Fantastic result in our PGA Betting Tips last weekend as we correctly predicted the winner of the CJ Cup in South Korea! Brooks Koepka took out the event at handy odds of $10 and we’ll be looking to find some more winners this weekend as the Tour continues it’s stay in Asia with the annual WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China.
We take a look at the World Golf Championship event and give our best bets below.
WGC HSBC Champions Betting Tips
The Course
Sheshan International in Shanghai will host the WGC HSBC Champions for the 13th time in 2018. The tournament was initiated in 2005 and the Sheshan International has hosted the tournametn on every occasion barring 2012, where the event had a one year hiatus at Mission Hills in Shenzhen.
Sheshan International plays at a 7,261-yard par 72 set in man-made waterways and a natural quarry. The trees lining the course are up to 1,000 years old and it is said that over 2 million cubic yards of earth were moved by crew when creating the drastic elevation changes along the course.
The Field
Due to their being an extra 50 Fed Ex Cup points on the line for the winner of this weekend’s event, the field for the WGC-HSBC Champions is an absolutely stacked one. The top three players in the world in Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose will all line up this weekend while the rest of the top line of betting will be made up of superstars in Rory McIlroy, Kideki Matsuyama, Jason Day, Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood and Tony Finau.
Along with Day, the Australian contingent will be led by young gun Cameron Smith, who many fancy heading into the tournament along with another Aussie in Adam Scott.
Predictions
The Sheshan International plays as a fairly short course so long hitters wont necessarily have an advantage this weekend. In fact, it’s hard to figure out who will have an advantage. Last year’s tournament saw Justin Rose capture the crown, closely followed by Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Henrik Stenson, all very different players but all with one thing in common, hitting greens in regulation, which if anything, we think should be key this weekend.
Stenson, Rose and Johnson all finished in the top 20 players in the world in greens in regulation in the 2018 PGA Tour season while Koepka wasn’t far behind. Stenson will be out of action for this weekend’s event but we'll be looking at one of his countrymen for some value in Shanghai.
Alex Noren got his 2019 PGA Tour season underway last weekend at the CJ Cup, his first tournametn since the Ryder Cup a few weeks ago. He finished 18th in the CJ Cup and hit a ridiculous 83% of greens in regulation over the course of the tournament. Noren was fantastic in the Ryder Cup, winning two of his three matches including a Sunday singles win over Bryson DeChambeau. We love him at $41 to win this weekend.
Now that we’ve covered the value, it's hard to look past arguably the best player in the world right now in Justin Rose for our best bet. Rose swept the $10million top prize for the Fed Ex Cup with some brilliant performances across the four-tournament playoff and was impressive at the Ryder Cup as well.
Rose has played just one tournament since the Ryder Cup in the British Open which was held two weeks ago. He finished 8th in that tournament with a –3 par and should be primed to get his Fed Ex Cup defence underway this weekend after a well-deserved break.
