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BMW Championship betting tips & selections

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Welcome to a new installment of betting tips from staff writer and host of the Inside Golf Podcast, Andy Lack.

The PGA Tour travels to Owings Mills, Maryland, this week for the BMW Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. The top-70 players in the FedEx Cup standings will be in attendance this week at Caves Valley Golf Club, a course that has never hosted a PGA Tour event before.

Despite having zero data on Caves Valley to draw from, we can still gleam an understanding of the course through the hole by hole descriptions on the website and other PGA Tour courses designed by Tom Fazio. Caves Valley is a Par 72, measuring 7,542 yards.

I’ve alluded to the fact that the Baltimore area course is a Fazio design, and the famed modern designer has done design or re-design work on other PGA Tour courses such as Quail Hollow, Conway Farms, Congaree, Shadow Creek, and Kamusigaseki. With all players in the field seeing the course in competition for the first time, I will be leaning heavily on recent form and how players have performed on similar comp courses. Let’s dig into my outright selections.

Brooks Koepka (25/1, DraftKings)

Brooks Koepka was the final cut from my card last week. I subbed him out for Dustin Johnson at the eleventh hour, and while neither ended up being a good selection, I’ve been eyeing these Koepka numbers for a couple of weeks now, and I am finally ready to make a commitment. The four-time PGA Tour winner is coming off a ho-hum 31st-place finish where he gained four strokes off the tee, lost 2.6 strokes on approach, and lost 1.5 strokes putting. With that being said, he lost a disastrous 4.5 strokes on approach on Sunday when he was out of the tournament, yet hit the ball beautifully throughout the rest of the week.

While my next selection is certainly shaping up to be a trendy pick, I haven’t heard a lot of chatter on Koepka this week, despite Caves Valley being a perfect fit for him. Over his last 36 rounds, the eight-time PGA Tour winner ranks third in strokes gained off the tee, third in strokes gained par-fives, and tenth in driving distance. I do not believe that he should have longer odds than Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, or Dustin Johnson on this course. I’ll gladly take my chances on Koepka at 25/1.

 

Bryson DeChambeau (35/1, DraftKings)

This will probably not be the first (or the last) time you hear the following statement this week, but this Bryson DeChambeau number has to be an auto-bet. The nine-time PGA Tour winner fits Caves Valley to a tee. From early reports on the grounds, the course has been lengthened to over 7,500 yards, the rough has been grown out, and the fairways have been pinched to just 25 yards on average. Similar to what we saw at Winged Foot and Bay Hill, this should play right into Bryson’s hands. While I do not believe that Caves Valley will play as difficult as those two courses, I have not subscribed to the popular theory that this will be a total birdie-fest either. Every report we have received thus far implies that the Tour is making a concerted effort to toughen this course up.

The reason I bring any of this up is that Bryson is the number one player in this field in strokes gained off the tee, driving distance, and proximity from 200 yards plus. He should be able to carry most of Caves Valley’s trouble off the tee, and even if he finds himself in the rough, he’ll be muscling out wedges while others are hitting 7-irons. He’s coming off an incredible ball-striking week at the Northern Trust where he gained 5.1 strokes on approach and 3.2 strokes on approach, and I am expecting some positive regression with the flat-stick. The former U.S. Open winner lost 2.8 strokes putting last week. In the last calendar year, he has lost over two strokes putting only four times, and in the following start, he has gained an average of 4.1 strokes putting. Everything is falling into place for the former U.S. Open champion.

Paul Casey (40/1, BetMGM)

Yes, I will be selecting another player that hit the ball beautifully at the Northern Trust but did not even sniff the first page of the leaderboard. Paul Casey finished T64 last week at Liberty National, while gaining 3.2 strokes off the tee, and 5.7 strokes on approach. Unfortunately, he lost a combined 10.1 strokes around the green and putting.

I will take my chances on a bounce-back putting week for the 18-time worldwide winner. Casey just gained seven strokes putting after-all two starts ago in Memphis, and bent-grass has historically been his preferred surface. Over his last 36 rounds, Casey is also the only player in the field to rank top-ten in strokes gained approach, weighted proximity from 175 yards plus, and strokes gained par fives. His length off the tee is also severely underrated, as the Englishman ranks 15th in this field in driving distance.

 

Joaquin Niemann (60/1, DraftKings)

Bent-grass fairways and greens? Check. 7,500 yard plus course that favors long and accurate drivers of the golf ball? Check. Tom Fazio course with undulating greens that favors elite lag putters? Check. I really like Joaquin Niemann’s fit at Caves Valley, and this 60/1 number feels a bit steep who was going off at the same price in majors.

Niemann finished a quiet T47 last week at the Northern Trust, but he gained strokes in all four categories except putting. With that being said, I believe it’s safe to assume we get some positive regression with the flat-stick for a player that ranks top-ten in this field in total strokes gained putting, Bent-grass putting, and three putt avoidance over his last 36 rounds. Niemann also ranks 13th in this field in strokes gained off the tee and eighth in driving distance. In his young career, the former Greenbrier Classic winner has already finished top-ten at the Tom Fazio designed Kasumigaseki and Shadow Creek.

 

Marc Leishman (140/1, Bet365)

This number just feels way too large for Marc Leishman. The Australian has won before on the long and narrow Bay Hill, Torrey Pines, and the Tom Fazio designed Conway Farms, yet now he’s being priced behind players like Maverick McNealy and Harold Varner. That’s just downright silly.

I understand that Leishman is a highly volatile player who is prone to missing cuts, but it’s not like his form has been terrible this season. He won the team event with Cameron Smith, contended at the Masters, and recently just finished third at the Travelers Championship. He’s also coming off a week at the Northern Trust where he gained over four strokes on approach, good for his best iron week since January. Leishman does a few specific things that I really care about this week. He’s plenty long off the tee, and over his last 36 rounds, he ranks top five in this field in sand saves and proximity from 200 yards plus. I’ll gladly back the six-time PGA Tour winner at an egregious number.

19th Hole

‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

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An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.

However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.

Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.

Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”

Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.

Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.

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How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

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Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.

Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.

Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.

Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.

Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.

“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course.  Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”

According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.

“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”

Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.

Check out Young’s winning WITB here.

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Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

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Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.

Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.

Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.

The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.

Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”

“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”

Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.

However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.

“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”

Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.

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