The final invitational for the PGA Tour comes this weekend at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm for the 2018 Quicken Loans National. This is the second straight year for this event at TPC Potomac, but it looks like it will be moving to the Detroit Golf Club next year, which has to be an exciting time for Quicken, which is based in the Motor City. In any event, this is supposed to be more of a select tournament with invitational status, but there are a lot of top players that opt to sit this one out to get ready for The Open Championship at Carnoustie in three weeks.
Only four of the top 30 in the Official World Golf Ranking are on hand. Rickie Fowler, Tiger Woods, and Marc Leishman are the biggest names in a field lacking Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Bubba Watson, Matt Kuchar, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Reed, and more. There will always be intrigue when Tiger is on the prowl and Big Cat is the second favorite behind Fowler with the watered-down field.
We don’t really have a whole lot of course form data, as TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, which used to host the Kemper Open, is in use for just the second year. Kyle Stanley won last year at 7-under, which is the second-lowest winning score in this event, which has been held at Congressional seven times, Aronimink twice, and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club once. It is a par 70 coming in just over 7,100 yards. Only three of the 12 par 4s played to an average below par last season and the par 4 11th actually played to an average score of 4.521, so this will be a real challenge for the players that are taking a stab. Accuracy off of the tee will be a big deal this week with narrow fairways and players will have to be set up for a good second shot into some sharply-graded greens.
This is the lighter part of the schedule, with next week’s Greenbrier Classic and the John Deere Classic the following week, so this will likely be the last tune-up for the players at the top of the odds board for this one before The Open Championship on July 19.
As mentioned above, this week’s favorite at 5Dimes Sportsbook is Rickie Fowler at +660. Fowler tied for third here last year, two shots off the pace that got Kyle Stanley and Charles Howell III into a playoff. Fowler opened 70-72, but with the tough scoring conditions, he made the cut comfortably. A 68-65 weekend was a strong finish, but the players were scoring really well by Sunday, so he couldn’t make up much ground on the leaders. Fowler skipped last week’s Travelers Championship after finishing 20th at the US Open. Fowler’s third-round 84 really stood out, as he shot 73-69 to open and 65 on Sunday. Fowler had to scramble a lot last year, as he only hit the fairway 53.6 percent of the time, but had one of his best events with the putter. There isn’t a ton of value on his outright price, but he could have some value in matchups.
Tiger Woods, who won this event in 2009 and 2012 at Congressional, is +1300 to erase the bad memory of Shinnecock Hills. Tiger’s return was celebrated in golf circles and he gave everybody a thrill finishing second at the Valspar and fifth at the Arnold Palmer, but he hasn’t cracked the top-10 in his last five events. He’s made four cuts, but hasn’t really threatened the leaders. Tiger is fifth in strokes gained tee to green even though he is 184th in driving accuracy, so he has made the most of his scrambling ability. He may have to rely on that a lot this week. It’s hard to take him at this price, even though this field is easier than most of the other ones he has played.
Marc Leishman is +1800 this week. Leishman tied for fifth last year with several other players at 4-under. He had a palindromic weekend, with a 66-72-72-66 across his 72 holes. Leishman missed the cut last week at the Travelers and has had some ugly finishes of late. He was second at the AT&T Byron Nelson, but 45th at Shinnecock, 62nd at Muirfield Village, and 63rd at THE PLAYERS. It feels like a while ago that Leishman bagged back-to-back top-10s at the Masters and the Arnold Palmer. Leishman’s profile doesn’t really stand out in any way, so taking him at this lower price point seems unnecessary.
Kyle Stanley fits this course well because he hits a lot of fairways, which is what helped him to the win last year. Stanley only had seven bogies and hit over 70 percent of fairways. On a course where 7-under can win, par golf is mostly winning golf and that was the recipe for Stanley. He’s third in driving accuracy this season and it feels like we’re seeing more repeat winners at courses and events this year. He was 15th last week at the Travelers with four rounds under 60 and lost in the playoff at the Memorial. He’s a solid bet at +2200, even with the depressed value because of last year’s win.
Francesco Molinari is also +2200. He sat this event out last year. Runner-up Charles Howell III is +2800, along with JB Holmes. Jimmy Walker and Beau Hossler are both +3000.
For this week’s event, we’ll focus on players that are playing their second shots from the short grass and those that are playing well on par 4s. Unfortunately one of the best at both, Chez Reavie, isn’t in the field this week. One guy that is in the field Kevin Streelman at +4500. Streelman was 17th last year at 2-under. Streelman is tied for ninth in par 4 scoring and top 25 in driving accuracy. Streelman hasn’t played overly well of late with no top-30 finishes and two missed cuts, but this looks like a strong course for him.
Chesson Hadley didn’t work out for us last week in our DFS piece, but the 30-year-old also rates very well in scoring on par 4s and in accuracy off the tee. He was 11th at THE PLAYERS and 20th the following week in another Invitational at Fort Worth, but he’s missed his last two cuts. Hadley is T-23rd in par 4 scoring and 30th in driving accuracy, so he’s a solid look at +5000.
Johnson Wagner at +11000 could give you a lot of mileage this week for a small investment. Wagner is T-50th in par 4 scoring because he’s been such an exceptional putter this season. Wagner is fifth in strokes gained putting. The problem for him is that he hasn’t kept it in the fairway off the tee, but it really isn’t a big surprise that he finished fifth here last year. At this price point, he’s easily worth a Beer Money During Happy Hour investment.
Coverage of the 2018 Quicken Loans National will be on Golf Channel and CBS throughout the week.
Odds as of June 25, 2 p.m. ET:
Rickie Fowler +660
Tiger Woods +1300
Marc Leishman +1800
Kyle Stanley +2200
Francesco Molinari +2200
Charles Howell III +2800
J.B. Holmes +2800
Jimmy Walker +3000
Beau Hossler +3000
Kiradech Aphibarnrat +3500
Kevin Na +3500
Joaquin Niemann +4000
Patrick Rodgers +4000
Byeong Hun An +4000
Billy Horschel +4500
Stewart Cink +4500
Jamie Lovemark +4500
Kevin Streelman +4500
Si Woo Kim +5000
Chesson Hadley +5000
Gary Woodland +5000
Danny Lee +5000
David Lingmerth +5000
Andrew Putnam +5500
Kevin Tway +6000
Brian Gay +6600
Bill Haas +7000
Anirban Lahiri +7000
Adam Hadwin +7000
C.T. Pan +7500
Martin Laird +7500
Nick Watney +8000
Keith Mitchell +9000
Matt Jones +10000
J.T. Poston +10000
James Hahn +10000
Rory Sabbatini +10000
Ryan Blaum +10000
Ollie Schniederjans +11000
Richy Werenski +11000
Trey Mullinax +11000
Harris English +11000
Johnson Wagner +11000
Jason Kokrak +12500
Troy Merritt +12500
Tyler Duncan +12500
Seamus Power +12500
Ryan Palmer +12500
Ryan Armour +12500
Andrew Landry +12500
Ben Crane +12500
Ben Martin +12500
Denny McCarthy +12500
Peter Malnati +14000
Scott Stallings +14000
Tom Hoge +14000
J.J. Spaun +14000
Joel Dahmen +15000
John Huh +15000
Vaughn Taylor +15000
Sung Kang +15000
Sam Ryder +15000
Sam Saunders +15000
Zac Blair +15000
Cody Gribble +15000
Corey Conners +15000
Fabian Gomez +15000
Aaron Baddeley +15000
Alex Cejka +16000
Michael Kim +16000
Nate Lashley +16000
Nicholas Lindheim +17500
Ted Potter, Jr. +17500
Whee Kim +17500
Abraham Ancer +17500
Chad Campbell +17500
Brandon Harkins +17500
Blayne Barber +20000
Ben Silverman +20000
Harold Varner III +20000
Doug Ghim +20000
Tom Lovelady +20000
Stephan Jaeger +20000
Scott Brown +20000
Robert Garrigus +20000
Nick Taylor +20000
Michael Thompson +20000
Kelly Kraft +20000
Mackenzie Hughes +20000
Hunter Mahan +20000
Jonas Blixt +22500
Shawn Stefani +22500
Tyrone Van Aswegen +22500
Bronson Burgoon +22500
Chris Stroud +22500
Dylan Meyer +25000
David Hearn +25000
Derek Fathauer +25000
Talor Gooch +25000
Robert Streb +25000
Matt Every +25000
Ethan Tracy +27500
Dominic Bozzelli +27500
Geoff Ogilvy +27500
Doc Redman +30000
Brian Stuard +30000
Billy Hurley III +30000
Rob Oppenheim +30000
Jason Gore +30000
Martin Piller +30000
Martin Flores +30000
Jonathan Randolph +32500
J.J. Henry +40000
Kristoffer Ventura +40000
Adam Schenk +40000
D.A. Points +50000
Rod Pampling +50000
Xinjun Zhang +50000
-END OF 2018 PREVIEW-
With just a couple of weeks left until The Open Championship, some of golf’s best will be on hand at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm for the 2017 Quicken Loans National. This will be the first time since 2006 that a PGA Tour event returns to this course. More recent versions of the Quicken Loans National have been played at Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania, Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, and at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia.
That means that this will be a challenging handicap because we don’t have very much course data to go on for the present-day players. This is a premier event due to its invitational nature. It is one of five tournaments given invitational status, with the others being the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage, the Dean & DeLuca Invitational, and the Memorial Tournament. That means a smaller field, as only recent champions, champions of other big events, and the top players in the FedEx Cup points list and the Official World Golf Ranking are able to qualify.
This particular event started back in 2007. In 2006, the Kemper Open/Booz Allen Classic was played for the final time at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm and that’s the last time that this course has been used. As far as active players go, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, and Rory Sabbatini are the only winners to tee it up here in the past. None of those three will be in the field this week and this event has also lost some of its luster by going up against the Open de France on the European Tour, where Jon Rahm, Francesco Molinari, Thomas Pieters, and some other big names will be playing instead.
Overall, this is a pretty weak field for an invitational event. Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, and Rahm are just some of the players that will not be on hand. This course was dropped from the tour calendar after players voiced their concerns about the poor state of the course and its bad drainage. TPC Potomac hosted the 2010 Senior PLAYERS Championship, but hasn’t held a big event since. We’ll have to see how players take to this par 70 that measures over 7,100 yards. Massive re-designs have combined holes and created new ones, so a lot of money has been spent at this course.
We’ll be flying blind into this tournament without much in the form of course data and past results from the Quicken Loans National won’t do us a whole lot of good. Hopefully we’ll get a competitive event. The last two years, the event has been won by three strokes. Only once has this tournament required more than 72 holes and only two other times has it been decided by just one stroke.
This week’s favorite at 5Dimes Sportsbook is Rickie Fowler at +750. You can tell the strength of this field by the fact that Fowler has such a small price. That’s not a knock on him, but Fowler is generally in the 20/1 range in a full-strength field, but stands as a clear favorite here. Fowler did not play last week’s Travelers Championship, so his most recent finish was fifth at the US Open. He missed the cut at the St. Jude, but finished second at the Memorial. Fowler has six top-10 finishes out of his 10 made cuts this season. Fowler certainly stands out as the biggest name this week and he’s priced like it.
Justin Thomas is listed at +1200 this week. Thomas did not play well last week at the Travelers and cited some fatigue as the problem. When called out by some anonymous loser on Twitter, JT won the weekend anyway. Thomas shot 73-72 last week and was excited about the prospect of getting some rest prior to the Quicken Loans National. He was ninth at the US Open and fourth at the Memorial, so he has had some strong rounds of late. Thomas has seven top-10 finishes and three wins this season across his 12 made cuts. With a course that has a couple of long par 5s and some par 4s that require distance off the tee, his skill set should play well here. If Thomas can finish first or second, he would become the new FedEx Cup points list leader.
Patrick Reed is next in line at +1400 this week. Reed hasn’t been able to springboard from his Ryder Cup success, as he looks for his first win of 2017. Reed may be rounding into form a bit. He picked up his second top-10 of the season last week at TPC River Highlands by finishing fifth. He was 13th at the US Open. His stock does seem to be rising, especially with a weaker field like this one.
Kevin Chappell, Marc Leishman, Tony Finau, and Brendan Steele are between +2200 and +3000. There are a few guys to look at in the next group of prices. David Lingmerth is the only player in this field with a win at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Lingmerth won the 2013 Mid-Atlantic Championship on the Web.com Tour at this course. That is definitely driving his +3000 price tag this week, especially since the Swede doesn’t have a top-10 finish this season. He has finished in the top 26 in each of his last four events, though. We’ll have to see how players perform in their practice rounds this week, but, for now, Lingmerth should have an edge over the field.
Sixteen different event winners are on hand, so even though the biggest names in golf won’t be playing, some 2016-17 champs will be here. Si Woo Kim is +4500 after his win at the PLAYERS Championship. Billy Horschel is +5000 with a win at the AT&T Byron Nelson. Chappell is +2200 with a win at the Valero Texas Open. Steele is +2500 with a win way back in the Safeway Open, the first event of the year. Mackenzie Hughes is +14000 with his win at the RSM Classic.
Jimmy Walker was 18th at the Masters and 13th at the Valero Texas Open before finishing 56th at the PLAYERS. He missed the cut at the US Open. He’s on hand and is priced at +6000, so maybe he can find his past form and make his way up the leaderboard.
With a new course and a watered-down field, just look to throw some scratch on some longer shots and maybe a favorite and see what happens. Coverage of the Quicken Loans National will be on Golf Channel and CBS.
Odds as of June 26:
Rickie Fowler +750
Justin Thomas +1200
Patrick Reed +1400
Kevin Chappell +2200
Marc Leishman +2200
Tony Finau +2500
Brendan Steele +2500
Bill Haas +3000
David Lingmerth +3000
Russell Henley +3300
J.B. Holmes +3500
Danny Lee +4000
Bud Cauley +4000
Graham DeLaet +4500
Kyle Stanley +4500
Si Woo Kim +4500
Xander Schauffele +5000
Kevin Streelman +5000
Billy Horschel +5000
Gary Woodland +5500
Byeong Hun An +6000
Ollie Schniederjans +6000
James Hahn +6000
Jimmy Walker +6000
Keegan Bradley +6000
Kevin Tway +7000
Charles Howell III +7000
Adam Hadwin +7000
Harris English +8000
Kevin Na +8000
Morgan Hoffmann +9000
Sung Kang +9000
Smylie Kaufman +9000
Daniel Summerhays +9000
Jason Kokrak +9000
Matt Jones +10000
Chris Kirk +10000
David Hearn +10000
Grayson Murray +10000
Seung-Yul Noh +10000
Wesley Bryan +10000
Luke List +10000
Cameron Tringale +11000
Martin Laird +11000
Lucas Glover +11000
Nick Watney +12500
Patrick Rodgers +12500
Trey Mullinax +12500
Harold Varner III +12500
Hudson Swafford +12500
Billy Hurley III +12500
C.T. Pan +12500
Boo Weekley +12500
Aaron Baddeley +12500
Ben Martin +14000
Whee Kim +14000
Nick Taylor +14000
Mackenzie Hughes +14000
Jonas Blixt +15000
Brandon Hagy +15000
Bryson DeChambeau +15000
Camilo Villegas +16000
Dominic Bozzelli +16000
Jhonattan Vegas +16000
Jim Herman +16000
Jason Gore +16000
Vaughn Taylor +16000
Gavin Kyle Green +17500
Seamus Power +17500
Robert Streb +17500
Kyle Reifers +17500
Kelly Kraft +17500
John Huh +17500
J.J. Spaun +17500
Brian Gay +17500
Ben Crane +17500
Ryan Ruffels +20000
Shawn Stefani +20000
J.T. Poston +20000
Jonathan Randolph +20000
Fabian Gomez +20000
Curtis Luck +20000
Michael Kim +20000
Ryan Brehm +20000
Ricky Barnes +20000
Patton Kizzire +20000
Spencer Levin +20000
Troy Merritt +20000
Tyrone Van Aswegen +20000
Scott Stallings +22500
Bryce Molder +22500
Sam Saunders +22500
Roberto Castro +22500
Geoff Ogilvy +22500
Julian Etulain +22500
J.J. Henry +22500
Cameron Percy +22500
Greg Owen +25000
Blayne Barber +25000
K.J. Choi +25000
Derek Fathauer +25000
D.A. Points +25000
Michael Thompson +25000
Matt Every +25000
Zac Blair +25000
Alex Cejka +27500
Rod Pampling +27500
Robert Garrigus +27500
Ryan Blaum +30000
Sam Horsfield +30000
Cody Gribble +30000
Johnson Wagner +30000
Brett Stegmaier +30000
Greg Chalmers +40000
Peter Malnati +40000
Wyndham Clark +50000
Andrew Loupe +50000
Martin Flores +60000
Arjun Atwal +75000
Jason Bohn +75000
