Charles Schwab Challenge Tips & Odds 2023 for the field

 It’s the turn of Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas to host this week’s event and our man Jamie Broadhurst returns with four each-way selections. 

A frustrating week for sure, Tony Finau and Tyrrell Hatton who I really fancied going into the week both opened up their rounds with a nightmare start on their front 9s, with Hattojn shooting a 42 for his first 9 holes! Not the ideal start considering he rallied superbly to finish in a tie for 15th place in the end.

Our 125/1 tip Justin Rose finished in 9th place with him being tipped each way for 8 places… a bogey on his 16th hole on Sunday dropped him out of the money for us.

Brooks Koepka won his 5th career major in what seemed like controlled style, he sure is back to his best after competing for a very long time at The Masters last month!

Charles Schwab Challenge

Colonial has a set position on the PGA Tour calendar and has done so for many years, in fact it's the longest running host for a PGA Tour tournament we see, holding this event 75 times so far, dating back to 1946. Since the PGA Championship was moved to May, the Charles Schwab Challenge has always been the week after the second major of the year. Due to its history and prestige, the tournament always seems to attract a good field!

Colonial Country Club- Par 70, 7209 yards approx.- John Bredemus & Perry Maxwell design- Bentgrass greens - fast- 4 x Par 3s ranging from 190-247 yards- 12 x Par 4s ranging from 387-483 yards – 9 under 450 yards- 2 x Par 5s @ 565 yards and 635 yards- Tree lined fairways, thick rough

- Tiny greens

A lovely, easy on the eye golf course for the viewer this week, not so easy for the players. This will test the guys again this week big time.

You may notice that the co-designer of this course is Perry Maxwell. The very same Perry Maxwell that designed Southern Hills which was in play for the PGA Championship in 2022. The similarities to last week do not stop there either. Testing tee shots, smaller than average greens and deep bunkering protecting the small greens are seen throughout the course. I have seen in a lot of articles that 2/3 guys last year quote that Southern Hills was ‘Colonial on steroids’ so the players clearly see the link also. Maybe worth a look into the leaderboard there last year for sure

Tee shots will require less than driver plenty of times again to navigate dog legs/narrow fairways to give the guys the best chance of hitting the tiny greens with their approach shots. However, do not discount the long drivers in the field, as seen when Burns and Kokrak won the last 2 years when they were taking driver to carry the dog legs in play on certain holes.

2022 Sam Burns -9 (Play off win over Scottie Scheffler)2021 Jason Kokrak -142020 Daniel Berger -15 (Play off win over Collin Morikawa)2019 Kevin Na -132018 Justin Rose -20Stat Averages - Score -14

Stats patterns from the previous winners

- Not on the stats but all 5 winners came in the top 17 for Driving Accuracy

- OTT/Driving Accuracy- Greens in Regulation/Proximity to the hole from fairway - Scrambling from the rough

- One putt percentages/Putting Averages

As I have mentioned above, a good drive is absolutely key this week. With thick, penal rough surrounding the fairways this week and dog legged fairways on at least 40% of the holes, a player who possesses a consistently strong off the tee game will be high on the list this week.

Greens are smaller than average size this week, an emphasis will be on the second shots this week with a demanding test from Tee2Green. I will be looking at Green in Regulation numbers for the season to see who is consistently hitting them.

With these greens being so small in size, long distance putting will not be such of an issue this week which brings into the equation the slightly lesser than average putters in the field. I will take a look at One-putt percentages however for this year, being such a demand from Tee2Green players will have to rely at times on their scrambling/putter to get them out of trouble, in most cases this will mean holding crucial putts to save dropped shots.

The Field

Invitational event this week, meaning we only have a field of around 120 players. Eight of which are situated in the top 20 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

World Number 2 Scottie Scheffler leads the field and this week’s betting market at 9/2. He is back on home turf again in Texas this week and is coming here off the back of a third place finish last week at the PGA Championship where he looked phenomenal again at times, but just left himself too much to do on Sunday. Arguably, in the form of his life – hits the ball arrow straight and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the top 5 again this week.

Jordan Speith, Tony Finau, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and Sungjae Im take us up to 20/1 in the Bet365 market. Ball strikers galore here that week in week out come out on top for their Iron play. Viktor Hovland performed by far the best of this group finishing runner up in last week’s major, so there may be a hint of fatigue due to a long slow on Sunday for him with some unlucky breaks. Collin Morikawa is the bet for me from this group if I had to choose! He may even figure in my final 5.

Five of the last seven winners of this event have come from the 20/1-70/1 range in the market that specific week, so this tournament has favoured the middle of the market for sure where I will be focussing my picks this week.

Charles Schwab Challenge Selections

Just the four each way selections again for you this week, all picked with eight places on bet365, 1.25pt each way staked this week as there are just four picks and not five.

Charles Schwab Challenge Tips

Collin Morikawa - each-way 8 places

Collin Morikawa 20/1
Recent Form – 26-MC-31-10
Course Form – 40-14-2

Bit of a strange year for Collin, some positive performances but some also weird ones. A 26th however tough last week at a really tough test, with some really testing weather was enough evidence to take him here this week. At a very similar set up/layout Tee2Green to last week, his accurate driver/iron play will be much needed again here. He tops the PGA tour this season for Strokes Gained on Approach so I am hoping he catches fire this week!

Tommy Fleetwood - each-way 8 places

Tommy Fleetwood 35/1
Recent Form – 18-5-15-33-52
Course Form – 35

Tommy is playing some really consistent stuff on the PGA Tour this year and seems to be trending towards his first win on American soil.

An 18th finish last week was the epitome of his game, doing nothing wrong all week, gaining strokes in all departments of his game, and a tie for 5th place finish last year at Southern Hills puts him right in the frame for me this week.

The ‘English’ like conditions at Colonial with the fairways narrow, tree lined and small greens should suit him down to a tee (pardon the pun).

Brian Harman - each-way 8 places

Brian Harman 75/1
Recent Form – MC-MC-7-17
Course Form – MC-8-23-31-14-7-25-10-30-MC

First time backing Brian this season for me after being one of my favourite guys from the 21/22 season to track.

He hits it arrow straight (6th for Driving Accuracy on Tour) and loves a good test. He scrambles really well and putts superbly well year in year out on Tour. Results have not been the best but has spent two weeks playing on brutally long courses and with Brian being a shorter hitter it wouldn’t have been advantageous to him at all. The presence of dog legs/shorter holes here will be right up his street, and looking at his course form he is really experienced here with a couple of great finishes.

Eric Cole - each-way 8 places

Eric Cole 110/1
Recent Form – 15-23-MC-5
Course Form – Debut

The outsider of the week. A rookie on Tour who is enjoying some really good form as of late. Good performances at some prestigious golf courses already this year – 2nd at The Honda Classic, 15th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, 5th at the Mexico Open, 23rd at the Byron Nelson and then 15th last week at the PGA Championship.

He seems to love courses that reward good tee shots, hence the pick here this week. He too gained strokes in all departments last week.