If you don’t have the patience to wait for all four rounds of a PGA Tour event to conclude to find out if you’ve won your bet, or if you just want to make watching the first round more exciting, than betting on who will be the first-round leader may be the move for you.
You can find my favorite full-tournament outright picks in my betting preview here, but in this article, we’re going to focus on who’s going to be leading after Thursday’s opening round.
Odds via BetMGM Sportsbook
Collin Morikawa +1600
Collin Morikawa has been trending in the right direction lately, finishing T4 at the PGA Championship and then solo fourth at the Charles Schwab Challenge where he gained strokes in all four major areas. He struggled through February and March but now it seems like not only are his irons back in form, but his short game has been great as well. He has gained strokes on the greens in four of his last five starts in individual stroke play events.
Morikawa has also had plenty of success at Muirfield Village. He won the Workday Charity Open here in 2020 when the course hosted back-to-back events due to the COVID-19 schedule and then followed it up with a solo second finish here in 2021.
If we’re going to bet on anyone to be the first-round leader, we need to look to see how they have scored in opening rounds this season and Morikawa passes that test with flying colors. Only Scottie Scheffler has a better Round 1 scoring average than Morikawa, who has an average opening round score of 68.08. That’s by far his best average score amongst all four rounds.
He’s averaging a score of 70.50 in Round 2, 69.70 in Round 3, and 71.00 in Round 4. That paints the clear picture that if you want to bet on the 27-year old, the time to do it is on Thursdays.
Pick: Collin Morikawa First Round Leader +1600
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
You can check out all of Iain’s bets here!
