Sleeper Picks: BMW Championship

NOTE: For three consecutive tournaments, Rob identifies golfers needing a good performance to advance in the FedExCup Playoffs. In this final edition, all five below enter the BMW Championship outside the top 30 in points. Sleeper Picks did not appear in Rob’s Power Rankings and recommended bets are independent of targets to advance.

Outright

Corey Conners (+4500) … Last week’s showcase of PGA TOUR non-winners populating the top three bets in Sleepers unintentionally helped prove why it’s typically unwise to lean into them in the FedExCup Playoffs. Denny McCarthy, who was not featured – he wasn’t eligible because he was inside the top 50 in points – and finished T9, was the only non-winner inside the top 10. Maverick McNealy (the outright) and the previously scuffling Will Zalatoris shared runner-up honors among the subset with T12s. So, Zalatoris, who won the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship, remains the more recent of only two breakthrough winners in Playoffs history. Nine non-winners qualified for this week’s BMW Championship, but it’s time to abandon that pursuit. Conners is a two-time winner on TOUR. He’s 33rd in the FedExCup and seventh in points to qualify automatically for the Internationals in the Presidents Cup, and this week is the deadline. Because Castle Pines Golf Club is unfamiliar, ball-strikers have the upper hand, at least early. Pure and simple, he’s the natural fit.

Top 5

Will Zalatoris (+750) … Nothing like the promise of four rounds to reconnect with the kind of form for which he knows he’s capable. He ended an extended drought that included a new injury with a T12 last week at TPC Southwind where every club contributed to the cause. It lifted him 12 spots to 37th in the FedExCup, a lofty position made possible by an early-season flurry that must feel like ages ago for the 28-year-old who celebrated his birthday with a second-round 65, his best score of the tournament. From our standpoint, it’s exactly the kind of firepower that we needed to lean into momentum and the promise of another four rounds at Castle Pines where he can thrust himself into early contention on his tee-to-green game alone. Oh, and this wouldn’t be the first time that he’s delivered on this bet. He was touted at +650 for a Top 5 at The Genesis Invitational and finished T2.

Top 10

Austin Eckroat (+500) … It took the former standout at Oklahoma State University just six starts into his second season with a PGA TOUR card to record his first victory. That was at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in early March. The learning curve has won a few battles in the interim but he couldn’t ask for a better groove than a 6th-T18 burst since the Wyndham Championship. It has him 38th in the FedExCup and one more strong performance from advancing to the TOUR Championship. Including the coronation at PGA National, he’s played his best golf on shorter tracks that force him to rely on his ball-striking, which is elite. So, the curiosity is if his game will translate to the altitude and relative length of Castle Pines. However, given how quick of a study he’s been and that he has nothing to lose, this presents as the perfect combination of variables that will amplify his talent, patience and education.

Top 20

Alex Noren (+125) … I’m genuinely surprised that the Swede is plus value for this finish in a field of 50. He’s been one of the steadiest and most lucrative plays all year, with his most recent of the valuable returns a T10-T13 fortnight in Scotland. He’s done so much so well that it’d be unfair to single anything out, but ranks ninth in adjusted scoring and fourth in bogey avoidance serve as appropriate broad strokes. The 42-year-old also has a litany of successes at altitude. While PGA TOUR fans in the United States might best remember him eschewing what eventually would have been a start in The Open Championship in 2022 in favor of the concurrently contested Barracuda Championship where he was the runner-up, he has multiple victories at elevation on the DP World Tour, including a pair in Switzerland. He’s 45th in the FedExCup.

Top Australian

Cam Davis (+300) … BetMGM has a Top 30 market, but the longest odds are only (-135) for Matthieu Pavon. Have at that if you wish, but Davis is more attractive in this one. He’d have to beat Adam Scott and Jason Day to pay this off – both are +140 in this market – but Davis arrives with an angle strong enough to warrant a unit. He’s not yet two months removed from his victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, an exceptionally well-timed achievement responsible for him sitting 49th in the FedExCup today. While his season-long analytics don’t support it, he’s always been an intriguing option when ball-striking plays up, and that component of his game is responsible for his recent uptick in form. This bet reminds me a little of when Seamus Power appeared in the same spot in Sleepers for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for Top Irish. He was +550 and had to beat “only” Rory McIlroy, who sat atop my Power Rankings for the tournament. The outcome: Power T31, McIlroy T66. Scott is in my Power Rankings for the BMW Championship, and Day still could spoil, but Davis’ value is too enticing to ignore.

Odds were sourced at BetMGM.

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