The 2019 PGA Tour continues this weekend as we head back to Texas for the annual AT&T Byron Nelson! We take a look at the tournament to be played at the Trinity Forest Golf Club and give our betting tips below!
2019 AT&T Byron Nelson Betting Tips
It was another solid week in PGA betting tips last weekend as three of our top five picks for the Wells Fargo Championship placed in the top 10 including $126 pop Kyle Stanley, who finished T8 and paid a whopping $9 to finish in the top 10. In fact, all five of our tips made the cut as both Patrick Reed and Henrik Stenson finished T28.
We’ll look to continue the solid form into this weekend’s AT&T Byron Nelson tournament, which will be the last event for PGA Tour players to prepare before the second major of the year, the PGA Championship, kicks off next weekend.
The Course
The AT&T Byron Nelson relocated last season to the Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The course is a 7,371 yard, Par 71 and is surrounded by the Great Trinity Forest. It would only make sense that the course would be covered with trees, however, there is not a single tree on the playing area itself, and the course resembles more of a windswept rolling meadow and has a real St. Andrews vibe to it.
Designed by famous former golfer Ben Crenshaw, the offers a very different challenge to the standard PGA Tour course. While there are barely any hazards to consider on the entire course, it is designed to play extremely firm and fast and places a big emphasis on the strategy side of golf. The firmness of fairways and greens will make finding them in regulation fairly tough so it’s great scramblers and players around the green who we’ll be targeting this weekend.
The Field
Rare sighting of Brooks Koepka this weekend as the No.2 golfer in the world prepares for the PGA Championship next weekend. The Byron Nelson will be just the 11th tournament for Brooks so far this season, and he is just a few weeks removed from finishing T2 in The Masters. Koepka will enter the tournament as the hot favourite ahead of a pretty weak looking field due to the major next weekend.
Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson, Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama and Marc Leishman will headline the rest of the field while 2018 Aaron Wise will be back to defend his title, which he won with a score of -23 last season, three shots ahead of Leishman.
Tips
We can look at all the stats we want this weekend but at the end of the day, it’s incredibly tough to look past Brooks Koepka ($8.00). The No.2 ranked golfer in the world at the moment comes close to winning any tournament he starts and we are sure this weekend will be no different. Already has a win in this season in the CJ Cup back in October and was super impressive at The Masters, finishing T2 with 12 under par. A bet on Brooks this weekend is a safe one.
As we mentioned above, we’ll be targeting strong players around the green and particularly strong scrambling players and one player in the field stands out when taking those key indicators into account, Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama ($17). Matsuyama ranks No.15 in shots gained around the green in the 2019 PGA Tour season and No.5 overall in scrambling. Hasn’t set the world on fire with just three top ten finishes from 12 tournaments this season but looked fairly ominous at The Masters a few weeks ago after a strong T8 performance at The Players.
On the value side of the coin this weekend, we’ll be having a strong look at last year’s winner Aaron Wise $(21). Wise carded -6 in the final round to win the tournament over Marc Leishman and although we’ve targeted scrambling this weekend, it was shots gained off the tee and on approach last year that did the job for Wise. He finished 1st in shots gained on approach for the week and while we don’t expect him to have as strong a tournament as last season, he has been playing well lately with a 17th place finish at The Masters and a T18 at Wells Fargo.
