WGC Cadillac Match Play
By Sportsbook.ag
Tournament: Cadillac Match Play Championship
Date: Apr. 29 - May 2
Venue: Harding Park Golf Course
Location: San Francisco, CA
The always exciting Cadillac Match Play Championship will take place on Harding Park Golf Course for the first time in its history this week, as 62 of the top-64 players from the Official World Golf Rankings take aim at the new format for 2015. The two golfers that will be missing are Justin Rose and Tim Clark as they give way to Miguel Angel Jimenez and Francesco Molinari who are ranked just outside the top-64.
Instead of doing a 64-man head-to-head bracket, the players will be placed into 16 groups of four with the top 16 players in the OWGR being split up evenly and then the others placed with a blind draw. This type of format is certainly much different than the typical stroke play found on tour and has not had a multiple time winner since 2009 when Geoff Ogilvy won for the second time (2006, 2009) in his career.
Last season, Jason Day won an exciting match against Victor Dubuisson that went an extra five holes as he took the title in a year that included nine first round upsets and also saw a 16-seed (Richard Sterne) defeat number one seeded Zach Johnson. While a top-eight player has won this event three times in the last five years, someone ranked worse than 20th has won four times in the span of seven seasons going back to 2008.
Let’s look through this field and see who stands out as a potential victor come Sunday afternoon.
Golfers to Bet
Jordan Spieth (8/1): Spieth is not only on one of the better tears in recent memory, winning or ranking second in four of the past five weeks, but also earned a favorable draw with his group consisting of Lee Westwood, Matt Every and Mikko Ilonen; all great players, but all of whom are rather inconsistent and have nowhere near the track record that this youngster already owns. He just continues to put up huge performances with 0.677 strokes gained putting (8th on tour) and his amazing ability to scramble (65.1%, 17th on tour). Spieth is at the forefront of the new generation of golfers and his grit and determination make it hard to look the other way when he tees it up.
Rickie Fowler (30/1): Fowler has come up huge in the big tournaments over the past few years and has been in the top-12 at each of the last nine majors and WGC events. He finished in third last year at this same event after defeating the likes of Ian Poulter, Jimmy Walker, Sergio Garcia and Jim Furyk in the process. He hasn’t exactly had the type of season that he should have been hoping for after getting ten top-10s last season, including a top-five in each of the majors, but he still shows up for the big tourneys and is coming of a solid tie for 12th at the Masters. He has hit at least 66% of GIR at four of his last five events, but has struggled with putting each week, and if he can find his stroke with the flat iron, he could once again be competitive come the final day.
Ian Poulter (30/1): Poulter has always been known to be a better match play golfer than the typical stroke play and that is evidenced by his past success in such tournaments as he took the trophy in this event back in 2010 and also was the victor at the Volvo World Match Play Championship in 2011. Poulter has also had impressive showings at the Ryder Cup and seems to take his game to the next level in this format as his European team has won in each of the years (2004, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014) that he participated. He has gotten to the round of 16 in five of the last 10 installments and seems to have a decent draw as he goes against Jimmy Walker, Webb Simpson and Gary Woodland in the first round. He’s been able to compete on a high level already this year with three top-10s over his nine PGA events and shot two 67s over the weekend at Augusta to vault him up to a tie for sixth in one of the biggest spectacles in golf. Look for Poulter to get to the next gear this week and leave the rest of the pack in his dust.
Louis Oosthuizen (50/1): Oosthuizen has played seven tournaments on the PGA tour this year and already has three top-10 finishes, with two of those coming in his past four events. He’s coming off a solid showing at the RBC Heritage when he shot four consecutive rounds better than 70 and tied for seventh. He’s also showed that he can show up in the biggest of spots with a top-19 placing at each of the first two WGC events of the year and also the Masters. He made it to the quarterfinals here last year, losing to the eventual champion, Jason Day, 2 and 1 as he has made it to the second round in each of the previous two seasons prior to that. Oosthuizen always has the ability to put up some big scores as he ranks eighth on tour in GIR (70.8%). He will have to get through Bubba Watson, Keegan Bradley and Miguel Angel Jimenez in order to move out of the first phase of this event, but both Watson and Bradley have shown a ton of inconsistencies and Jimenez was one of the last two players in due to others dropping out, so the South African has a solid chance to advance.
Paul Casey (30/1): Casey earned himself a somewhat lucky draw in this new tournament format as he gets No. 9 Adam Scott, who is dealing with issues behind his short putter, No. 25 Chris Kirk, who has failed to make the cut in three of the past seven events, and the lowest ranked player in the field, No. 64 Francesco Molinari, who has just one top-10 in nine 2015 PGA tournaments. Casey on the other hand has finished in the top-nine in four of the last six events and had three rounds of 69 or better when he tied for sixth at the Masters just a few weeks ago. He hasn’t played in this tourney since 2011, but was always impressive in this format with back-to-back runner-up finishes in 2009 and 2010. Casey has the great combo of length off the tee (295.9 yards per, 28th on tour) and putting ability (0.335 strokes gained putting, 45th on tour) which should get him to the weekend and give him a chance to finally win here.
WGC Cadillac Match Play Championship Betting Odds - Provided by Sportsbook.ag
Jordan Spieth 8/1
Rory McIlroy 10/1
Jason Day 12/1
Henrik Stenson 15/1
Dustin Johnson 20/1
Justin Rose 20/1
Patrick Reed 20/1
Adam Scott 25/1
Bubba Watson 25/1
Jim Furyk 25/1
Matt Kuchar 25/1
Sergio Garcia 25/1
Hideki Matsuyama 30/1
Ian Poulter 30/1
Jimmy Walker 30/1
Paul Casey 30/1
Rickie Fowler 30/1
Graeme McDowell 40/1
Hunter Mahan 40/1
J.B. Holmes 40/1
Brooks Koepka 50/1
Keegan Bradley 50/1
Lee Westwood 50/1
Louis Oosthuizen 50/1
Ryan Moore 50/1
Bill Haas 60/1
Brandt Snedeker 60/1
Martin Kaymer 60/1
Victor Dubuisson 60/1
Zach Johnson 60/1
Billy Horschel 80/1
Brendon Todd 80/1
Charl Schwartzel 80/1
Charley Hoffman 80/1
Harris English 80/1
Kevin Na 80/1
Russell Henley 80/1
Ryan Palmer 80/1
Webb Simpson 80/1
Bernd Wiesberger 100/1
Branden Grace 100/1
Chris Kirk 100/1
Gary Woodland 100/1
George Coetzee 100/1
Jamie Donaldson 100/1
Shane Lowry 100/1
Alexander Levy 125/1
Jason Dufner 125/1
Marc Leishman 150/1
Matt Every 150/1
Matt Jones 150/1
Andy Sullivan 200/1
Ben Martin 200/1
Danny Willett 200/1
Francesco Molinari 200/1
Joost Luiten 200/1
Marc Warren 200/1
Miguel Angel Jimenez 200/1
Mikko Ilonen 200/1
Tommy Fleetwood 200/1
Anirban Lahiri 250/1
John Senden 250/1
Stephen Gallacher 250/1
Thongchai Jaidee 250/1
WGC-Cadillac Preview
By Matt Fargo
Covers.com
New date, new sponsor, new venue and new format. The WGC Match Play Championship has moved from February to May, has a new sponsor with Cadillac taking over for Accenture and is now being played in San Francisco but the big news is a new format. Gone is the typical 64-man single-elimination bracket and in comes a round robin format where players are put into 16 four-man pods with the winner from each pod advancing into a single-elimination bracket for the weekend.
World No. 1 Rory McIlroy heads the revamped brackets as all but three of the top 64 players in the Official World Golf Ranking are taking part. The new format this year assigned the top seed for each of the 16 four-man pods based on the top 16 players in the OWGR. The remaining three players in each pod were determined by a blind draw from each of three pools depending on their standing in the OWGR (17-32, 33-48 and 49-64).
In the 16 years of this event, a number one seed has won it only three times and that of course was Tigers Woods, the only player to win this event three times. There are plenty of upsets throughout but for the most part, a low seed usually takes home the prize. In five of the last seven years, a number three seed or better has won the event and in the 16 years, 13 winners have come from a number six seed or better including eight of the last 11 years where a number four seed or better won.
The match play moved from The Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Marana, Arizona to TPC Harding Park in San Francisco California. Harding Park is a par 71 that can stretch 7,127 yards and hosted the 2005 WGC-Cadillac Championship and The Presidents Cup 2009. This came after a 15-month renovation and while the majority of the field has never played here, it means little. Because it is match play, players are taking on each other and not the golf course.
The top four seeds this week are McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson and Bubba Watson. But they are not the four favorites. Spieth is the favorite at +825 with McIlroy not far behind at +950. Defending champion Jason Day is next at +1,400 with Stenson, Justin Rose and Dustin Johnson all coming in at +2,000. Watson is +2,200 which is surprising he is this low as he has done well in this event in the past with a 9-5 record from 2011-2014. He is in a brutally tough group though.
Because of the new format, we have to look at the four-man pods and who has the best chances to advance because picking a winner from the top 16 is a lot easier than trying to pick one from the 64 overall players. Looking at overall rankings and match play experience within the four-man groups is vital. The wild card however is once the top 16 is determined, there is no determination of which side of the bracket players will fall so having them spread out is optimal but we won't know that until after Friday.