How To Bet Jordan Spieth at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson

In many instances, the pre-tournament favorite in a full-field professional golf event is a no-brainer decision – and if you don’t understand this concept, just check out what Scottie Scheffler has done recently, then try to envision a scenario in which he’s not actually a favorite in any upcoming tourney.

In some cases, a specific player might separate himself from others with short odds based on a combination of recent form and course history.

And then there’s this week when the favorite is placed in the pole position due to a process of elimination. He might not necessarily deserve it, but every other player essentially deserves it even less.

All of which leads us to Jordan Spieth, who owns the shortest golf odds at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson, despite nursing a lingering injury and failing to record a single title contention recently.

On the surface, it doesn’t make any sense.

Since being disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard at the Genesis Invitational more than two months ago, Spieth has made a half-dozen starts, missing the cut in half of them – including at The Players and the Masters – while posting just a single top-25 result, coming against a less-than-stellar field at the Valero Texas Open.

During this time, he’s lost strokes with his iron play on three occasions and, perhaps more concerningly, has lost strokes with his short game in five straight, a stark contrast to his usual bread-and-butter, considering his around-the-greens ranking has outclassed his ranking off the tee, on approach shots and putting in each of the last four seasons.

Maybe this recent downward trend can be explained away as simply having a couple of poorly struck wedge shots in each event. Still, it’s difficult to not allow our collective minds to wander and extrapolate whether a recurring wrist injury is hampering the best part of his game.

“When it happens,” Spieth said prior to the Masters of flareups to the ECU tendon in his left wrist, “I can’t do anything that day. Typically as the week goes on, it gets better and better, using it more and more, and I’m recovering more and more than, say, my days off at home. … But yeah, it’s something that I don’t think there’s really anything I can do other than rest. And I’m not resting it anytime soon. So, I’ll probably take quite a bit of time when the season’s over and see if it kind of sets it back in place and doesn’t flare up as much.”

None of which should make us overly confident in Spieth at any number, let alone as the favorite this week.

So, why was he listed at such a short number? Once again, it’s that process of elimination.

At the time of this writing, Si Woo Kim has the same odds as Spieth, but even his consistent play this year wasn’t enough to seriously scare the top spot. Defending champion Jason Day is right behind, but he hasn’t exactly been knocking on the door lately, either. Alex Noren? Will Zalatoris? Adam Scott? Sungjae Im? Each might hold some appeal in his own way, but none quite have the juice right now to be called the favorite in this field.

And so, we’re left with Spieth, who somehow owns his lowest odds of the entire year despite those recent struggles. That, of course, has more to do with the field itself and his fellow competitors than any sort of optimism over his performance, but it should make him an easy fade for those bettors who have been paying attention lately.

On any given week – especially in his home state – Spieth is capable of winning yet another PGA Tour title, but with his wedge game suffering and his wrist at something less than 100 percent, this feels like a week where it’s tough to trust him, especially at the shortest price in the field.