Golf’s Best Minus One Head to Firestone

Fans of golf betting will get a strong field on which to wager this week, as the tours converge for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.

The Firestone event is the third and final World Golf Championships tournament of the season, a series usually dominated by Tiger Woods. And Woods has definitely been at his best at the Bridgestone Invitational (and its predecessor, the NEC Invitational); the world’s top player took the trophy in this tournament in six of the past nine years overall.

The only non-Woods winners of this week’s WGC event recently were Craig Parry in 2002 (albeit at Sahalee Country Club in Washington), Darren Clarke in 2003, and Stewart Cink in 2004. Cink lost to Woods in the final of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship earlier this year, and he’s pegged at +2000 to get the victory this week.

That puts Cink behind just three other golfers on this week’s odds list – Phil Mickelson at +1000, Sergio Garcia at +1600, and Jim Furyk at +1800. Favored Mickelson finished at 13-over at Firestone last year in a tie for 46th place (21 strokes behind Woods), while Garcia was 6-over at the tourney, and Furyk had to withdraw because of a back injury.

Tied with Cink at +2000 are each of Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Kenny Perry, Anthony Kim, and Adam Scott. Els was 7-over at this event last year, and he ended up in a tie for seventh place at the British Open two weeks ago. Harrington, of course, won the British Open, and he was 14th at Firestone last year. The surging Perry was 11th (at 4-over) in this event last year, while Scott was tied for 36th place, and Kim did not play.

Kim did play last week, but he followed up three solid rounds at a wet Canadian Open with a clunker of a finish (4-over on the last day) to end up in a tie for eighth place. Unheralded Chez Reavie got the win in Canada, but he’s listed with The Field this week.

Geoff Ogilvy and Henrik Stenson are both at +3000 to win this week, with each of Vijay Singh, Lee Westwood, Hunter Mahan, and Robert Allenby at +3500. K.J. Choi, Steve Stricker, Robert Karlsson, and Justin Rose are all pegged at +4000 odds; Rose finished second to Woods at Firestone last year, but that still put him eight strokes back of first.

Other notables and their odds to win this week include Justin Leonard (+4500), Ian Poulter (+5500), Sean O’Hair (+6000), Stephen Ames (+6000), and Rory Sabbatini (+8000). Leonard was tied for ninth at Firestone last year, while Poulter finished second behind Harrington at the British Open. O’Hair was third at the Canadian Open, and Ames missed the cut on his home soil. Sabbatini tied with Rose at Firestone last year.

There won’t be much of a break for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational participants next week, as they’ll be right back in action at the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills Country Club in Michigan starting next Thursday. Again Woods is the defending champion at that event, and again he won’t be at the course to try and defend his title.