The PGA Tour flips coasts and goes from Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles to The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida, for the first WGC event of 2021 where another star-studded field awaits. This event was previously played in Mexico but moved this week to the Jack Nicklaus-Tony Jacklin co-designed course that hosted the NCAAs in 2015 (won by a skinny Bryson DeChambeau). Nearly everyone in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings will be present at this event, which kicks off a month-long Florida swing.
Let's take a closer look at this week's contest, with odds and prop bets provided via William Hill Sportsbook.
Event information
What: WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession
When: Feb. 25-28
Where: The Concession Golf Club -- Bradenton, Florida
Three things to know
1. Bounce back: Following a tough cut last week, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau are all looking to rebound with four guaranteed rounds here. All three could use a nice boost before the Players Championship in two weeks, and all three should fare nicely at a demanding, long course that requires great play from tee to green.
2. Major players: The only two golfers to win stroke-play WGC events in the last four years who were not already major champions are Xander Schauffele and Hideki Matsuyama. The point being that big-time players almost always win these events, mostly because the field is almost exclusively made up of big-time players (see below). This is such an opportunity for an Abraham Ancer or Bernd Wiesberger or Victor Perez to take advantage of all the spoils that come with winning a WGC, but the reality here is that they often do not.
3. Will it play as tough as it looks? Everything about this golf course screams that it's going to play like a U.S. Open, but know that length alone doesn't upend the best in the world. Will they set it up like a U.S. Open? Will something in the single digits under par win the golf tournament? All of that is likely weather-dependent, but for the second week in a row the Tour is going to a golf course that is legitimately difficult (albeit for different reasons than Riviera was difficult).
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Grading the field
It's somehow even more loaded than last week's field at the Genesis Invitational. Tiger Woods (obviously) won't be there and neither will Phil Mickelson (this is the first WGC they will both miss), but when your alternates list includes Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Si Woo Kim, you know you're in pretty good shape as a tournament. Grade: A+
WGC-Workday Championship picks
| Winner (10-1): The golf course that kept popping up over and over again when I researched The Concession is Muirfield Village. Rahm is coming off a beastly performance at the Memorial last year and a top-five finish at Riviera following a Sunday 66. He's a far better bet here than Dustin Johnson at 13/2. |
| Top 10 (+200): Hovland has been the second-best ball-striker in the world over the last 90 days behind only Dustin Johnson. He has five top-six finishes in his last six events, and will thrive on a long, difficult golf course that's could be akin to Muirfield Village. He's also 19th on the PGA Tour in par-5 scoring average, which will be important this week. |
| Sleeper (40-1): Sleepers are hard to find in WGC events, but Scheffler is a really great ball-striker who's on a nice mini-run of two straight top-20 finishes following two missed cuts in a row. He's in the "if the putter gets hot" crowd, and is worth the pull at 40-1 because his name has not yet caught up with his talent. |
Who wins the WGC-Workday Championship 2021? Where do Rahm and McIlroy finish? And which long shot is a must-back? Check out the odds below, then visit SportsLine to see Sal Johnson's full leaderboard, picks and analysis for the 2021 WGC-Workday Championship, all from the insider who called Dustin Johnson's win at the 2020 Masters.
