Prop Farm: Did Scottie Scheffler’s chaotic week fuel betting popularity?

It was a thrilling week for many golf bettors last week in Louisville, Kentucky, at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club. The leaderboard was peppered with stars and many popular betting choices to win the 106th edition of the championship. Xander Schauffele came out on top in the end and endeared himself to many skeptics regarding his ability to close the deal - holing a putt on the 72nd hole for birdie and the win, that could have easily gone awry and forced a very undesirable playoff for Schauffele.

At the same time, casual golf fans were fascinated by the unfortunate and dramatic turn of events for world No. 1, Scottie Scheffler. Reality TV merged with major championship golf and impromptu viewers were suddenly engaged.

The fan support on the grounds at Valhalla grew exponentially for Scheffler immediately following his return to action last Friday morning. But has this allegiance for Scheffler now shown an increase of support at the betting window too? The answer to that question varies.

"Yeah, I think there is. Especially when the world sees he can shoot a 66 after the morning he had last Friday," said Tristan Davis, Senior manager at Mandalay Bay Race and Sportsbook in Las Vegas.

"Scottie's historic stretch has made him the most bet by tickets and handle for the last several events he's been in," said Drew O'Dell, senior data dnalyst for BetMGM.

"Last week, we did see an uptick from the time the news broke of his arrest to his tee time. During those few morning hours, Scottie had twice as many bets as anyone else to win it all."

Renown Las Vegas golf oddsmaker, Jeff Sherman is not seeing it however filter over into this week's Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club, not far from Scheffler's hometown of Dallas. "Nothing out of the ordinary yet this week," said Sherman. "It has been light with him as such a short favorite."

Director of Race and Sports at The Borgata in New Jersey, Thomas Gable, offered his thoughts. "It's tough to say if the incident with Scheffler is having any effect on how he is being bet. He’s the number one player in the world so he is always going to be a popular choice with the recreational bettors, no matter the price on him."

Gable continued, "It is no surprise this week that he has the most money and most tickets written on him even at +300. But I can't say if there is any correlation between him becoming more popular of a betting choice simply due to what happened to him last Friday."

O'Dell pointed out that Scheffler (13.4%), Collin Morikawa (9.2%) and Max Homa (6.5%) lead the outright winner market in ticket count percentage this week. Scheffler (30%), Morikawa (9.9%), and another local Texan, Jordan Spieth (6.7%) lead in handle percentage to win the Charles Schwab Challenge. Scheffler lost to Sam Burns in a playoff here at Colonial two seasons ago. Spieth is a former winner who has finished top-10 seven times, including three runner-up finishes. Morikawa finished runner-up here in 2020.

I am one who personally bet on Morikawa (+1200) to win this week. He's been playing terrific golf as of late and has really started to flourish on and around the greens. After coming up just short at the Masters, Morikawa spoke openly about really making a concerted effort to push his game to get to that next level once again. He was tied for the lead heading into the final round at Valhalla last Sunday and I believe Colonial is a golf course that fits his game even more so.

Sherman reported that he has seen recreational action this week on Morikawa, Homa, and Tony Finau. "We've taken sharp action on Austin Eckroat to win this week," said the nearly 30-year veteran golf oddsmaker.

Eckroat makes sense this week as he is an excellent ball-striker and is very accurate off the tee. He has also fared well at similar golf course to Colonial. He finished 18th last week at the PGA Championship. I played another similar player to win this week in Billy Horschel. Horschel won last month at the Corales Puntacana Championship and just took eighth at Valhalla last week. Eckroat, a winner at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches earlier this season - a place Horschel has finished top-10 three times.

Turning to some full tournament head-to-head matchups, Sherman had one catch his eye. "The sharps are on Homa over Spieth."

Davis chipped in by saying, "Best backed matchup this week from the sharps has been Taylor Moore to beat Sepp Straka. He had been +110 and now to -105."

Personally, I played Denny McCarthy (-125) over Keegan Bradley at BetMGM. Bradley was very solid last week at Valhalla, finishing 18th, while McCarthy missed the cut. I also have an outright bet this week on McCarthy (+5000), so I like his game for this course much more so than last week's track. Over the last 24-rounds, McCarthy is No. 1 in this field for Strokes Gained: Putting (Bentgrass), No. 2 in Scrambling and also second in Bogey Avoidance. Taking on a big, driver-heavy course for the second week in a row may have been a bit much for one of the shorter hitters on TOUR, but he did finish sixth at Quail Hollow Club, a similar test to that of Valhalla, at the Wells Fargo Championship the week prior to the PGA. He lost in a playoff at the Valero Texas Open last month.

The enthusiasm for Scheffler has shown up to be this week's First Round Leader as well. "He is just over 30% of our handle in both the outright market and for First Round Leader," Davis added. " And the money for him shows no signs of slowing down."

Nor does Scheffler. His very first approach shot last week, coming off of the birth of his first child just days before, he holed out for an eagle. And then after everything he had been through, he still managed to shoot three rounds of 67 or better and finish tied for eighth at the PGA Championship. The story continues this week in Fort Worth for the man who not only continues to gain strokes on the field but is also gaining fans all over the world.