Tommy Fleetwood among best four long shots to bet ahead of the 2024 PLAYERS Championship

Scottie Scheffler became the first favorite to win on the PGA Tour season at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational and the victory couldn’t have come at a better time.

The PGA Tour now heads to TPC Sawgrass for THE PLAYERS Championship, which essentially kicks off the major championship season. With the Masters on the horizon, the best players on the circuit will head to Ponte Vedra Beach for the PGA’s flagship event.

Scheffler, who is the defending champion here, is a runaway +500 favorite and one of two golfers shorter than +2000 at the time of writing. The other, Rory McIlroy, is +1200.

Xander Schauffele (+2000), Justin Thomas (+2200), Viktor Hovland (+2500), Patrick Cantlay (+2500) and Max Homa (+2800) are the only other players under +3000.

THE PLAYERS is a pretty volatile event, but it’s been the big guns that have come through in recent years. However, there are a handful of longshots with winning upside that are worth a look this week in Florida.

A trendy pick to win last week at half these odds, Fleetwood burned his backers with a 10 on the Par-5 sixth at Bay Hill and missed the cut. As you’d imagine, people are happy to scroll past the Englishman at THE PLAYERS off of that showing. That’s good news for those looking to get some bounce-back value on a player who has been trending in the right direction in 2024. Fleetwood won in Dubai to start the year and posted a top-10 finish at the Genesis, so I’m happy to draw a line through last week (and overlooking the fact that he still hasn’t won in the United States).

Nobody is really circling Tony Finau out of the gates in 2024 and I find that a bit peculiar. He hasn’t won since last April, but he’s finished inside the top-25 in four of his six starts this year and posted a T6 at Torrey Pines a few weeks back. Finau’s history at THE PLAYERS isn’t particularly noteworthy with four MC’s in seven trips, he did finish T19 in 2023, so I’ll happily back a player with actual win equity at this price.

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It’s been a rough go for Sungjae Im over the last 12 months, but he did show some signs of breaking out of his funk last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Im was hanging around the leaderboard for a good portion of the tournament, but a lackluster Sunday doomed him and he had to settle for a T18 finish. That showing wasn’t emphatic enough to get bookmakers’ attention, but that’s good news for punters looking to beat the market to the South Korean’s turnaround.

This is nothing more than a dart throw on a player with great course history at TPC Sawgrass. Rose isn’t in any sort of form, but he’s got three top-10 finishes at Bay Hill since 2014 and posted a T6 a year ago. Rose has been inconsistent in 2024, but he’s 13 months removed from his last win on the PGA Tour, so he’s worth a look on a track that seemingly suits his game.

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