2021 BMW Championship: Latest Betting Odds, Favorites and Sleeper picks for Caves Valley Golf Club

Jon Rahm is the big favorite but look a little closer to see if gold medal winner Xander Schauffele and budding star Sam Burns are worth a wager this week when the PGA Tour heads to Maryland.

The best things in life come to those who wait.

For Tony Finau, after 1,975 days, 143 starts and 39 top-10 finishes on Tour since his last win, it was prophetic the moment finally arrived during a Monday finish. For much of the final round, it looked like world No. 1 Jon Rahm was going to continue his recent dominant play, but a couple of stumbles on the back nine allowed Cam Smith to join Finau in a playoff. An errant tee shot by Smith on the first playoff hole ultimately secured the long awaited second win of Finau’s career.

As for the picks, it was a forgettable week as favorite Collin Morikawa missed the cut and both midrange pick Hideki Matsuyama and sleeper Gary Woodland could not keep up with the pace on the weekend.

We now head down the coast to Caves Valley Golf Club just outside Baltimore for the BMW Championship with the top 70 players of the season in tow. It is the first time Caves Valley has hosted a Tour event and only a handful of notable players have experience here from the 2007 Palmer Cup. There have been many changes to the course since then, including clearing out several trees, but Dustin Johnson, Webb Simpson, Billy Horschel and others all hold fond memories of their time spent there. However, for most of the field, there are plenty of unknowns.

According to William Hill, world No. 1 and defending champion Jon Rahm is the massive favorite at 13-2 after almost winning last week’s Northern Trust. Next up is gold medal winner Xander Schauffele at 18-1 after posting a T-16 in the first playoff event. To follow are two-time BMW Champion Dustin Johnson, 2019 champion Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth at 20-1.

For our favorite, we’re going with “Mr. Limited Field and No Cut” man in Xander Schauffele at 18-1. The next two weeks are where the former Tour Championship winner shines. In his four wins on Tour, three of them have come in limited fields with no cut. One must also not forget the recent Olympic win was not a full field and he would have won last year’s Tour Championship had it not been for the staggered field to start the week. On Tour this year, Schauffele ranks top-17 in strokes gained: approach, putting, tee-to-green and total, so look for him to be right at home on a new track.

We like Xander Schauffele this week at 18-1. Photo: USA Today

For a value midrange pick, Sam Burns looks great at 50-1. Since his breakthrough win at the Valspar Championship, Burns continues to put together solid results including two runners-up at the Byron Nelson and St. Jude along with a 13th at the Travelers and almost sneaking into the top-20 last week. When the Tour arrives to debut courses on the circuit, the setup tends to allow players to succeed rather than fail, so making birdies is paramount. Burns ranks fourth in birdie average and top-15 in strokes gained (putting), so look for him to take aim at those favored ahead of him.

For a second straight deep sleeper, Keith Mitchell looks ripe at 125-1. The man is playing with house money as he needed to finish birdie-birdie-birdie on the last three holes at Liberty National just to get into this week’s field. One may think he might just be happy to be here and looking at his recent history, he missed five straight cuts from the end of May through mid-July. However, he righted the ship with a fifth-place finish at the 3M Open and the T-8 finish last week has him brimming with so much confidence he said he enjoyed the nerves the final pairings brought him. Mitchell ranks 11th on Tour in strokes gained (off-the-tee), a stat that should only add to his momentum heading into Caves Valley.

2021 picks scoreboard:

Winners: 4
Top 10s: 20
Top 20s: 12
Misses: 55

2021 BMW Championship odds

Here are some notable odds, according to William Hill:

• Jon Rahm 13-2
• Xander Schauffele 18-1
• Dustin Johnson 20-1
• Justin Thomas 20-1
• Jordan Spieth 20-1
• Collin Morikawa 22-1
• Cameron Smith 22-1
• Patrick Cantlay 25-1
• Brooks Koepka 25-1
• Tony Finau 25-1
• Bryson DeChambeau 28-1
• Corey Conners 28-1
• Rory McIlroy 28-1
• Scottie Scheffler 28-1
• Louis Oosthuizen 28-1
• Viktor Hovland 28-1
• Webb Simpson 33-1
• Daniel Berger 35-1
• Paul Casey 35-1
• Abraham Ancer 35-1
• Hideki Matsuyama 35-1
• Shane Lowry 40-1
• Joaquin Niemann 40-1
• Harris English 40-1
• Kevin Na 50-1
• Sam Burns 50-1
• Sungjae Im 50-1
• Cameron Tringale 66-1
• Jason Kokrak 66-1
• Russell Henley 66-1
• Erik van Rooyen 70-1
• Harold Varner 80-1
• Si-Woo Kim 80-1
• Alex Noren 80-1
• Sergio Garcia 80-1
• Cameron Davis 80-1
• Kevin Streelman 80-1
• Billy Horschel 80-1
• Kevin Kisner 80-1
• Keegan Bradley 80-1
• Branden Grace 100-1
• Maverick McNealy 100-1
• Jhonattan Vegas 100-1
• Brian Harman 100-1
• Emiliano Grillo 100-1
• Mackenzie Hughes 100-1
• Sebastian Munoz 100-1
• Stewart Cink 100-1
• Charley Hoffman 100-1
• Cameron Champ 100-1
• Marc Leishman 125-1
• Lee Westwood 125-1
• Max Homa 125-1
• Keith Mitchell 125-1
• Phil Mickelson 125-1
• Carlos Ortiz 125-1
• Ryan Palmer 125-1
• Charl Schwartzel 150-1
• Talor Gooch 150-1
• Harry Higgs 150-1
• Aaron Wise 150-1
• Tom Hoge 150-1
• Chris Kirk 150-1
• Lucas Glover 200-1
• Patton Kizzire 200-1
• Kyoung-Hoon Lee 200-1
• Robert Streb 250-1
• Hudson Swafford 250-1
• Matt Jones 250-1