Dufner to Go Well At Copperhead
Best Bets
0.75 Pts EW (1-5) Jason Dufner (40/1 General)
0.75 Pts EW (1-6) Graeme McDowell (40/1 Sky Bet)
The PGA Tour stays in Florida this week for the Valspar Championship. Although the field quality drops off there are still plenty of big names turning up looking for the win. Most notably Jordan Spieth headlines the field and returns as defending champion after winning last year. Although he rightly goes off as heavy favourite we are happy to swerve him this week at a short price. He hasn’t been firing on full cylinders in the last month and we think better opportunities will come around later in the season for the young American.
The course this week is Copperhead which is the regular host for this event. Keeping in theme will recent weeks Copperhead is a big challenge for the pros. The closing stretch provides a difficult test for any golfer, and look for lots of good rounds to be thrown away down 16, 17 & 18. Winners have been varied on this course and nothing demonstrates that more than Luke Donald following up Gary Woodland’s win in 2012.
The key performance indicators for this course are driving accuracy and ball striking. Winners generally hit a lot of fairways and greens. This is largely due to lots of the holes being dogleg in nature and finding the wrong place off the tee can necessitate a layup. As with any competition solid putting will also be crucial if you are to make a challenge for Sunday.
As usual we have looked at course and current form to make our picks. We have also delved into the statistics for our key performance indicators and have come up with the following fancies for this week.
0.75 Pts EW (1-5) Jason Dufner (40/1 General)
Our first pick this week goes to Jason Dufner who hasn’t been outside the top 25 in this event for a number of years. He ranks highly on both driving accuracy and greens in regulation percentage so fits the criteria of someone who should play well on this course. His confidence is sky high right now after an early season win. On a course that really shouldn’t have suited last week he managed to finish a respectable 11th. This came courtesy of a great finishing round of 68. We think he is a really solid play this week and he headlines our picks.
0.75 Pts EW (1-6) Graeme McDowell (40/1 Sky Bet)
Our second pick this week goes to Graeme McDowell who should really fancy his chances at Copperhead. McDowell ranks high in driving accuracy and he also fares well in the greens in regulation stats. He managed to finish in 28th last week at the Blue Monster despite the course reallynot suiting his playing style. Checking his twitter it’s clear to see that he thinks his game is in really good shape going into this week. Like Dufner McDowell just really fits the bill as someone who will go well round this golf course, and again we are happy to make an each way play on him this week.