Rory McIlroy has four consecutive top-five finishes to begin the season and is understandably the odds-on favorite entering this week’s WGC-Mexico Championship.
McIlroy was tied for the lead at the Genesis Invitational last Sunday before a triple-bogey thwarted his hopes at Riviera. However, the world’s top-ranked player finished second in Mexico City last year and is +500 at FanDuel and +600 at DraftKings this week.
McIlroy’s odds strengthened with several top players opting to skip this week’s event, including No. 2 Brooks Koepka and No. 9 Tiger Woods. No. 6 Patrick Cantlay is out indefinitely because of upcoming surgery to fix a deviated septum.
Defending champion Dustin Johnson is +800 at both books despite suffering his own late meltdown at Riviera. He is a two-time winner and has posted 11 consecutive rounds in the 60s at Club de Golf Chapultepec.
FedEx Cup leader Justin Thomas and Spain’s Jon Rahm are +1000 at both books, followed by Webb Simpson at +1600 coming off his victory at the Phoenix Open earlier this month. FanDuel is also offering Adam Scott, a winner in his past two starts who won in Mexico City four years ago, at +1600.
The odds between the books begin to fluctuate at that point. Of interest is Bryson DeChambeau, who is +2800 at DraftKings but responsible for a field-high 9 percent of the handle as of Wednesday. That topped England’s Tommy Fleetwood, who was at +2200 with 8 percent of the handle, and 7 percent for Johnson. Some big bets had been placed on DeChambeau, who was responsible for only 5 percent of the total bets compared to a field-high 7 percent for Johnson and 6 percent for Fleetwood.
The 16th-ranked DeChambeau hasn’t won an event since the Dubai Desert Classic 13 months ago. However, he is coming off a T5 at Riviera and the bulked-up DeChambeau could be a sneaky bet at the Club de Golf Chapultepec, which has always favored longer hitters as it has a low elevation point of 7,603 feet above sea level.
Justin Thomas (+1000 at DraftKings) is coming off a missed cut at Riviera, but he has finished in the top-10 in each of his past three starts in the event — including posting two rounds of 62.
Both books are offering numerous prop bets.
FanDuel typically offers a winning prop bet with the favorites pulled out of the mix. This week, the book is removing McIlroy, Johnson, Rahm and Thomas and offering:
Among DraftKing’s numerous props are odds on how the tournament will be decided.
–Derek Harper (@DerekAHarper), Field Level Media
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