Tom Jacobs reveals his BMW Championship betting tips ahead of the second PGA Tour Playoff event from Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.
In all but words, the BMW Championship acts as the FedEx Cup semi-final, reducing the 50 remaining players to 30 ahead of next week’s Tour Championship showdown.
Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland gets the nod this year, hosting the tournament for a second time since being introduced as a FedEx Cup Playoff event. Patrick Cantlay was the man to come out on top then, defeating Bryson DeChambeau via a playoff in 2021 for the first of his back-to-back BMW wins.
Twelve months ago, though, it was current US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley who lifted the trophy, edging out Ludvig Åberg, Sam Burns, and Adam Scott by a shot. A repeat performance this time around, and Captain Bradley will surely be a shoo-in for promotion to Player-Captain Bradley.
Before diving into my betting tips for the week, here’s everything you need to know about the BMW Championship…
BMW Championship key details
Dates: August 14-17 August
Venue: Caves Valley Golf Club, Owings Mills, Maryland (Par 70 – 7,226 yards)
Field: Top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings through FedEx St Jude Championship
Format: 72-hole strokeplay with no cut
Purse: $20 million with the winner receiving $3.6m
FedEx Cup points: 2,000
Favorites: TBC
Defending champion: Keegan Bradley (USA), -12
How to watch the BMW Championship
US viewers can catch all the action on the Golf Channel.
All times EDT
Thursday, August 14: The Golf Channel, 2pm
Friday, August 15: The Golf Channel, 2pm
Saturday, August 16: The Golf Channel, 1pm
Sunday, August 17: The Golf Channel, 12pm
UK viewers can catch all the action on Sky Sports+ and Sky Sports Golf.
All times BST
Thursday, August 14: Sky Sports Golf, 2.15pm
Friday, August 15: Sky Sports Golf, 2.15pm
Saturday, August 16: Sky Sports Golf, 3pm
Sunday, August 17: Sky Sports Golf, 4pm
BMW Championship tee times
Tee times and groupings can be found here.
BMW Championship betting tips
Right, I’ve got three picks for you this week…
The Banker: Ludvig Aberg
25/1 e/w (bet365 5 Places Market 1/5 Odds)
Ludvig Aberg won earlier this season, but I still felt for the most part it has been a really disappointing year. After finishing 7th at The Masters, where he fell apart at the end, Aberg missed his next two major cuts, before finishing T23 in the Open. Since his win at Torrey Pines, Aberg has only posted three top 10s, the 7th at The Masters, 8th at the Scottish Open and 9th last week.
With two of his three top 10s since his win coming in the last three weeks there looks to be a noticeable turnaround in his form, and that’s no surprise given his ball striking has been extremely consistent since The Memorial. With this mind I am willing to bet on a strong end to the season for the Swede, who will have huge expectations on his shoulders ahead of Bethpage.
Now that he’s put it all together in two of his last three starts, I think he will have the confidence to kick on and make a run at his first FedEx Cup playoff win. Any confidence-boosting performances heading into the Ryder Cup will be huge for Aberg and Team Europe, and I think he finds one here.
25th, 14th and 12th in his last three starts in SG Tee-to-Green, he is clearly trending in the right direction with his all-round game, and it looks like the early season injury concerns are now fully behind him.
Aberg finished 2nd in this event last year, and while that came at a different course, he will take confidence from the fact he played so well in the same FedEx Cup event, and he’s in better form this time around than he was coming into the event 12 months ago.
Considering the field size has reduced from 70 to 50 this week, and he’s just posted a top 10 finish in his last start, I think the 25/1 about the Swede is more than fair this week. I typically don’t think he represents value very often, as the bookmakers tend to keep him onside, but despite his upturn in form, his price has remained consistent, and I think we can take advantage of that.
The Each Way Play: Cameron Young
25/1 e/w (Paddy Power, Sky Bet 5 Places 1/4 Odds)
Many people were talking about how “golf” it would have been had Tommy Fleetwood followed Cam Young into the winners’ circle, but it wasn’t to be for the Englishman, who had to settled for 3rd, despite being in command for good parts of the round.
Despite Fleetwood letting down the overdue winners back-to-back, Young can make it two wins in three starts after going a while without his first, as he continued to play well last week, backing up his win with a 5th place finish.
A final round 64 secured that top 5, but it was the second round 65 that got him back on track after a slow start. It’s that level of bounce-back and the ability to string together results that always led people to back him, even when there were question marks over his winning ability. There should be no question marks now, given the fashion in which he won the Wyndham Championship, and now his attention must turn to Bethpage.
As it stands, Young probably still has work to do to get one of Keegan Bradley’s picks, but a win this week would almost certainly book his spot on the team, and that has to be the aim.
With a win and four more top-7 finishes in his past 10 starts, Young is clearly back to his best, and with the closing ability question marks emphatically answered two starts ago, we should look for him to take another step forward quickly.
After making the most birdies (8) of any player in the field yesterday and ranking inside the top 10 for SG Tee-to-Green for the second week in a row, Young should be firmly in the mix here once again.
Patrick Cantlay beat Bryson DeChambeau here at Caves Valley in 2021, with Rory McIlroy (4th), Sergio Garcia (6th), Dustin Johnson (6th), Sam Burns (8th), and Jon Rahm (9th) all finishing inside the top 10, which suggests strong driving will be a big part of any success here. Length was favoured over accuracy four years ago, and that plays right into Young’s hands, as he arrives in brilliant form off the tee, ranking 2nd and 1st in SG Off-the-Tee his past two starts.
Now he’s got the monkey off his back it should be full system go for Young, who clearly has one more goal to accomplish this season – as he looks to book a spot on Team USA.
The Long Shot: Kurt Kitayama
60/1 e/w (bet365 5 Places 1/4 Odds)
Just like Cam Young, there will be people that simply won’t back Kurt Kitayama this week as they cannot envision two wins in four starts, and while I get it, I don’t subscribe to the same thought process.
One thing I do like straight off the bat, is Kitayama’s form at Congaree Golf Club. Tom Fazio designed both Caves Valley and Congaree, and a glance at the leaderboard from 2021, and both the 2021 Palmetto Championship and the 2022 CJ Cup paint a positive picture in terms of correlation.
The Palmetto Championship was a bit of a strange field in 2021, but both Dustin Johnson and Erik van Rooyen finished inside the top 10 there, and then repeated that some feat at this tournament later in the season, with van Rooyen finishing 5th and Johnson 6th. Sam Burns finished 8th at this course and 7th at the 2022 CJ Cup at Congaree, while Jon Rahm finished 9th here and 4th at the 2022 CJ Cup. Finally K.H. Lee finished 12th at this course four years ago and 3rd at the CJ Cup in 2022, providing a clear pattern. Had we been talking about the game’s best playing well at both courses I probably wouldn’t pay much attention, but van Rooyen and K.H. Lee solidified the correlation for me.
With that in mind then, I think we have to look at Kitayama who finished 2nd to Rory McIlroy at the 2022 CJ Cup, matching him almost all the way, coming up just one shot shy of one of the game’s elites.
Since winning the 3M Open, Kitayama has finished 31st at the Wyndham and 9th last week, where he was also 5th at halfway after a second round 63. His form figures now read 5-14-1-31-9, and that sort of form suggests we should absolutely take a shot at him at 60/1 in a limited field, especially given the Congaree/Fazio link.
Given his obvious ability off the tee (ranks 11th in SG Off-the-Tee and SG Tee-to-Green) this should be the perfect test for him while he’s on this run. His ball striking has actually been fantastic all year, and the putter has simply let him down more often than not. That has changed to an extent over the past three weeks which is why he’s been competitive for a sustained period.
Four op 10 finishes in his past ten starts suggest Kitayama should be shorter in the market than he is in my eyes, and while there will be reservations around him winning twice in four starts, I think there’s even enough each-way value just for him getting in the mix for another top 5.
About the author
TG’s resident golf betting expert.
During the day, he works for betting comparison site Oddschecker, and at night he hosts the Lost Fore Words podcast, previewing and reviewing the action from the world of tour golf.
