The Best Scottie Scheffler Outright Might Be a Live One

I like Scottie Scheffler to win this week’s Memorial Tournament.

The reasons are pretty simple.

He’s a two-time defending champion with top-three results in each of his last four starts at Muirfield Village. He’s been mired in a 10-event winless drought, though hardly playing poorly, suggesting he’s overdue for that long-awaited 21st career PGA Tour victory. And on a difficult golf course, all-around talent tends to separate the contenders from everyone else, so there’s even more to like about a guy who leads ‘em all in the talent department.

It all points to a potential three-peat for the world’s No. 1-ranked player.

And yet, I won’t be betting him — at least, not at his +300 pre-tournament odds.

Just as there are myriad reasons to like Scheffler this week, there is similar logic in taking a wait-and-see approach in the outright market.

It starts with his much-maligned Thursday performances. Scheffler led the PGA Tour in Round 1 scoring average last year. And the year before that. And the year before that, too.

This year, though, he’s ranked a mere 39th at 69.64, which is actually a couple dozen notches better than he was just a month ago. That’s due to the fact that three of his last four opening rounds have been 68 or better, though he still has nearly twice as many openers in the 70s (seven) as the 60s (four) this season.

If we’re not expecting him to race out to the first-round lead – or something close to it – then we similarly shouldn’t be expecting that 3/1 number to get any shorter in the live outright market.

At last year’s Memorial Tournament, Scheffler opened with a 2-under 70, which left him five strokes behind leader Ben Griffin. That’s hardly an insurmountable deficit with 54 holes left to play – as he proved three days later.

That week, he opened at +300, just as he did this week. The price only dropped to +240 following that opening round, then +175 after the second round, when he was just three back.

Recently, though, we saw his number move in the other direction, despite being very much in contention.

Just two weeks ago, Scottie was +175 in the pre-tournament outright market for the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. After two rounds, he moved into a share of second place, just five strokes behind leader Si Woo Kim. Instead of that number growing shorter while in contention, though, Scheffler’s price stretched to +250 at the midway point and expanded north of +300 at a similar place on the leaderboard early in Saturday’s third round.

He didn’t win that one, finishing in third place, as Wyndham Clark’s final-round 60 leapfrogged the other contenders, but there was at least value in waiting on Scheffler for a couple of days rather than blindly betting him before the opening round.

As with any wager, that’s what we’re seeking here – value.

I’m not suggesting Scheffler can’t or won’t win this week’s tournament. In fact, the very first line of this column reveals how much I like him here. The idea, though, is to get the best possible price.

If you see something you want at the local mall, would you rather pay full price today or get a 30 percent discount a few days later? That’s essentially the same question we’re asking here.

Of course, like all betting decisions – hell, like all life decisions, if we’re getting deep – there is some inherent risk involved.

Maybe Scheffler opens with a 67, as he’s done in two of his past four starts at Muirfield Village. Maybe that opening price drops from +300 to something in the +150 range. Maybe it never grows longer than what we’re being offered right now.

Again, that’s a risk we have to be willing to take.

If you think he cruises to a third straight win and want some exposure in case of a hot start and never seeing this number again, then jump on it now.

Personally, I don’t mind the gamble, though. Let’s bank on another tepid opening round from Scheffler, hope that price inches longer than +400 or +450 or maybe even +500, then find the proper time to pull the trigger.