Memorial Tournament: Bo Van Pelt the bookies this week

Both Adam Scott and Rory Mcllroy responded to significant events in fine style at the weekend; the Australian celebrated his first week at No.1 in the world by grinding out a win at the Crowne Plaza Invitational and the Northern Irishmen shrugged off the strain of breaking off his engagement with his first win in 20 months at the PGA Championship.

As a result, both Mcllroy and Scott are even shorter in the Memorial Tournament betting than they would have normally been at 8/1 and 10/1 respectively, and although it would be easy to single out the high flying duo there is no shortage of better priced alternatives further down the list.

Neither market leader has a particularly inspiring record at Muirfield Village with a fourth placed finish by Scott in 2006 the best result between them from 12 combined attempts.

Mcllroy finished fifth in 2011, but came 57^th last year after missing the cut the season before. A poor recent course record didn’t stop him at Wentworth of course where he had struggled over the past few seasons, however, when factoring in the unlikelihood of posting back-to-back victories as well then the 25-year-old is best avoided here.

Scott’s record is better with that aforementioned fourth backed up by a fifth placed finish the following year, however, since then he hasn’t threatened with a tie for 13^th his best effort in six years.

Matt Kuchar is another obvious candidate defending the title he won in fine style last term, however, backing a man who missed only his second cut in almost two years last week at odds of 12/1 can’t be considered smart apples.

And so our attention turns to some fancier prices, the first in the shape of big-hitting Bo Van Pelt. None in the field have performed as consistently at the track than the Richmond resident with his last four efforts ending no worse than 21^st place.

A third place finish in 2010 has been followed by consecutive T13 finishes and at 50/1 the popular 39-year-old could be the answer.

Enthusiasm can be easily tempered by an examination of Van Pelt’s form this campaign, however, encouragingly his best result of the season came last week when ending up tied for 14^th and there were definite signs that his nightmare beginning to 2014 is behind him.

Another man to take note of this week and one who has had a far more profitable time of it this season is Jim Furyk.

In 18 run-outs at the course, the 2003 US Open champion has only missed the cut once and has posted six top-10s in the process.

Consecutive runner-up finishes at Wells Fargo and the Players shows he is still in rattling nick and although he was unable to maintain the momentum last week – still made it to the weekend – quotes of 20/1 should be too big to be left out of staking plans.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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