Prop Farm: Chris Kirk, Michael Thorbjornsen seeing some Utah love

It’s been more than 60 years since the TOUR held a Full-Field Event in the Beehive State, but the TOUR is back this week in Ivins, Utah, at the Black Desert Resort.

As is true with many outdoor activities in just about any part of Utah, the golf course is visually stunning. Emerald bentgrass fairways and greens weave their way around outcroppings of black lava rock, all amidst a red-orange, mountainous, desert background. High winds will often whip through this part of the southwest, so Black Desert designer, the late Tom Weiskopf, constructed very wide fairways and larger-than-average greens. The forecast this week, however, isn’t calling for anything much over 15 mph as far as wind.

A course that flirts with 7,400 yards in length will be reduced to roughly 7,000 yards in practice due to the fact that the property sits at around 3,000 feet above sea level. A relatively short course with wide fairways and very little wind, the course for the inaugural Black Desert Championship looks like it could be set up for a birdie-fest – although many bettors in Las Vegas are saying otherwise.

“The prop market has been popular, especially the winning score on a course with no TOUR history,” said renowned Las Vegas golf oddsmaker Jeff Sherman. “We opened Over/Under 262.5 (21.5 under par) and are now at 263.5 (20.5 under par).”

Certainly, this week presents a more challenging handicap because we have never seen this golf course before. In doing my research, I considered how players have performed at other Weiskopf designs that we see regularly on TOUR: TPC Craig Ranch (THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson), TPC Scottsdale (WM Phoenix Open) and Torrey Pines North Course, which Weiskopf renovated (Farmers Insurance Open). Due to its similarly wide fairways and large greens, Vidanta Vallarta (Mexico Open at Vidanta) could also provide some clues as to who might be a good fit at Black Desert Resort.

It seems bettors are relying a lot on what they saw last week at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

“No love at all for tournament favorite, Keith Mitchell,” said Sherman.

It was Mitchell who struggled on the inward nine last Sunday, ultimately three-putting the final hole to miss out on making the playoff and capturing his first TOUR win in nearly six years.

“The public is supporting Michael Thorbjornsen coming off his top-10 finish last week," Sherman added. "We’ve also seen sharp support for Hayden Springer.”

Both Springer and Thorbjornsen tied for eighth place last week in Jackson.

“In the outright market, Chris Kirk is currently standing as our biggest liability. Down to +2800 from +3000," added Thomas Gable from BetMGM Sportsbook at The Borgata in New Jersey. “Kirk was also bet as a dog in his tournament match-up against Seamus Power. He was +130 and is now +120, after respected money came in on him.”

Bettors are not fading Power entirely however.

“Power is taking the majority of the handle in the Top European prop market at +300,” Gable reported. “In the First-Round Leader market, we have seen money come in on Chan Kim at +4500 and Lucas Glover, also at +4500.”

Black Desert Resort is not even two years old, but it would make sense that players with roots in Las Vegas may have a small edge from a familiarity standpoint. There are quite a few excellent golf courses in this part of Utah, which is only a couple hours or less from Las Vegas. Even with that, though, some local Las Vegas bettors are not buying it.

“Action to win it all has been non-existent,” said Hall of Fame bookmaker Nick Bogdanovich. “But they are betting Kurt Kitayama on the 'NO' to finish Top 10.”

Kitayama played college golf at UNLV and currently lives in the Las Vegas area.

“They’re on Ryan Fox to the 'YES' on a Top-10 finish and Doug Ghim 'YES' to finish Top 20,” Bogdanovich added.

Flying blindly somewhat here, I landed on four outrights this week who have shown good current form, good form on Weiskopf courses, and in the case of Harry Hall, a UNLV Rebel golfer and Las Vegas resident. Hall can really putt and makes a ton of birdies. He also won just a few months ago at the ISCO Championship. Maybe not Kitayama, but Hall was my Rebel of choice this week.

I also played Daniel Berger, Andrew Novak and Justin Lower in the Outright market. We were correct on Kevin Yu last week – let’s keep it going this week at Black Desert.

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