We will be treated to the final Match Play event of the PGA Tour beginning on Wednesday from Austin, Texas. The Tour’s best players will congregate at Austin Country Club for the seventh consecutive year to compete in a Round Robin-styled event that departs from the default stroke play scoring we typically see in favor of Match Play scoring.
It works like this if you aren’t familiar with Match Play scoring. 16 groups consisting of four players will play every member of his group once during the first three days at Austin CC. The player with the best record in the four-player groups will then advance to the Round of 16 to begin competing in single-elimination match play. Scoring is simplified for every matchup, rewarding the winner of a particular hole with 1 point and the loser with 0 points. Of course, if a tie is on a certain hole, both players are given 0.5 point. Winning the hole means that a player scored lower than his opponent, which could be a birdie compared to a par, a par compared to a bogey, and so on. If two or more players in a group are tied with the highest point total at the conclusion of the Round Robin group play, they will compete in a stroke-play hole-by-hole playoff to advance to the Round of 16. It’s also important to note that once a player leads by more holes than there are left to play, he becomes the default winner. This applies during the Round Robin and the single-elimination matchups on Saturday and Sunday, which will feature two rounds per day, starting with the Round of 16, progressing to the quarterfinals and semi-finals, and concluding with the Championship and Consolation Matches.
Let’s look at the top-ten betting odds, course layout, and a few players with the experience, skill set, and current form to win outright ahead of Wednesday’s opening Round Robin at the 2023 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
Before we get into our picks for the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play Championship, make sure to take a moment to check out these awesome sports betting offers for this week. You can use one of the HUGE first bet offers to wager with more confidence on your WGC Dell Technologies Match Play Championship selections this week.
WGC-Dell Technologies Betting Odds
WGC-Dell Technologies Betting Preview
Previous Winners
- Scottie Scheffler - 2022
- Billy Horschel - 2021
- Cancelled - 2020
- Kevin Kisner - 2019
- Bubba Watson - 2018
- Dustin Johnson - 2017
Relevant Betting Stats
- Scrambling
- Driving Accuracy
- Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee
- Greens in Regulation
Course Layout
Austin Country Club's landscape continuously changes between the front nine and back nine. It’s a par 71 that stretches just over 7,100 yards and contains four par 3s and four par 5s evenly distributed. Designed by Pete Dye, it’s a course that has plenty of water hazards, despite departing Florida, using Lake Austin and its surrounding bodies of water to form difficult tee shots and approach shots alike. Scrambling and ball striking will remain at a premium, per usual, along with driver accuracy to avoid bad lies in the rough.
The front nine has a lot of elevation to navigate, including undulations in the Bentgrass fairways and Bermudagrass greens. The surrounding rough landscape features coarse vegetation and limestone outcrops that will punish errant shots with difficult lies to recover from. Hills abound but so do the views of Lake Austin on the back nine, where the course flattens out a bit before returning a bit inland for the final three holes. The fairways aren’t nearly as narrow as the ones played at recent courses like Valspar, but many remain doglegged and obscure the hole locations with thick groves of trees.
Top Players to Bet for Outright Winner at WGC-Dell Technologies
Max Homa (+2000) (Bet $100 to Collect $2,100) (Get the Best Odds for This Max Homa Pick at DraftKings Sportsbook)
Max Homa is one of golf’s emerging superstar players, racking up two outright wins this season and hanging near the top of the leaderboard in seemingly every event he plays.
The 32-year-old Californian has had modest results at previous WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play events, logging a T22 finish in 2021 before regressing to a T35 finish in 2022. Despite these finishes, Homa is a premiere ball striker and has a putter that can heat up at any moment. Homa ranks first in front 9, scoring average, first in consecutive par 3 birdies, and third in total strokes gained. He’s a wizard with his irons and also ranks sixth in scrambling.
Meanwhile, Homa converts 68.7 percent of greens in regulation, which is high enough to rank 34th on the PGA Tour. I love Homa’s game and his competitive edge in his Round Robin grouping, which begins against Justin Suh on Wednesday.
Jason Day (+3500) (Bet $100 to Collect $3,600) (Get the Best Odds for This Jason Day Pick at BetMGM Sportsbook)
The resurgence of Jason Day has been great for his career and the game of golf. The 35-year-old Aussie has 12 wins on the PGA Tour in 17 years, but we haven’t seen him record an outright win since the Wells Fargo Championship back in 2018. There’s a reason we’re getting fairly high odds on Day at 35/1 to win the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event outright.
Day logged a T18 finish during his last time at Austin CC in 2021, but it’s more correlated with his form that we’ve seen lately, ranking second in scrambling and second in bogey avoidance. Day is also ranked 12th in strokes gained putting and 12th in total driving, which combines distance and accuracy, while also converting over 69.8 percent of his greens in regulation.
Day will compete against Collin Morikawa, Adam Svensson, and Victor Perez in his Round Robin grouping. Still, I believe Day will breeze by Morikawa and go on a run to challenge for the outright win during the single-elimination Round of 16 Match Play this weekend.
