Dell Technologies Match Play
Overview
Dates: March 22, 2023 to March 26, 2023
Location: Texas, USA
Course: Austin Country Club
Course Par: 71
Course Length: 7108
Prize Purse: $20000000
The PGA Tour returns to Austin Country Club with a 64-player field, comprising most of the top players on the planet, now set for the annual World Golf Championships Dell Technologies Matchplay. Scottie Scheffler, fresh off his win at The Players Championship, returns to defend his title from a year ago. Scheffler has already defended one title this year in the WM Phoenix Open. Only Justin Rose and Justin Thomas have decided not to take up their invitations, with John Suh at 77 in the world the lowest ranked player in the field.
Results
No point pretending otherwise, the matchplay wasn’t one of our finest moments. After the high of Taylor Moore’s win the previous week, none of our four picks made it through their brackets, although Finau in particular looked very likely to do so until his final game of the group stage. Best not to dwell on it – as we said in the preview the volatile nature of matchplay makes it less appealing as a betting medium – we kept stakes low for a reason and will do so again the next time this event comes around. Normal 72-hole stroke play resumes with the Texas Open this week, swiftly followed by the Masters, so hopefully we’ll put some more profits in the bank in the not-too-distant future.
Preview
The Dell Technologies Matchplay wouldn’t be my favourite tournament to bet in by any means. The list of past champions has been a real mixture of the obvious (Scheffler, McIlroy and Woods for example) and near impossible-to-find (Ogilvy, twice, Kisner, Sutherland). Frankly, it’s really hard to find a pattern. That said, we’ll give it a go…
Rather than focusing on course fit, which would be our usual starting point, in terms of a strategy for the week, the first focus is to find players who are highly likely or may be overpriced to get out of their groups. Then we’re simply looking for someone whose recent form gives them a sporting chance of playing some consistently good golf over up to 7 rounds in 5 days, since just one bad round is likely to be all it takes to get sent packing. Given the unpredictable nature of matchplay golf, I’m not convinced there is much to be said for taking the analysis a whole lot deeper than that.
Outrights
| Player | Points | Type | UK Odds | Places | Outright US Odds |
| Tony Finau | 2 | each way | 25/1 | 8 | +3000 |
| Sungjae Im | 2 | each way | 28/1 | 8 | +3500 |
| Tom Hoge | 1 | each way | 66/1 | 8 | +8000 |
| Chris Kirk | 1 | each way | 66/1 | 8 | +11000 |
We’ll start our list this week with Tom Hoge (1pt each way, 66/1, 8 places), who has a big name player in Xander Schauffele lurking in his group, alongside two guys he’d hope to beat in the shape of Aaron Wise and Cam Davis. The value angle here is in Xander’s recent form not having been that great and if Hoge can find a way out of the group stage, his price would start to look huge.
Similar remarks apply to Chris Kirk (1pt each way, 66/1, 8 places), who has been in the form of his life recently, picking up the Honda Classic just a month or so ago, much to our delight. The top seed in his group is Viktor Hovland, who is certainly the favourite to progress, but couldn’t be considered bomb-proof with his well-documented short game fragilities. In current form Kirk should be able to give him a game at the very least, and if he wins that tie can be fancied to progress ahead of Si Woo Kim and Matt Kuchar.
Of the higher seeds, Tony Finau (2pts each way, 25/1, 8 places) looks to have a lovely draw against Kitayama, Meronk and Bezuidenhout. He also has the consistency needed to go deep into the tournament, so at a much bigger price than the top few in the market, he makes a good bit of appeal to give us a decent run.
When it comes to consistency, although he struggles to win strokeplay events these days, few can match Sungjae Im (2pts each way, 28/1, 8 places), so as a result he is easy to include. His group contains Tommy Fleetwood, fresh off the back of a near miss in the Valspar, but coming in fresher than Tommy I’d fancy Sungjae to win that one and take care of JT Poston and Maverick McNealy without too much trouble. He could certainly hold his own against anyone he comes up against in the later rounds.
Of the others, Scottie Scheffler is the obvious one. Champion last year, runner-up previously and current holder of the number 1 spot, his chances are there for all to see. But 8/1 to win at least 6 and quite possibly 7 games of matchplay in the space of 5 days isn’t quite enough to persuade me to jump on board. Rory McIlroy could be a vulnerable favourite in his group, but it’s hard to choose between Bradley, McCarthy and Stallings as the most likely beneficiary if Rory underperforms. Will Zalatoris has one of the nicer groups, but perhaps isn’t in quite the form yet that can see him put 7 rounds together in a week. Tyrrell Hatton was the one I was probably closest to including alongside our selections, but the presence of Ben Griffin in his group just put me off as that game could go either way.
We’ll keep stakes low as it’s very hard to be confident, but hopefully we’ll get at least one and maybe more of our picks through the group stages to keep our interest going into the weekend.
No point pretending otherwise, the matchplay wasn’t one of our finest moments. After the high of Taylor Moore’s win the previous week, none of our four picks made it through their brackets, although Finau in particular looked very likely to do so until his final game of the group stage. Best not to dwell on it – as we said in the preview the volatile nature of matchplay makes it less appealing as a betting medium – we kept stakes low for a reason and will do so again the next time this event comes around. Normal 72-hole stroke play resumes with the Texas Open this week, swiftly followed by the Masters, so hopefully we’ll put some more profits in the bank in the not-too-distant future.