5 Best Bets to Win the 2021 Players Championship

The 2020 edition of The Players Championship was a tournament to remember. Not because we got a thrilling finish or a particularly noteworthy individual performance, though. The 2020 TPC was notable because it was the last PGA Tour event to occur before the circuit shut down for about three months due to the pandemic.

The tournament began last March as concerns began to spread, and it was eventually canceled after the first round. The Tour returned later in the summer with a tweaked schedule, culminating with the first-ever Masters tournament to be played in November.

Here’s hoping the PGA’s 2021 schedule will look a bit more normal. The Players Championship is back this week at TPC Sawgrass with a field featuring no shortage of world-class talent. Tiger Woods obviously won’t be among those in attendance as he continues to recover from the injuries he suffered in his car crash earlier this month, but the TPC field is still star-studded.

BetOnline.ag is among the golf betting sites with 2021 TPC odds already available. The event gets started on Thursday, so you still have plenty of time to get those bets placed before the first golfers tee off on March 11.

Which players are the best bets to win the 2021 Players Championship?

Dustin Johnson (+1200)

Dustin Johnson is the favorite, and justifiably so. DJ is favored in just about every event he enters, so this certainly comes as no surprise. Johnson blew away the rest of the field at the Masters just a few months ago, though he comes into TPC in wobbly form after struggling last week at the WGC-Workday Championship. Johnson finished 54th after finishing 5-over par. The vast majority of the damage came in the final round when he finished a brutal +6.

Let’s not put too much stock in one poor showing, though. Before his dismal showing last week, Johnson had finished in the top-10 in nine of his previous 10 starts. Success at TPC has been fleeting, however. Johnson has finished in the top-10 just once in 11 tries at the Players Championship. That was a tie for fifth place back in 2019.

Most @PGATOUR wins last 5 seasons

Justin Thomas, 12

Dustin Johnson, 12

Bryson DeChambeau, 8

Most @PGATOUR wins when trailing entering final round, last 5 seasons

Bryson DeChambeau, 5

Justin Thomas, 5

Xander Schauffele, 4

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) March 7, 2021

Of course, Johnson is never a bad bet to win anything. He’s ranked as the No. 1 player in the world for a reason. He picked up another top-10 finish at the Genesis Invitational earlier this year, which came on the heels of his victory at the 2021 Saudi International.

Motivation shouldn’t be an issue for Johnson considering he has never lifted this trophy before. His odds at golf betting sites have slipped to +1200 after opening at +1000, which gives you a little more bang for your buck if you do decide to take a shot on the early favorite.

Jon Rahm (+1400)

Most will tell you that it’s a matter of “when,” not “if” Jon Rahm ever wins a major. Rahm has top-5 finishes under his belt at the Masters, the US Open, and the PGA Championship in the past, with an 11th-place finish being his best showing at a British Open to this point.

Rahm has also improved in each of his first three TPC starts, as well. He finished tied for 72nd back in 2017 before a 63rd-place finish in ’18. His best all-around effort came here two years ago when he finished in a tie for 12th place after entering the final round with the lead.

Rahm rose all the way to No. 1 in the world last summer after his win at the Memorial. While major titles have eluded him to this point, his consistency makes him one of the best betting options on the Tour on a week-in, week-out basis.

Rahm has seven top-10 finishes in his last 11 starts. He hasn’t looked any worse for the wear since swapping his Taylor Made clubs out for Callaway at the beginning of the year, with three top-10 starts and a 13th-place finish in his last five outings. Rahm finished just 32nd at the WGC-Workday after finishing 4-under, but I’d expect a better showing at Sawgrass this week.

His putting has let him down a bit of late, but if he can get that back in order, there’s no reason to believe he won’t be in the mix all weekend long. At +1400, Rahm looks like an amazing value to break through and win his first TPC this week.

Rory McIlroy (+1600)

Rory McIlroy is the last person to actually win The Players Championship. McIlroy lifted the trophy back in 2019 when he picked up a one-stroke victory over Jim Furyk. Rory shot a 2-under 70 in his final round, including a pair of late birdies, to nudge him past Furyk at the top of the leaderboard. Nobody expected Furyk, one of the Tour’s elder statesmen, to make much noise, but he was ultimately unable to fend off a late charge from Rory.

McIlroy rose to the ranking of No. 1 in the world after winning three more tournaments after the TPC two years ago, but he hasn’t reached that point ever since. Rory is No. 8 headed into this year’s TPC. McIlroy has been tweaking his swing in recent months, and he said ahead of last week’s WGC-Workday that he isn’t yet fully comfortable with his new stroke.

This week’s featured groups @THEPLAYERSChamp:

Jon Rahm

Patrick Reed

Jordan Spieth

Dustin Johnson

Bryson DeChambeau

Collin Morikawa

Rory McIlroy

Webb Simpson

Sergio Garcia

Justin Thomas

Patrick Cantlay

Viktor Hovland pic.twitter.com/vCMkATWiX9

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 9, 2021

McIlroy has struggled tremendously with his wedge/iron play over the past year, but he didn’t look particularly rusty last week. He found his way to a tie for sixth place. Even when he isn’t at his best, Rory is capable of competing for trophies.

Only five players have ever won the TPC on multiple occasions. The last was Woods, who claimed titles in 2001 and 2013, respectively. Rory’s career was on an upward trajectory before the cancellation of last year’s TPC. While he hasn’t yet been able to replicate his pre-hiatus form, going back to the site of one of his most recent triumphs could certainly help him get back on track.

At +1600, you can do a lot worse than taking a shot on the reigning champ.

Bryson DeChambeau (+1600)

With the likely exception of Tiger, no golfer has earned more headlines over the past year than Bryson DeChambeau. DeChambeau was the talk of the Tour after the three-month hiatus last year when he showed up looking like The Hulk. DeChambeau used the hiatus to completely change his body, and he has since become the most powerful hitter on the Tour.

DeChambeau put everything together last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. DeChambeau dominated the field at Winged Foot on his way to a US Open title last year, but some feared that he had lost it during a six-start dry spell that spanned several weeks. He flipped the script last week, when he picked up a two-stroke win at Bay Hill over Lee Westwood. It was DeChambeau’s 10th Tour victory, so he comes into TPC in excellent form.

Collin Morikawa (+2000)

Collin Morikawa may well be the brightest young star on the PGA Tour these days. Morikawa became a household name when he seemingly came out of nowhere to win the PGA Championship last August. Morikawa flew to the top of the leaderboard in just his second major start. He shot a 64 in the final round, which tied him with Steve Elkington for the lowest final-round score for a PGA Champion in history.

Morikawa followed that up with a victory at the WGC-Workday a couple of weeks ago. Despite being just 24, he is already being mentioned as arguably the best golfer on the planet these days. Morikawa’s consistency off the tee is shockingly good for a player of his age, and his putting was outstanding after he struggled in that regard at Riviera earlier this year.

That was a terrific win by Collin Morikawa at the @WGCWorkday! pic.twitter.com/Z0yamHJzL8

— Jack Nicklaus (@jacknicklaus) March 2, 2021

You can easily argue that no player is more proficient with his irons than Morikawa is right now, which should be enough to put him in the conversation in every event he starts. He shot a first-round 68 at last year’s TPC before the event was ultimately canceled, which is noteworthy. Morikawa has consistently shown that he’s capable of handling the pressure that comes with trying to perform under the spotlight.

The steadiness of Morikawa’s game makes him an awfully appealing golf betting option here at +2000. This guy is the real deal, so who’s to say he can’t rise to the top in his first full TPC appearance?