The PGA Tour remains in Las Vegas this week for the CJ Cup at The Summit Club, Las Vegas, Nevada.
This tournament which should be played in Korea is being staged in Las Vegas for the second year running due to the ongoing travel restrictions. The 78 field size is much smaller than usual will all be competing around this par 72 parkland track for a share of the $9.75 M prize pot with the winner collecting the title and $1.75 M.
The weather is forecast to be mostly sunny and warm throughout but it will be much colder in the mornings for the early starters with only light breezes to contend with. This event will be screened on Sky Sports Main Event & Sky Sports Golf with live coverage starting at 3.15 pm GMT on Thursday.
It was a case of what could have been last week on both the PGA and European Tours, Sam Burns was in the mix all the way at the Shriners Children’s Open aiming to double up on his victory from the previous weekend and he looked the most likely winner until Sungjae I'm destroyed both the field and the TPC Summerlin course on Sunday's final round.
Sam Burns couldn’t even hang on for the place money missing so many makeable birdie opportunities, around he will want to forget about for sure. Meanwhile, it was much better over on the European Tour at the Open de Espana as my main selection Adri Arnaus, although losing out in the play-off to Rafael Cabrera Bello, still collected decent each-way money for us. However, that could have been much better as well as Arnaus had a putt inside 10 feet on the final hole to win outright.
Well done to all the winners last week.
So let’s get on with this week's selections.
For my main selection at this weeks CJ Cup I’m going to single out Louis Oosthuizen 25/1 EW Betfair, 1-7 places. The 38yrs old South African enjoyed some time off and last week was his first event since The Players Championship. Oosthuizen usually spends his time away from golf focussing on different things than most other golfers. He owns a farm and enjoys farming when not playing on the course.
He finished a respectable 14th at the Shriners Children’s Open on his return last week, not bad after all that hard work on the farm with little or no golf practice. Currently ranked inside the Worlds Top 10 golfers at No8 the ever-reliable South African just seems to appear on almost every leaderboard at some point in every tournament he starts. He is simply a model of consistency and will more times than not give you a run for your money.
Since The Masters at Augusta in April, Oosthuizen has played at twelve events and finished in the Top 20 on no less than ten occasions, truly remarkable. But what makes that even more attractive is that three of those were runners up spots with two of them being majors, 2nd at The PGA Championship and also 2nd at US Open. The other runner up prize was at the 3M Open. Another notable finish worth a mention this year was 3rd at The Open Championship at Royal St George’s where it looked for the most part that he would win the Claret Jug for the second time.
With a much smaller field this week than usual I just have a feeling Oosthuizen will show up as usual and put on a dazzling display on his way to victory in Las Vegas to add The CJ Cup to his trophy collection.
For my next suggestion, I’m going to advise Marc Leishman 45/1 EW Betfair, 1-7 places. The 37yrs old Australian has been in excellent form at his last two tournaments finishing T3rd at last week’s Shriners Children’s Open and at his previous event he finished T4th at the Fortinet Championship. With a Top 5 finish at this year's Masters and 3rd at the Travelers Championship as well as T4th at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Leishman is another candidate for reliability.
With five PGA Tour titles already in the bag, the Australian can make it number six this weekend with another victory at The Summit Club. The 45/1 on offer looks very attractive especially with 1-7 places available for security and peace of mind knowing that even a place will return a tidy profit.
My advice is to take the 45/1 EW while it’s available because it only takes a few birdies for that price to disappear and become not as attractive.
For my next selection, I’m liking the look of Viktor Hovland 25/1 EW1-7 places Ladbrokes.
The ever-talented 24 yrs old youngster from Norway will be looking for some improvement from his last two starts on the PGA Tour and Ryder Cup performance. It’s fair to say that jumping between both the PGA and European Tours as Hovland has been doing recently with the Olympics in Japan in between, must be difficult.
However, he did win the BMW International Open to claim his maiden European title to make it all worthwhile. He has now won on both the PGA and European stages to give him even more confidence to go on and become the best golfer in the World as I’m sure he will in the not too distant future, after all, he is still only a kid.
With the Mayakoba Golf Classic and The Puerto Rico Open already in the bag on the PGA Tour and the BMW International Open as mentioned above on the European Tour, Hovland is a superstar in the making and the future looks bright for this kid. He finished 4th recently at the Tour Championship and I’m thinking he will put on a performance this week in the Nevada desert and be challenging all the way on his way to making it a hattrick of PGA victories.
I’m also going to make Hovland my Nap of the tournament this week to be top Continental European at 5/4 Bet365 Nap.
For my final selection, it’s the customary match bet and I’m going to advise Sungjae I'm to get the better off Sam Burns 10/11 Bet365.
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