Draws and Fades: Back ball-strikers like Corey Conners after BMW Championship opener

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – The penultimate event in the chase for the FedExCup got going Thursday in the mountains, but not without a little wrinkle from Mother Nature.

Eight players were still on the course at 3:33 p.m. MT when play was suspended because of inclement weather, including Rory McIlroy who was a 20-foot par putt away from finishing his round and heading for the exit. Instead, McIlroy and seven of his colleagues had to wait out a rain delay of more than three hours before the opening round came to a close near sunset.

But the 42 players that did finish their rounds early in the day put up some impressive scores, none better than U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley who paced the field with a 6-under 66. Last week’s winner, Hideki Matsuyama, had to return to complete No. 18 – and ultimately missed a 2-foot birdie putt that would have given him a share of First Round Leader honors. Matsuyama instead signed for a 5-under 67 that left him one shot back, while four others carded 68s.

Updated odds to win BMW Championship (via BetMGM Sportsbook):

• +450: Xander Schauffele (-3)
• +550: Hideki Matsuyama (-5), Scottie Scheffler (-1)
• +1200: Rory McIlroy (-2)
• +1400: Keegan Bradley (-6), Collin Morikawa (-2)
• +1600: Corey Conners (-4), Sungjae Im (-3)
• +1800: Adam Scott (-4)
• +2200: Patrick Cantlay (-1), Tony Finau (-2)
• +2500: Viktor Hovland (-1)

Looking ahead to Round 2, a number of notables lurk just off the first page of the leaderboard: McIlroy (70) failed to save par on the home hole after the re-start, while world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (71) ended the day in red figures despite some back tightness that flared up on the 17th hole.

So who is positioned to make a run up the standings, and which players may cool after a hot start? Let’s take a look:

Draws

Corey Conners (+1600)

Don’t sleep on the Canadian. Conners was a ball-striking machine Thursday en route to a 4-under 68, ranking third in the field in SG: Off-the-Tee and fourth in SG: Approach. It often boils down to the putter for Conners, but even on the greens he picked up strokes while ranking in the middle of the pack.

Ball-striking seems like it will be the name of the game this week amid the thin air, so the rest of the way should play into Conners’ strength. He’s seventh in Presidents Cup standings, on the cusp of the top six and an automatic berth for next month’s event in Montreal. While he seems likely to get a pick from captain Mike Weir, I’m sure both wouldn’t mind him making it ahead of Sunday’s deadline and freeing up another selection.

Sungjae Im (+1600)

This one may be a bit personal, as I fear I might have been a week early with Im as he led my Expert Picks selections last week in Memphis before a mediocre performance. But he was one of the early leaders Thursday, leading the field in SG: Around-the-Green and despite the fact that his iron play (31st) was below his standard. If the South Korean heats up from the fairways, he’s going to make a move from his current perch at 3 under. Im has quietly been on a bit of a heater across the late summer, with four straight top-12 finishes before the Wyndham Championship.

Im is nearly three years removed from his most recent win on TOUR, but like Conners, he fits the mold of a player who should succeed this week and is already ahead of pace after just one round.

Fades

Scottie Scheffler (+550)

No, it’s not because of the back. Scheffler unsurprisingly received a ton of pre-tournament money, so it’s understandable that he remains among the shortest-priced favorites despite basically spinning his wheels in an opening round that started with 10 straight pars. Scheffler explained after the round that his back has tightened up this week, but it’s not of serious concern – minutes later, his playing partner Xander Schauffele joked that Scheffler also had muscle tightness at both THE PLAYERS and the Masters before winning, so maybe this is bad news for the rest of the field.

Still, this is too short of a price for a player who just doesn’t have enough to gain this week. Scheffler can’t drop lower than second in the FedExCup points race, and pending Schauffele’s result he might still end up as the top seed at East Lake for the third straight year regardless of his own personal performance. Scheffler will continue to grind, but it’s human instinct to begin to focus on the larger prize that lies ahead next week and potentially save some reserves if he remains in the middle of the pack over the weekend.

Keegan Bradley (+1400)

It’s a great story to see Bradley atop the leaderboard, the last player in the 50-man field now projected to potentially start next week as the No. 4 seed. But so much of Bradley’s battle was just to get to this tournament, and thereby lock up a plum schedule for 2025, that he may let his guard down across the subsequent 54 holes. Bradley was great with his irons, ranking second in the field in SG: Approach on Thursday, but those numbers may be hard to replicate for a player who ranks 52nd in the category across the entire 2024 season.

Bradley admitted that much of his performance last week, when he finished T59 among 70 players in Memphis, can be attributed to a bad course fit with TPC Southwind. Still, he doesn’t have a top-10 finish since his runner-up at Colonial back in May – and his best finish in that span is actually a T22 result at the Wyndham Championship. This was a solid effort from a TOUR veteran and major champion, but I will need to pick my jaw up off the floor if he pulls off a wire-to-wire victory this week in the Rockies.

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