Best Prop Bets for the 2021 Charles Schwab Challenge
Phil Mickelson looks to follow up his historic PGA Championship victory with a third-career win at Colonial Country Club as the PGA Tour returns to Fort Worth, Texas, for the 2021 Charles Schwab Challenge. The post-major field is surprisingly strong, with many of the world’s top golfers now preparing for the US Open in mid-June. Justin Thomas is the top player in the field by the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) at No. 2. He joins Mickelson and outright betting favorite Jordan Spieth in looking to dethrone 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge winner Daniel Berger. We’ll look for value among these tournament favorites and the rest of the field in our Charles Schwab Challenge prop bets.
Colonial is one of the longest-serving annual PGA Tour stops. As such, it sees many of the same names in the field each year; however, a lot of golf’s longest hitters shy away from the tight, 7,209-yard, par-70 venue. The more balanced field at the Charles Schwab Challenge creates plenty of opportunities in the odds for the tournament prop bets.
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Top-20 Finish
Kevin Na (+210 on FanDuel Sportsbook)
Na won the 2019 Charles Schwab Challenge by four strokes at 13-under par, but he missed the cut in a stronger field last year while losing 0.98 strokes per round putting, according to Data Golf. He's struggling with the putter again this season, but he's averaging 0.63 Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green per round and claimed his fifth career PGA Tour title at the Sony Open in Hawaii in mid-January. He's No. 37 in the OWGR and is 19th in this field by that measure.
Na is also tied for 23rd in driving accuracy for the 2020-21 PGA Tour season and his 48 career rounds played at Colonial are the fourth-most in this field. He's a long-shot value bet to win outright, but we're still getting excellent odds with 19 places of cushion for a top-20 finish.
To Make the Cut
Tony Finau: No (+400 on BetMGM Sportsbook)
Finau's T8 finish at the PGA Championship was his fourth top-10 showing in his last five major appearances and his sixth top-10 finish of 2021. He was the runner-up at the 2019 Charles Schwab Challenge and tied for 23rd last year, but he still shouldn't be considered a sure thing to play the weekend, and the chance to quadruple our money with his fourth missed cut of the calendar year is too good to pass up.
The 13th-ranked golfer in the world missed the cut in each of his last three non-majors, and he failed to advance out of the group stage of the WGC-Match Play. While he's averaging 0.50 SG: Off-the-Tee per round, he's just 166th in driving accuracy this season and could struggle with Colonial's tightly-guarded fairways.
Best Finishing Position
Abraham Ancer -122 vs. Will Zalatoris -108 (on FanDuel Sportsbook)
Both golfers tied for eighth at last week's PGA Championship. Ancer was better on and around the greens, while Zalatoris was second among those who made the cut with 2.04 SG: Approach per round; he's now second on Tour for the season in that respect. While making his debut already at many of the PGA Tour's most difficult courses has resulted in just one missed cut, Colonial puts an even greater emphasis than most venues on experience.
Ancer has averaged 0.84 strokes gained on the field per round over his 12 career rounds here, including a T14 finish last year. He enters this year's tournament second on Tour for the season in driving accuracy and fourth in par 4 efficiency from the key distance of 400-450 yards. Among Zalatoris' few faults, he's just 150th in driving accuracy.
Group Betting
Group E: Matt Jones +335, Matt Kuchar +335, Matt Wallace +335, Sergio Garcia +350, Si Woo Kim +350 (on DraftKings Sportsbook)
The veteran Kuchar is the pick as a co-favorite in this five-person group. His 44 career rounds at Colonial rank eighth in this field, and his 1.43 strokes gained on the field per round rank ninth among those with at least 10 rounds played. He missed the cut last week and at the Masters but finished T18 or better in his other four most-recent events. He also leads this group in both driving accuracy and par 4 efficiency (400-450 yards).
Top American
Justin Thomas (+1000 at DraftKings Sportsbook)
Both golfers tied for 10th last year. For Thomas, it was his debut at Colonial, while Spieth won here in 2016 and had runner-up finishes in 2015 and 2017. Spieth is the favorite in this group at +750 odds, but the value on Thomas, who's third on Tour in SG: Approach and total strokes gained per round for the season, and the best player in the field by the OWGR, makes him the pick. He has also had a couple of extra days of preparation after a missed cut at the PGA Championship, while Spieth struggled Sunday in a disappointing T30 finish.
Spieth and Thomas are +188 and +250, respectively, to finish in the top 5 among Americans, as a good Charles Schwab Challenge prop bets hedge.
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Esten McLaren is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Esten, check out his archive and follow him @EstenMclaren.