Golf best bets: Long shots to target at the Genesis Invitational
Targeting long shots on the PGA Tour has been quite fruitful to start the season, and that continued at the WM Phoenix Open when we nailed Tom Hoge at +115 to finish in the top 40 and +320 to finish in the top 20. Let's keep it rolling and see if we can't nail a long-shot winner for this week's Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club.
Patrick Rodgers (+12000 FanDuel)
Patrick Rodgers is one of the few long shots this week with a solid course history at Riviera. The American has a scoring average of 70.6 in 26 career rounds at Riviera, and he has five top-30 finishes in eight starts here. He's missed the cut three times due to blow-up rounds of 77, 76 and 75, but he shot even par or better in 19 of his other 23 rounds at Riv.
Rodgers enters the tournament in solid form with four top-25 finishes in his last five worldwide starts. The Stanford product knows how to putt on these California poa annua greens, so we love the idea of targeting him in the finishing position market.
Top-20 finish: +280
Top-30 finish: +130
Brendon Todd (+20000 ESPN BET)
There are two ways to attack Riviera Country Club off the tee: bomb it as far as you can and cut the corners of the doglegs, or play safe and hit as many fairways as you can to avoid the Kikuyu rough. We've seen both strategies work over the years, so this could be a promising week for short-hitting Brendon Todd.
Todd ranks 176th on the PGA Tour this season in driving distance, but he ranks seventh in driving accuracy. If he can keep his ball in the short grass all week, the three-time PGA Tour winner will have a huge advantage in hitting approach shots to these challenging greens. Todd also hasn't missed a cut since the Travelers Championship in June, and he gained strokes on approach in 12 of his 14 starts over that span.
Top-20 finish: +335
Top-30 finish: +150
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