2024 Players Championship prop bet picks and PGA Tour predictions
It’s not yet major season but there’s a big event on the PGA Tour schedule this week at TPC Sawgrass. It’s the 2024 Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., a tournament considered by many to be the 5th major. The 1st round begins on Thursday morning from Sawgrass.
Below, we search for the best value prop bets among the 2024 Players Championship odds and make our PGA Tour picks and predictions.
Tournament favorite Scottie Scheffler is No. 1 in this week’s Golfweek/Sagarin rankings, ahead of Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and Patrick Cantlay in the top 5. Scheffler is coming off a win at Bay Hill last weekend and is seeking to win his 2nd straight Players Championship.
TPC Sawgrass isn’t an overly long course, coming in at just 7,275 yards as a par 72. It does require players to be accurate off the tee, however, requiring them to be on the right side of the fairway to set up easier approaches into the greens. The reachable par 5s offer scoring opportunities for players, leading to winning scores ranging from 10-under to 18-under each year since 2010. Scheffler won last year at 17-under.
Players Championship – Top-5 picks
BetMGM Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports Scores and Sports Betting Odds hub for a full list. Lines last updated Tuesday at 4:02 p.m. ET.
Justin Thomas (+450)
Thomas seems to be on the brink of winning again after posting 4 top-12 finishes and 2 top-10s in his 1st 5 starts this season, but he might not be ready just yet to close out a tournament. Therefore, he’s a good bet for a top 5 in case he has a few bad holes on this volatile course to push him down the leaderboard.
Shane Lowry (+650)
Lowry has finished in the top 5 in each of the last 2 weeks so he’ll be trying to make it 3 in a row at Sawgrass. He’s finished 35th, 13th and 8th in his last 3 starts here so he’s had some success and he’s clearly in good form after a couple of near-wins the last 2 weeks.
Players Championship – Top-10 picks
Will Zalatoris (+220)
Zalatoris had a 5-shot lead at one point on Saturday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational until a couple of double bogeys on the back 9 did him in. Still, he finished in the top 10, his 2nd consecutive top 5 this season.
Max Homa (+250)
Homa missed the cut in his tournament debut 3 years ago, but he bounced back with 13th and 6th-place finishes in the last 2 years. He’s been steady all year and just finished 8th at Bay Hill, making him a good option again this week.
Russell Henley (+375)
Henley is playing some solid golf right now, finishing 4th at Bay Hill. He’s also come in 19th and 13th in the last 2 years here, proving to be a good fit for TPC Sawgrass with its winding layout and required accuracy off the tee.
Other T10 contenders (in order from longest odds to shortest):
- Keegan Bradley (+550)
- Min Woo Lee (+400)
- Rory McIlroy (+180)
Players Championship – Top-20 picks
Corey Conners (+200)
Conners has had mixed results at this tournament like most other players but he should find success with the way he hits his irons and finds fairways. He hasn’t finished worse than 41st in each of his last 5 starts this season, including an 18th-place finish last week.
Brian Harman (+240)
Harman got off to a little bit of a slow start this season, but 0he got on track with a 12th-place finish at Bay Hill despite shooting 77 on Saturday. He’s been surprisingly reliable at TPC Sawgrass with only 1 missed cut since 2015 and 3 top-10s in that span.
Adam Scott (+275)
Before missing the cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Scott had finished in the top 20 of his 1st 4 starts of the 2024 season. He hasn’t cracked the top 40 here since 2019 but from 2016-19, he finished 12th, 6th, 11th and 12th.
Other T20 contenders (in order from longest odds to shortest):
- Matthieu Pavon (+450)
- Erik van Rooyen (+350)
- Adam Hadwin (+300)
Players Championship – Matchups
Suggested play is golfer in bold.
Justin Thomas (+110) vs. Xander Schauffele (-135)
Schauffele finished 2nd here in 2018 and then proceeded to miss the cut 3 straight years before coming in 19th last year. Thomas has never missed the cut at this event and has won it before, yet he’s a sizable underdog. This bet could cash if Schauffele just misses the cut again.
Will Zalatoris (-105) vs. Patrick Cantlay (-120)
Zalatoris is red hot and has made the cut in all 3 of his career starts here. Cantlay, meanwhile, missed the cut 3 years in a row from 2019-22 before coming in 19th last year.
Players Championship – Top South American
Emiliano Grillo (-150)
Nico Echavarria (+240) and Camilo Villegas (+400) are the only other South Americans in the field and while Grillo’s line is juicy, he’s finished in the top 44 in each of his last 8 starts this season.
Players Championship – Top Australian
Adam Scott (+300)
Scott has longer odds than Jason Day and Min Woo Lee, who are each +230 to be the top Australian. Scott has been rock solid on this course in the past, as has Day, but Scott offers good value at +300.
Players Championship – First-round leader
Alex Noren (+6600)
Noren ranks 3rd on tour in 1st-round scoring average (67.0) this season and finished 9th in his most recent start at the Cognizant Classic. He’s worth a dart throw to lead after Round 1 with an early tee time.
Doug Ghim (+8000)
Ghim has the 12th-best 1st-round scoring average (68.2) this season and has finished no worse than 16th in any of his last 4 starts. In other words, he’s trending in the right direction and playing well right now.
Group D winner: Brian Harman (+500)
In this group are Henley (+275), Si Woo Kim (+300), Cameron Young (+375) and Day (+375), a group that includes 2 former winners. I don’t trust Young on a course that doesn’t favor his length and at an event where simply making the cut is difficult, I’ll lean toward Harman, who hasn’t missed in any of his last 4 starts at Sawgrass.
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