It’s a different look on the PGA Tour this week as the golf world has its own big dance with the WGC Match Play in Austin, Texas.
This tournament has its own March madness with no shortage of upsets and intrigue, and we’ll try our best to navigate through the bracket with our betting picks below.
DEFENDING CHAMPION: Billy Horschel
THE COURSE — Austin Country Club
Par: 71
Yardage: 7,108
FORMAT: It?s a 64-player field based on World Golf rankings, and the field is then divided into 16 four-player groups. On Wednesday through Thursday, the groups will play round-robin matches among their groups. Winners get one point, and a tie is worth a half-point. The winner of each group moves onto the 16-player, single-elimination bracket with seeding based on group number. For example, if Jon Rahm wins Group 1, he?d face the winner of Group 16 in the round of 16.
BRACKET
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LEFT-SIDE BRACKET PICKS
(Betting odds via DraftKings Sportsbook)
Group 1: Cameron Young (+275)
Throw out the Players for obvious reasons, and Young is on a heater, with four top-20 finishes in his last five starts, including a second-place showing at Genesis. He’s been real good around the green, which is very helpful in match play, and he provides a lot more value than tourney favorite Rahm, whose short-game issues make him tough to back at the short number.
Group 16: Shane Lowry (+220)
Might as well throw a dart here; it’s a wide-open pod. Lowry has arguably the best form coming in, and he’s the most likely in the group to get hot with the putter, especially considering Brooks Koepka’s recent struggles.
Group 9: Talor Gooch (+225)
Gooch is a liability off the tee, but his around-the-green game gives him some value. It’s easy to poke holes in the rest of the group, too, including Bryson DeChambeau, who hasn’t played on Tour since late January and is no sure thing to even tee off here given recent injury issues.
Group 8: Max Homa (+230)
It came down to Homa and Mackenzie Hughes, for their respective putting prowess plus Dustin Johnson’s poor form. In the end, let’s roll with Homa, whose wins have typically come in loaded non-major fields. He’s a solid player with good intangibles — if you buy into that sort of thing.
Group 5: Scottie Scheffler (+200)
This is a loaded group with last year’s runner-up (Scheffler), an in-form budding star (Matt Fitzpatrick) and two Ryder Cup match-play stalwarts (Tommy Fleetwood, Ian Poulter). Scheffler has just been so good lately, can obviously win here and certainly feels comfortable returning to Austin as a former Texas Longhorn.
Group 12: Tom Hoge (+250)
Hoge is incredibly streaky with the putter, but he doesn’t make bogeys; he leads the field in recent bogey avoidance. He’ll have himself in position to win holes, and if the flat stick gets hot, watch out.
Group 13: Tyrrell Hatton (+225)
Hatton had a brutal showing here last year, but he won his group in the two Match Plays prior in large part because he’s a short-game/putting wizard. The hope is he can keep the ball on the planet for a few rounds and advance past Daniel Berger.
Group 4: Sungjae Im (+260)
Group of death option? There’s a case to be made for all four, but Im’s the play for his bogey avoidance and relative value compared to Patrick Cantlay, who’s almost an entire dollar more expensive.
RIGHT-SIDE BRACKET PICKS
Group 2: Sergio Garcia (+240)
Sergio, an adopted Texan, is almost an automatic advance at this tournament. He has eight “top-10” finishes here, including his last three, which includes a pair of quarterfinals appearances. He putted his face off in his last two starts to overcome horrible approach play, but he’s been very good off the tee since 2022 began.
Group 15: Brian Harman (+300)
Harman was playing really well before getting to Florida where Bay Hill and Sawgrass gave him a wedgie. In his two starts here, though, he’s at least reached the round of 16, and there’s no other real player who stands out in this group.
Group 10: Louis Oosthuizen (+200)
Form be damned, Oosthuizen just plays well here, reaching the round of 16 five times in his last seven WGC Match Play starts. Similar to Group 15, there are not any other worthwhile picks down the board here, either.
Group 7: Xander Schauffele (+125)
He’s the shortest group favorite for a reason. Schauffele is by far the best player in his pod, and the only real potential threat, Tony Finau, has been in the wilderness for a while now.
Group 6: Kevin Kisner (+260)
Clearly, Kisner feels comfortable in a match-play scenario, winning this tournament in 2019 after finishing runner-up the year before. He has to feel good after a really impressive fourth-place finish at The Players — despite being on the wrong side of the draw.
Group 11: Adam Scott (+230)
It’s still kind of hard to believe Scott is now an elite putter, but here we are. He hasn’t quite put it all together recently, but he’s showing signs of taking off.
Group 14: Russell Henley (+220)
Henley, despite being the third-ranked player in the group, has the best odds to advance. He’s been absolutely striking the ball lately and has been very good around the green, The Players being a recent exception. He’s finished no worse than 33rd since November.
Group 3: Sepp Straka (+400)
Our biggest upset of the first round here, but you can poke holes in players like Viktor Hovland and Will Zaltoris. Hovland’s short game is still concerning, and Zalatoris’ putting issues are well-documented. Straka finished 15th at Genesis, won the Honda and finished ninth at The Players, so there’s certainly form there, too.
ROUND OF 16
Young over Lowry
Gooch over Homa
Scheffler over Hoge
Im over Hatton
Harman over Garcia
Oosthuizen over Schauffele
Kisner over Scott
Henley over Straka
QUARTERFINALS
Gooch over Lowry
Im over Scheffler
Oosthuizen over Harman
Kisner over Henley
SEMIFINALS
Im over Gooch
Kisner over Oosthuizen
THIRD-PLACE MATCH
Gooch over Oosthuizen
FINALS
Im (+4500 to win) over Kisner
