European PGA – The Desert Classic winner odds & predictions

Rahm heads up popular pro-am contest in Cali

Golf Betting

European PGA Golf Preview – January 17th, 2019

The European PGA tour moves to the west coast of the USA this week for the Desert Classic. This is the 60th anniversary of the tournament which is hosted out in California at Palm Springs. This is a pro-am event hosted across three different courses.

In use will be the PGA West Stadium course, the PGA West Nicklaus tournament course and La Quinta country club. Spain’s Jon Rahm is the 7/1 outright favourite to win this week* (betting odds taken from bet365 on January 15 at 00:52 AM)

The Desert Classic betting odds*

John Rahm 7/1
Justin Rose 9/1
Patrick Cantlay 16/1
Charles Howell III 20/1
Adam Hadwin 25/1
Andrew Putnam 30/1
Aaron Wise 35/1
Abraham Ancer 35/1
Luke List 35/1
Chez Reavie 40/1
Phil Mickelson 40/1
Patton Kizzire 45/1
Scott Piercy 45/1
Kevin Kisner 45/1
50/1 bar
* (betting odds taken from bet365 on January 15th at 00:52 AM)

This is a popular pro-am event and heading up the market is John Rahm. He carded an eighth-place finish to start the season off with at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. It was a pretty solid effort from him and it was straight after his win at the Hero World Challenge back at the start of December last year in Albany.

Rahm is the reigning champion at the tournament so the Spaniard will be a popular pick this week. Let’s not forget that Rahm started last season so well with a second at the Tournament of Champions and a win at the CareerBuilder Challenge. The other big name at the head of the field is current world number one, Justin Rose. This will be Rose’s first action since his third place at the Hero World Challenge tournament in December.

American Winners

It may be worth looking at an American winner though and skipping over the top two. The reason for that is it has been an American who has won the title in all but three of the last eighteen editions of the tournament. Jon Rahm’s win twelve months ago saw him become the first non-American to win it since Jhonattan Vegas in 2011. The top American in this year’s field is Patrick Cantlay, currently ranked 19th in the world. So he may pop up with a little more appeal for punters in the tournament. It is worth remembering that this is still early season stuff so players are still getting their eye in a bit.

Charles Howell could be worth another look this week with back to back top fifteen finishes this season from his two starts. That’s a pretty consistent run and back in 2013, he finished as runner up in the tournament. Another player who has come up with a good result at the tournament recently is Canada’s Adam Hadwin. He was second in 2017 and has another shot at 25/1 odds* (betting odds taken from bet365 on January 15th at 3:42 pm)

Bud Cauley and Brian Harman are another couple of players from further down the pecking order who have churned out some decent results in the past few years at the courses. There is also two-time winner Bill Haas back for another crack. He won the tournament in 2010 and then again in 2015 and he is just one of eight players to have won it on more than one occasion. Also in the field is Phil Mickelson who has won it twice.

Prediction

Granted it’s not the deepest of fields to pick from and it is a pro-am event which distractions can happen. But we are going to stick with the recent trend of American winners by and large. We are going to skip over picking an actual outright and lean on a nice pick of 7/4 and 6/4 respectively on Charles Howell II and Patrick Cantlay both securing a top ten finish* (betting odds taken from bet365 on January 15th at 3:42 pm).