Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports. Pictured: Tiger Woods
- The BMW Championship tees off on Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club outside of Philadelphia. Dustin Johnson (7-1 odds) is the clear betting favorite.
- Tiger Woods has the eighth-best odds to win (20-1), and he seems to have an affinity for Aronimink.
- Four longshots have a ton to gain from a good performance and look to have value to finish in the top-five and top-10.
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — For the past 15 years, whenever a reader grouses about too much Tiger Woods coverage — and yes, it still happens all the time — I always offer up the same response.
It’s the law of supply and demand.
As long as the general public is demanding more content on Tiger — and numbers such as television ratings and web traffic have always paralleled this thirst — then it’s not just the media’s choice to supply this coverage. It’s our responsibility.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also cover other players, but giving equal time to, say, Dustin Johnson because he’s ranked higher isn’t the shrewdest business move. It takes a fervent Tiger-hater to fail to understand — or at least, fail to admit to understand — this concept.
During the past few weeks, though, I’ve tabled the supply-and-demand response in favor of an even more reasonable one.
In preview pieces for both the Northern Trust and Dell Technologies Championship, I’ve mentioned that I like Woods’ game for those courses, although I’ve also maintained that I’ll like him better as the FedEx Cup Playoffs continue.
I also wasn’t picking him to win, but simply offered up a blurb about his chances – along with a dozen or more players I liked.
Of course, I heard the grousing again. There were some — not a lot, but some — readers who complained about these Tiger references, as if I was forcing them into the piece as some sort of clickbait or something.
Um, nope. I just happened to like how his game was shaping up.
Following a T-24 finish at the Dell Technologies Championship on Monday, one that saw Woods just two strokes off the lead at the turn before faltering down the stretch, I tweeted about how I still liked his game moving forward:
That’s right: I’m not jumping ship now.
Tiger reportedly had this week’s BMW Championship circled on his calendar long before he had even qualified for this event. He really likes host course Aronimink.
This week, in a 69-player field, could be the one when he finally notches that next victory.
If you’re wondering what could ever pull a few million Americans away from watching NFL games on the first Sunday afternoon of the season, well, let’s see what happens if Tiger holds the lead going into the back nine of the final round.
At 20-1, behind seven other players on the board, Woods actually holds a little value this week, too, rather than being overpriced, as usual.
He’s swinging it well, he’s motivated and, yes, it looks like he’s got the ol’ Scotty Cameron putter back in the bag. That’s enough to get his name onto my ticket this week.
As for my other picks, I’m going to split ‘em into two categories this week.
The first is favorites. Even in a limited field such as this one, there are still plenty of big names from which to choose, but there’s more of an onus on getting ‘em right with less margin for error, especially for DFS lineups. In addition to Woods, here are four more guys who should find some success: