BMW Championship Odds, Picks, and PGA Tour Preview: Penultimate Event Moves to Delaware

Fresh off of Will Zalatoris’ thrilling victory at the FedEx St. Jude Championship and surge to the top of the FedEx Cup standings, the playoffs move to Wilmington Country Club in Delaware for the penultimate event of the 2021-22 season.

Zalatoris’ first career PGA Tour victory thrust him to the top of the 2021-22 FedEx Cup standings in his first season as a full-status member. He enters the BMW Championship with a narrow lead over regular-season champ and four-time 2021-22 winner Scottie Scheffler with just two events to go. The top 30 in the season-long standings after this week’s 68-man event will advance to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club as the season finale.

Rory McIlroy, who missed the cut last week and fell to ninth in the season-long points race, enters this week as the consensus betting favorite once again. The two-time FedEx Cup champ won the 2012 BMW Championship at Crooked Stick. Reigning FedEx Cup winner Patrick Cantlay is defending his 2021 title from this event but at Caves Valley.

Here are my top outright picks for the 2022 BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club (odds via our top-rated sportsbooks).

BMW Championship Odds

BMW Championship Odds Analysis

The odds are very indicative of the 68-man field advancing to the second-to-last event of the PGA Tour. Nine golfers have consensus odds lower than +2000. Eleven golfers each have an implied win probability of 4.76% or higher at DraftKings Sportsbook. Thirty of the 68 players in the field have odds of +13000 or higher at DraftKings.

There was a shift in the early odds when Cam Smith, who enters the week at No. 3 in the FEC standings, withdrew due to injury. That only further condensed things at the top of the board with McIlroy remaining the consensus favorite.

Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland both again stand out as potential value bets based on the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR). They enter the week eighth and 10th, respectively, in the OWGR but are 10th or lower by the consensus rankings.

Wilmington Country Club Course Profile

Par: 71
Length: 7,534 yards
Greens: Bentgrass
Architect: Robert Trent Jones Sr.

The modern-day version of Wilmington CC was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1959 and renovated by Andrew Green in 2021 to repair damage from a tornado in 2020. The removal of the trees allowed Green to lengthen the course to over 7,500 yards. This will be the first professional event held at Wilmington CC and it will be played on the South Course.

Oddly enough, Wilmington CC is rather comparable to recent BMW Championship stops at Caves Valley Golf Club and Olympia Fields CC. The length demands distance off the tee while still catering to ball strikers.

The most common par-4 distance is 400-450 yards with two playing shorter than 400 yards and three exceeding 450 yards. Three of the four par 3s top 200 yards while the par 5s check in at 582, 634, and 649 yards. Eagle opportunities are tough to come by on the long par 5s, so scoring needs to be done on the modest par 4s.

BMW Championship Key Stats

Strokes gained: off-the-tee
SG: tee-to-green
SG: approach
Par-4 efficiency: 400-450 yards
Par-3 efficiency: 200-225 yards
Proximity: 150-175 yards
SG: around-the-green

With no previous data for scoring and the par 5s expected to play much more difficult than usual while being tough to reach in two, we’ll focus on the key par-4 and par-3 distances. The extremely tight fairways make distance more important than accuracy off the tee with trouble able to be found by even the shorter hitters. Target the mid-range approach game with proximity: 150-175 yards.

Wilmington CC also draws comparisons to previous U.S. Open stops at Winged Foot and Torrey Pines. The greens are quite large, but we’ll also want to consider SG: around-the-greens as they’ll play very firm and fast.

BMW Championship Picks

Who Will Win the BMW Championship?

Morikawa (+2200)

Morikawa surged to a T-5 finish last week with a Sunday round of -3, 67. He even lost -0.32 strokes with his putter in the final round but gained 2.11 strokes on approach in Round 4 and averaged 1.47 SG: tee-to-green for the tournament.

The poor putting performance should be of no concern coming into this week. Morikawa is averaging 0.80 SG: putting across his last 12 rounds with 0.88 SG: approach and 1.09 SG: tee-to-green over that time. For the season, he’s 32nd on Tour in par-4 efficiency: 400-450 yards and 37th in par-3 efficiency: 200-225 yards. He’s also T-16 in proximity from 150-175 yards.

We’re getting rare value for the eighth-ranked golfer in the world. He enters this week 20th in the FEC standings and will be desperate for a strong performance to improve his rank heading to East Lake.

Im (+2700)

Sungjae Im doesn’t have a victory in 2022 after winning the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open during the Fall swing. He finished 12th last week after back-to-back runner-up showings at the Wyndham Championship and 3M Open. He enters the week 11th in the FEC standings with eight top-10 finishes this season.

Im struggled on approach and around the green last week, but he’s still averaged 0.67 and 0.08 strokes gained per round in those two areas, respectively, across his last 12 rounds. Over that time he has also averaged 0.87 SG: putting and 1.14 SG: off-the-tee. He averaged 1.26 SG: off-the-tee last week.

What draws me most to Im in this crowded tier of the odds board is the value available at FanDuel Sportsbook relative to DraftKings. He also ranks ninth in par-4 efficiency: 400-450 yards and T-61 in par-3 efficiency: 200-225 yards. Those are both much better than the likes of the more expensive Tony Finau.

Young (+2800)

Joohyung Kim and Zalatoris each picked up their maiden PGA Tour victories in the last two weeks. There’s excellent value in backing Cameron Young at +2800 to be the third consecutive debut winner. The Rookie of the Year contender enters the week 13th in the FEC standings and 17th in the OWGR off of a T-31 finish last week that followed up back-to-back runner-up finishes at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and Open Championship.

Young lost 1.16 SG: putting and 0.29 SG: around-the-green per round last week. However, he was fifth in the field with 1.90 SG: tee-to-green and first with 1.33 SG: off-the-tee.

Young leads everyone in this week’s field with 1.37 SG: off-the-tee and is second with 2.77 SG: tee-to-green across his last 12 rounds. He has also been much more steady with the flat stick than he was last week and the move back to Bentgrass greens should cater to his favor.

Catching the long-hitting rookie at +2800 at a course where no one has any meaningful tournament experience is the top value of the week.

Where to Bet on the PGA Tour

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BMW Championship picks made on 8/15/2022 at 8:30 p.m. ET.