points too long. He's also a member at Sea Island, and we'll gladly take the value for a home game.
Alexander Noren (+3600) - Noren skipped the DP World Tour Championship because he has to believe he has a better shot at winning in Georgia, and for that alone he must be taken seriously. He was 18th last year and 10th the year before, and outside the top 50 in the world, he has to focus on his PGA Tour bonafide.
Once upon a time, Noren was a top-10 player in the world despite splitting his time between the PGA and European Tours, and with top 10s in each of the Playoff events, he earned entry to last year he is clearly up to snuff with the world's best when his game is on.
Long Shots
Chris Kirk (+6500) - Kirk won here in 2013 and has two more top 5s since then. Most recently he was T18 last year, firing weekend rounds of 67 and 66. Like Simpson he played his best on Bermuda, sharing top 10s with Webb at the Sony Open in Hawaii and the RBC Heritage and adding two more at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Valero Texas Open. He's another alum of the University of Georgia.
Keith Mitchell (+9000) - More known for power than accuracy, we are drawn to Mitchell at 90/1 for his well-documented affection for bermudagrass and a couple of spike finishes amidst some otherwise choppy form. He has three finishes of T8 or better since July, but no other finishes inside the top 40 in that span. His breakthrough win at the Honda Classic in 2019 came in the first event of the Florida swing after being out West, and this week's event lines up as his first East Coast event of the season.
J.T. Poston (+29000) - Poston is accurately priced as a massive long shot, way down the board and coming in off seven straight missed cuts. But his win at the Wyndham lingers, and he's been uncharacteristically poor with the putter of late, losing strokes in five straight measured events. With the depth of talent on Tour and Poston's game where it is, he's really only going to stand a chance a handful of weeks each season. This is one of those weeks.
