Cognizant Classic: Favorite Winners and Longshots
Last week, Jake Knapp picked up his first PGA Tour win and after snagging him at +4000, I picked up my first outright winner of the 2024 golf season. By no means was it easy, but I’ll take a sweaty win over a loss any day.
Naturally, after getting an early taste of success, I’d like to say that I’m ready to go on a run, but let’s be honest… Hitting golf outright bets is hard!
Up this week is the Cognizant Classic, formerly known as the Honda Classic. Yes, the tournament where we had the guy who finished second in the last two years. Brutal, I know.
Located down in Palm Beach Gardens, the Cognizant Classic is played at PGA National. Known for the famous three-hole stretch called The Bear Trap, PGA National is brutal! I mean, with 15 holes where water comes into play, you can imagine how many water balls we will see this week. With the winning score likely being around 15-under, this week, par will be a golfer’s best friend.
After changing 10 from a par 4 to a par 5, the course is now a par 71 and should see lower finishing scores. I tried to check to see if any books were sleeping at the wheel and unload on finishing score props, but none were posted in time. That’s all good though, we will have plenty of bets between outrights and placement props. As always, you can find my entire betting card on my X account. Click HERE to visit my page.
- Fairways Gained
- Good Drives
- Strokes Gained: Par 5
- SG: Approach
- SG: Putting
- SG: Putting
- Bogey Avoidance
- Drive Right Avoidance
Cognizant Classic Outright Bets
Shane Lowry +3500
A few of these lines have moved since selecting them. Luckily, if you’re just now tailing, this number is now +4000. Good on you for getting a better price.
If you were a reader or follower in 2022, you were on team Lowry with us and felt the most unfortunate pain while betting golf for a while. He had to play 18 in the rain while the eventual winner Sepp Straka had clear skies when he finished up.
Nonetheless, I’m backing Lowry again this year. With back-to-back top-five finishes here, there’s a lot to talk about his game that makes total sense here. For starters, Lowry is great off the tee and his lower trajectory tee balls don’t get caught up in the wind which seems to always be present at this course.
With most of the Florida Swing courses, you’ll hear a common theme about backing great ball strikers. Lowry is 10th in SG: Ball Striking. More importantly,, he takes advantage of par 5s and avoids big numbers well.
With putting being such a key factor to success here, there may be a bit of his up-and-down putting to start the season. However, looking back at his rounds where he is putting on Bermuda grass, he’s generally been dynamite. Between his recent DP World Tour and PGA Tour starts, he’s playing well enough to make a case for him winning this week.
Eric Cole +3000
Shop around because I’ve seen Eric Cole’s number all over the place. Before you get on me for backing Cole, I admit to putting my foot in my mouth moment. I was betting on Cole at almost any price, but when I was pricing out my favorite golfers this week, I had Cole at a much higher price. Hence why I went to Twitter confused and shocked to see him at +3500.
I mean, it makes total sense why he’s +3000. If you want to talk about course fit, he might be the best course fit in the field. He is accurate off the tee, from Florida, so he grew up playing Florida courses, and he was so close to winning this event last season.
The only reason I thought he would be priced higher is because of his lack of wins. Maybe I thought the nonexistent win equity would give me great odds that I would unload. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not running a sportsbook.
That said, I’m backing Cole. He’s second in my model and almost won last season. Cole seems to be an auto top 20 guy who doesn’t have many holes in his game. Much like Lowry, he gets a massive boost when putting on Bermuda. Cole’s pathway to victory is to hit fairways, gain on approach, and continue to roll the rock well on these greens.
Matt Fitzpatrick +3000
Matt Fitzpatrick’s play left me with more questions than answers in my preliminary research. Why would a great driver of the ball be 46th in my model? This will be his first start at this course, but he’s always seen success on the Florida Swing.
Honestly, it may be a stretch for me to trust him this week. He’s lost strokes on approach in his last three events and six of his last eight events. I’ve contemplated cashing out my wager on him multiple times. If you want to fade this pick, I totally get it. I’m about to work some voodoo magic to make this pick make sense.
Fitzpatrick has been terrible. He’s been losing strokes on approach and more importantly putting. However, like the three I mentioned before, it’s a night and day difference when he putts on Bermuda grass.
With the demand off the tee and taking last week off, he has a chance to bounce back and get back to his winning ways. At +3000, the major champion has more win equity than a lot of the guys around him. He’s worth the risk to me and if it becomes a two-man race down the stretch, I have no problem hedging out and getting paid either way.
Longshot Bets for the Cognizant Classic
Sam Ryder +25000 0.2 Units
Listen, don’t be all up in my DM’s if Ryder stinks up the place and misses the cut. He is +25000 for a reason. However, I don’t agree with the odds here, neither does my model. My model has him 16th and I think there’s room for improvement in that ranking if his putter responds a bit better.
Over the last 36 rounds, Ryder is second in SG: App, 13th in SG: BS, and top 50 putting from 10-15 ft. Not to mention he’s finished inside the top 10 here in his last two strips (2022, 2021). He’s coming off back-to-back missed cuts, so maybe we get some of that Straka magic and he bounces back in a big way.
Doug Ghim +7000 0.2 Units
With three straight missed cuts here, Doug Ghim has not seen success here, yet. According to my model, he has just as good of a chance as any to pop this week. My eyes couldn’t believe it when I saw him ranked third. Only behind tournament favorite Rory McIlroy and course horse Cole.
It makes sense looking at how he’s played. Fourth in ball striking, first on the par 5s, and 10th in bogey avoidance. He quietly finished inside the top 20 in three straight events with a T8 at the Mexico Open.
Luke List +5000 0.2 Units
I’m not sure what happened to Luke List, but he was putting so well at Genesis, that the PGA Tour social media team insinuated that any putt he stands over has a chance to go in. In all fairness to them, every putt he stood over felt like it was going in. He gained +6.7 strokes putting. The last time he gained at least six strokes on the putting surface, he won the event.
While I’m not sure List will be a God on the putting surface again this week, it always felt like if he could just be even on the greens, he would be in contention every week.
Let’s see what happens with the great ball striker.