BMW Championship: Three-horse Race

Three players have separated themselves after two rounds at the BMW Championship.

Marc Leishman opened up a three-shot lead at 16-under over Jason Day and Rickie Fowler on Friday. No other player is closer than six shots of the lead.

Leishman is the favorite with that cushion at +188, while Day and Fowler check in at +300. The books are showing a little respect for Jordan Spieth, who is nine back at 16/1. No one else is less than 20/1 with Patrick Cantlay next in line at 22/1 six back.

Right now, I'm just watching Cantlay, who was tipped at 55/1 earlier in the week, and hoping for a great weekend. Hopefully, he does enough to stay in the top five.

Friday had some mixed results in 3-ball plays that I posted on Twitter.

Robert Streb beat Jamie Lovemark and Rafael Cabrera-Bello at +225. Lucas Glover lost to Sung Kang in his group. Overall, the plays were good enough to net 1.25 units.

There are three matchup plays I'm going with on Saturday.

First will be Jason Dufner over Rory McIlroy at +135. This is a 100 percent a fade against Rory. He came out Friday and said that basically the only reason he's playing is to fulfill obligations to his sponsors. He's been hurt. He's not playing well. I'll blindly back Dufner and whoever Rory is paired with on Sunday at plus money and expect to hit at least one.

Next up is Gary Woodland over Hudson Swafford at -155. This is a fade on Swafford mostly. He's 100th on tour in strokes gained: putting, but is first through two rounds this week. That will cool over the weekend. Meanwhile, this isn't a difficult course for Woodland. There are three Par 5s and a couple driveable Par 4s that he can take advantage of.

The last play will be a Jordan Spieth/Justin Thomas parlay at +133. Spieth is paired up with Phil Mickelson at -200 and Thomas is against Russell Henley at -180. These two have a personal battle going this week. Basically, whoever comes out ahead will be No. 1 in the FedEx Cup heading into the Tour Championship and be in the pole position for $10 million. Both have hit the ball alright, but neither has putted that well, so I expect that to turn around. Even though both are pretty far down the leaderboard, there is a lot of incentive for them to bring their "A games" over the weekend.

Joshua has spent the last five years writing about sports and the last 10 years betting them, mostly on golf. He's one of approximately five people who will watch the PGA over the NFL in November. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaPerry22

Photo: © Thomas J. Russo-USA TODAY Sports

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