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Mixed martial arts Charles Schwab Challenge Best Bet: 21.00 Value Pick This Weekend
Charles Schwab Challenge Best Bet: Thursday, May 25th
Colonial Country Club is the host course for the Charles Schwab Challenge. We have analysed the betting markets to bring you our Charles Schwab Challenge best bet.
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Charles Schwab Challenge Preview
Thursday, 25th May, 12:00 (UK)
The Charles Schwab Challenge returns to Colonial Country Club for the 78th time, making it the longest running non-major event to be played at the same venue.
The course at Colonial Country Club is a John Bredemus/Perry Maxwell design. Like last week at Oak Hill, the course plays as a par 70, stretching to 7,209 yards.
Players are faced with a traditional test at Colonial. Often referred to as Hogan’s Alley (Ben Hogan dominated this event in the early years), finding the small greens is paramount and those players with high greens in regulation stats and quality approach play are favoured.
PGA Championship runner up, Scottie Scheffler, is the clear favourite at 5.50. The Texan has yet to finish outside the top 12 in any event in 2023 and is expected to contend on a course where he was a runner-up in 2022.
There is a chance of rain showers on Saturday but the weather forecast is a good one with light breezes and sunny spells. As such, the winning score should be between twelve and sixteen under par.
Charles Schwab Challenge Best Bet
If ever there was a week to place a higher emphasis on course form, this could well be it. Of the last 23 winners of this event, 17 had previously recorded a top-10 finish.
That’s very much a trend I am sticking to this week and my shortlist is full of players with a proven record at this course, and in Texas overall.
Scottie Scheffler came under serious consideration this week. The 5.50 available on the world number one seems much more reasonable than the 9.00 last week given the field strength is considerably weaker.
However, I’m after a bigger price and Sungjae Im is the player who stands out of those players towards the front of the market. The South Korean can be backed at 21.00 for eight each way places using bet365’s Each Way Extra market.
Im inexplicably flew to Korea the week before the PGA Championship to play an event in his homeland. A win on home soil may have justified the decision but a missed cut last week was the price to pay and that travel cannot have been the best preparation the week before a major.
I’m not overly concerned about that missed cut and arguably a weekend off will have done the world number 19 no harm. Few players tee it up more regularly than Im and there is a feeling that he plays too often.
Recent form and course form are not in any doubt either. Prior to the win in Korea, Im had recorded three consecutive top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour. His record at Colonial isn’t too bad either, with two top 15 finishes in his last three starts here.
Finally, he’s shown himself to be a player to back in the weeks that follow a major. Im has recorded top 15 finishes in five of his last ten events following a major, including a 2nd place finish at last year’s 3M Open following The Open Championship. Take the world number 19 on an each-way basis.
Whilst I’m keen on Im this week, I’m less convinced by his compatriot Si Woo Kim. It’s a surprise to see Kim line up in this week’s field given his record at Colonia is truly awful. The South Korean has only made the cut once in six attempts and finished 66th on the sole occasion he did make the weekend. A missed cut last week doesn’t inspire confidence and the 3.25 on offer with bet365 for Kim to miss this week’s cut is more than fair.
- Selection: Sungjae Im EW
- Best Odds: 21.00 (bet365)
- Stakes: 2/10
Odds via bet365 as at 23.30 May 22nd 2023. Odds may now differ.
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