This week the PGA Tour heads to Akron, Ohio for the Bridgestone Invitational. It's the traditional lead up tournament to the PGA Championship.
Strangely enough the purse for this week is $750,000 more than next week's final major - It's $8,750,000 to $8,000,000. Only the best players in the world will be teeing it up on what will be a long and challenging course. The Firestone course will favor the long hitters, but course mangement and putting will decide the outcome on Sunday.
Tiger Woods has dominated this event, winning it seven times. He starts the tournament at a $5.50 favorite . However, in the three previous years there have been three different winners in Hunter Mahan, Adam Scott and Keegan Bradley. This trend is not because Tiger Woods has dropped off, ( he's still #1 in the world and playing great golf ) it's that the quality of golfers in the top 20,30 and even 50 in the world, are just so talented. It's no surprise there are new winners popping up on tour every other week.
We will be sticking with the trend of new winners ( for the Bridgestone ) and below are our free golf picks.
Rory McIlroy -This pick may come as a shock. There's a reason Nike signed this kid and that's because he is the most talented golfer on the planet. It's just a matter of when, not "if" we see another win from Rory. He got a stern talking to from his putting coach Dave Stockton about his awful body language at the British Open. He also took a trip back to northen Ireland and played some social golf with three of his mates. "Its something I havent been doing and I must do more often," he said. McIlroy sounded relaxed. It wasnt 12 months ago he was starting equal favorite with Tiger in tournaments. Golf is a fickel sport and a surprise win at the Bridgestone will be NO surprise for us here at BeforeYouBet.
Jason Day -A strong pick. He plays a patient and methodical golf game. Day seems to rise to the occasion for bigger tournaments and harder courses.
Jason Dufner-Such a good temperment for golf. Can be a birdie-making machine at times. Played well here last year and looks llike great value at around 41-1.
Nicolas Colsearts-Known as the "Belgium Bomber", so the long course may suit. It's also only a matter of time before he wins a US PGA event. He is our value pick at somewhere around 81-1.
Bae Sang-moon - A winner this year at the HP Byron Nelson Championship, beating last year's Bridgestone Invitational winner Keegan Bradley. A good back-to-Lay option
