What’s at stake Sunday at the BMW? It depends who you ask
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OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. – With 49 players left standing at the BMW Championship, everyone has something to play for heading into the final round. They’re just not all playing for the same thing.
Yes, the stakes are a little lower for the handful of players who know that, barring an other-worldly performance, their season will wrap Sunday afternoon at Olympia Fields. But their bank account will still bank accounts will still reflect the difference between finishing on a high note and struggling to the finish line.
And certainly there are several players who head into the final round with eyes on the trophy. This tournament turned on its head Saturday when overnight leader (and betting favorite) Max Homa triple bogeyed No. 7. As a result there are now six players within three shots of the lead, with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler the new man atop the odds board, and another four players lurking four shots back at 7 under with dreams of emulating the type of comeback Jon Rahm authored here three years ago.
But the betting intrigue this week extends beyond the outright market. Here’s a look at angles (and markets) of three potential contenders, as finding betting value could depend on discerning what each is playing for.
Fitzpatrick entered the week outside the top-30 bubble for the TOUR Championship, and amid a relative dry spell since his win at the RBC Heritage he described himself as “pretty frustrated” with his game entering the week. But a return to Olympia Fields, where he finished T6 in 2020, combined with the course growing firmer and faster as the week progressed, have been music to his ears.
“I like it when it’s windy and tough, and obviously it’s getting firmer out there,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’ll be very firm (on Sunday).”
Fitzpatrick is in a unique situation: tied for the lead at 11 under with Scheffler, he’s second on the board at BetMGM Sportsbook and +350 to win. But a tumble back down the standings could mean he misses out on East Lake entirely.
Consistency has been an issue for Fitzpatrick this summer, and after the round he shared that he’s hoping to become more like Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy by contending week in and week out. But expect him to play for keeps Sunday. A player of lesser caliber might focus on protecting his season-long position, but Fitzpatrick is more motivated by a potential victory than his starting strokes position in Atlanta. I would look to back him, both in the outright field and in his head-to-head matchup with Scheffler.
A third-round 65 moved McCarthy to the right side of the bubble, as he’s now projected to move from No. 34 to No. 30 in the season-long standings. It’s a thin margin, less than three points ahead of Jordan Spieth, but it means McCarthy is in line for a TOUR Championship berth – and all that comes with it.
Solidly inside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings, McCarthy likely won’t have to sweat major championship berths for 2024. Still, the opportunity to lock them up Sunday – including his first Masters invite – is an enticing option, not to mention the two-year exemption that would give McCarthy multi-year stability for the first time in his career.
“If I just come out with the same mindset I did stepping on 1 tee today, where I’m not fazed by anything and it doesn’t matter what bad shots I hit and just keep moving on, that’s all I can control,” McCarthy said. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
McCarthy will tee off T7 at 7 under, four shots back – having trimmed that deficit in half thanks to a bogey-free effort Saturday. At +8000 in the outright market, it seems ambitious to think he’ll overtake a star-studded field to grab win No. 1 Sunday at Olympia Fields. But a +400 price on a top-5 finish holds a little more intrigue for me. It would still require a solid finish, and would surely lock him up for Atlanta – but the pressures of East Lake are a big enough factor to make me wary of his -135 price at BetMGM for a top-10 finish. With a leaderboard this jam-packed, it won’t take much of a wobble to fall back to the pack.
It was a rough day for Max Homa. First he gave up a two-shot lead, falling to fourth place, then he found out he has company in the Olympia Fields record books. One day after Homa torched the North Course for an 8-under 62, Sam Burns matched that total with a bogey-free effort that launched him up the standings.
It was a timely effort for Burns, who has been relatively quiet since his WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play victory in March. He started the week on the East Lake bubble at No. 30, but was well outside the number after 36 holes. How quickly things have changed.
An East Lake appearance won’t make or break Burns. He’s won five times on TOUR and will surely get back to Atlanta at some point in the near future. What it does, though, is it opens up a potential lifeline for Burns to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team. It’s getting crowded near the bubble for Rome, with the top six spots finalized Sunday and U.S. Captain Zach Johnson making six more picks next week.
It seems unlikely that Burns would benefit from one of those picks without making the TOUR Championship – but his third-round surge may have opened the door to possible consideration, especially if he follows with a strong showing in Atlanta.
“At the end of the day, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to make the Ryder Cup. I want nothing more,” Burns said. “But that’s a goal that’s kind of different than coming out here and playing golf.”
Burns is in that group at 7 under, and his placement odds at BetMGM are shorter than McCarthy’s: +275 for a top-5 result, -175 for a top 10. The two will be paired together in Sunday’s final round, where Burns will likely be a short favorite in the two-ball matchup. With the stakes raised as the final cutdown of the season looms, there could be value in taking the more seasoned player in a head-to-head with McCarthy, a potential East Lake debutant.
Outrights, finish markets, head-to-heads, novelty groups. It’s all in the mix on Sunday as players try their best to keep prying eyes off the leaderboards strewn about the North Course that tell them precisely where they’re positioned – and where they might move with another birdie or bogey.
With plenty on the line Sunday, only one player will walk away with the trophy. But that doesn’t limit the betting options for fans looking to potentially turn a profit before all eyes shift south to Atlanta.
