Fresh off a profitable major, golf expert Ben Coley previews the Charles Schwab Challenge where Harris English again makes the staking plan.
Golf betting tips: Charles Schwab Challenge
2pts e.w. Maverick McNealy at 30/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Aaron Rai at 30/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Harris English at 33/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Christiaan Bezuidenhout at 70/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Tom Hoge at 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
If you're looking for chinks in the armour of Scottie Scheffler, who is almost as short as 2/1 to make Charles Schwab Challenge his third straight victory, you might be wasting your time. He's returning home to Texas the newly-crowned PGA champion, he just isn't the type to have seen the bottom of a bottle in celebrating on Sunday night, and he both loves and is determined to win at Colonial Country Club.
With three majors in 20-something starts, the world number one is currently just about sticking to a Tiger Woods strike-rate and if he does so for another three or four years, which would mean winning another two or three majors, then we really can start thinking in of numbers like 15, perhaps even 18. For now though we don't need to dwell on what might be, only what is. He is phenomenal.
And if he can match Woods' focus, he may well go ahead and capture this title. Woods as it goes won the week after his first PGA Championship some 25 years ago, and he did so by 11 shots. Scheffler hasn't quite managed that yet, but an aggregate of 13 for his last two wins will do, won't it? If anyone of the post-Woods generation deserves prices as short as 5/2 on the PGA Tour, it is him.
Bet without him or don't bet at all if you expect to watch him put on a victory parade to celebrate his victory parade, at least that's my advice. Chinks in the armour? No, not as such. But this is golf and Scheffler has been turned over at short odds in this event in each of the past three years, including by a 150/1 shot in the first renewal post-renovation last year. It only takes one – and there are 50 or more potential candidates.
Colonial, a par 70 which is by no means short but equally isn't a drivers' golf course as such, didn't really change much for Gil Hanse's understated work. Most players seemed to agree that the noticeable differences came on the greens, all of them relaid, but that the fundamental aesthetic of the course was unaltered. So while we did get a surprise winner, to my mind it's significant that Davis Riley gone close to winning here a couple of years earlier.
Before Scheffler came along, Jordan Spieth was the sheriff around these parts and I did ponder whether it might pay to side with him following an improved second round at Quail Hollow last week. Spieth's approach work is showing good signs, he's driven the ball well for ages now, his putter had been hot prior to last week, and having sided with him at 18/1 for the Nelson which Scheffler won by eight, 25/1 in a place at a course he prefers was always going to make me think twice.
Then I came to Tommy Fleetwood. DataGolf make him the second-best player in this field and he's set to go off at the same price he was when fourth in the Truist Championship a couple of weeks ago, a Signature Event absent of Scheffler but otherwise packed with the stars of the circuit. He is a slightly bigger price than I envisaged, but at a course where he's been mediocre in two previous visits and after a modest PGA, I can see why.
Try as I might then I can't escape HARRIS ENGLISH, whose runner-up finish in the PGA Championship was thoroughly merited.
Yes, English stormed through the pack to pick up a tie for second as others fell away but he ought to have been much closer to the lead anyway, having made two colossal short-game mistakes over the previous two days, first taking three to get out of a bunker and then four-putting from 40 feet at the 18th.
That's not like him and having in fact been the single best ball-striker in the field, better even than Scheffler in strokes-gained , English would've left Quail Hollow feeling extremely frustrated but for Sunday's final round. He may still wonder what might've been, but I suspect he'd conclude that solo second, rather than a tie, is the answer to that question.
Anyway, he is now seventh in Ryder Cup points and right in the conversation to make a return to the side, which he says is his primary goal for the year. That ought to ensure focus and, unlike most of those who finished in the top 10 at Quail Hollow, he was never really in the mix. In fact I don't think there was any point in the tournament that English would've felt the nervousness of contention, he was simply too far back for that.
Hopefully fresh enough to press on, he now comes to Colonial, where he was a battling second to Spieth in 2016, an excellent fifth on debut in 2012, and has generally played well. All told he has six top-30s here and would be gaining strokes through the bag but for an anomalous off-the-tee performance in 2018, at a time when he borderline had the driving yips and couldn't keep the ball on the planet.
That year though actually helps make the case as he was 20th here despite three missed cuts before and seven more missed cuts after, evidence that even at his lowest he could still find ways to get it around the sort of difficult, traditional golf course he certainly enjoys.
There are some parallels with Southwind, scene of his breakthrough win, as there are with the short, classical River Highlands, and it's no surprise that his latest win earlier this year came at Torrey Pines. As he said again last week, English likes par to mean something and it always has at Colonial, where he can threaten the second 2025 win which would rubber-stamp those Ryder Cup credentials.
MAVERICK MCNEALY is one place below English in those Ryder Cup standings and he too should see this as a big opportunity before another Signature Event followed a fortnight later by another major.
My instinct when first assessing this tournament was to focus on outsiders knowing that Scheffler has every chance but the more I've looked, the keener I've become on the idea that the best value lies just below him. It's very easy to fritter away points trying to sneak sixth or seventh in a tournament like this but the drop-off beyond the top five or six in the betting is the key thing to focus on.
It means players like these two selections have every chance to contend and in McNealy's case, that's something he's made a nice habit of. Since winning the RSM Classic with an impressive closing birdie, he's added five more top-10s and three of them have been top-threes, including at the Heritage recently plus when we were on in the Texas Open.
Also second at Torrey Pines, in a different tournament to the one English won, he's been doing best under challenging conditions and I like his chances at Colonial, the sort of old-fashioned course he prefers. Down the years his approach play has always fired here, ever since his 2018 debut on an invite, and the one problem has been his driver but that's been excellent for quite a while now.
Should be bring that confidence off the tee with him to Colonial then one of his better putting weeks should see McNealy right in the hunt. Whether that's with or without Scheffler will determine how likely he is to win, but he took his chance wonderfully at the end of last year and then made Ludvig Aberg pull out all the stops, so perhaps he can ask a few questions of the world number one.
Rai smiling in Ryder Cup push
The final selection from near the head of the betting is AARON RAI, who really is made for this test.
Rai is a classic fairways-and-greens golfer and while his breakthrough PGA Tour win came under lower-scoring conditions than these, it was at an old-school, tree-lined, fairways-first par 70. Kevin Kisner has won at both courses and when he captured a play-off at Sedgefield, Colonial winners Adam Scott and Kevin Na were among his victims.
We know Rai is suited to this course anyway because he's made all three cuts, improving on a modest debut to be 12th in 2023, then 32nd last year. On the first of these two appearances he was the second-best iron player in the field, on the second he was the second-best driver, and he ranked fifth and seventh respectively in strokes-gained tee-to-green only to putt poorly each time.
Notably, his best golf here followed three missed cuts, underlining how good a course fit he is, and this year he's only missed two cuts in total, both on massive golf courses. Otherwise he's been excellent with eight top-30 finishes and, after a top-20 last week in which he led the field in strokes-gained approach, he looks to be rounding into top form once more.
Rai's putter could cost him again but he's about average for the season and produced some of his best figures just two weeks ago so that's a chance I'll gladly take at a course where the likes of Scott, Emiliano Grillo and Boo Weekley help demonstrate that there's really no substitute for rock-solid ball-striking.
He's another with the Ryder Cup to help sharpen focus and may well need to win again to make his debut for Europe. I doubt he'll have many better opportunities between here and September and that's even with Scheffler casting a long shadow over the field.
Further down the market, former junior rivals Alex Smalley and Ryan Gerard are both of some interest. Smalley continues to play well and has done so here in the past whereas Gerard, an in-form rookie who looks close to a breakthrough, does have to overcome a lack of course knowledge. On balance that's too big a handicap to ignore and even Scheffler took a couple of goes to work this place out.
Instead then I'll fall for the improvements CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT has shown of late.
The South African has endured a pretty miserable spring and on the face of it his results don't suggest much has changed, but over his last two starts his iron play has really taken off, particularly last week when he ranked 10th at Quail Hollow.
That course is too long for him really and he did well to make the cut, especially as his putter misfired just as it had on his previous start. That's very rare for a dynamite putter like Bezuidenhout, who led the field as recently as the Heritage, and if he matches the two together he'll enjoy an excellent week.
Bezuidenhout is a classic example of someone who enjoys the positional, less-than-driver challenge presented by Colonial, which has some things in common with courses like Leopard Creek and even Valderrama, where he's done his winning on the DP World Tour. In four starts he's gone MC-15-21-17, gaining strokes from tee-to-green throughout each of them and putting well for the most part.
That makes Colonial arguably the best course for him on the schedule and given that he returns having come to life with his iron play, that prospect of his putter warming back up is really appealing.
Eric Cole has shown more here than his results suggest and is ticking over nicely right now so he's respected along with Kevin Yu, who has caught the eye on the greens the last twice. Yu is a superb ball-striker so in some ways he's the anti-Bezuidenhout, where we'd be looking to see if his long-game returns before his putting purple patch runs out.
Emiliano Grillo did the business for us in this event two years ago and returns with his ball-striking having come round again, but my final selection is TOM HOGE, good enough to finally get in the mix in what's become his hometown event.
Born in Nebraska, Hoge came to Fort Worth to begin his college career in 2007 and has never left. He used to walk from TCU down to this course to watch what was the Crowne Plaza Invitational and knows every blade of grass at the property.
Now, that does make a return of just two top-20s from eight and nothing better than 17th a bit underwhelming, but Hoge is right to believe that he does have the game for this. All he needs is a solid week off the tee and to let his superb iron play do the damage.
"I feel like it's a golf course that really should suit me well. I feel like my iron game is kind of the strength of my game. To me, it comes back to hitting fairways like we talked about."
Whether or not he can do that this week we'll see but I can certainly forgive him Quail Hollow, a course too long and too demanding off the tee. Despite that he broke 70 on Friday, his iron play firing once more, and a weekend off might just prove the right kind of preparation for an undeniably busy week entertaining family and friends at home.
Hoge finished third in the Travelers after a missed cut in the US Open last year, fourth in the 3M Open after a missed cut in the Open in 2022, and I don't think we need to read anything at all into his performance in the PGA.
And there has been more promise to his performances here than at first there may appear, as he has several low rounds and ranked fourth in the tee-to-green stats last year.
Better putting will be required but he produced exactly that throughout March and April and, quickly shunted back down the market after just two modest displays, he could look an each-way steal granted a strong start.
Posted at 0900 BST on 20/05/25
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