Each day, one of our experts will offer up a best bet (or two or three) that mobile sportsbooks are offering. It might be a traditional spread bet, a player prop or one of the various odds boosts that books offer.
Here are our best bets for Wednesday, Aug. 16:
TOP PLAY
The play: BMW Championship, Rory McIlroy to finish in the top 10
The odds: -160
The book: FanDuel Sportsbook
Time/TV: Thursday through Sunday (ESPN+, Golf Channel all four days; CBS on Saturday and Sunday)
Our take: And then there were 50. (Although, in reality, it’s more like 10 or 12 who actually have a legitimate chance to win the FedEx Cup PGA playoffs.)
More times than not, golf’s royalty rises in situations such as these, and with so much riding on positioning for next week’s championship, one member of the top three stands out among the others.
McIlroy has been fantastic in this event, and he has been just as fantastic as of late. He has an incredible eight consecutive top 10s with three of those being top-10s and a victory at the Scottish Open a month ago. (He hasn’t finished outside the top 10 since early May.)
While this might seem like a high price to pay, actually there’s a good bit of value here, considering Rory’s streak. At Olympia Village, one will need to be their best off the tee, and he has been that. He also has been good with the flat stick, which could prove to be important.
But most important is trust. And we don’t see anyone more trustworthy – with a chance to become No. 1 heading into next week – than McIlroy.
VALUE TOP 20 PLAY
The play: Rickie Fowler to finish in the top 20
The odds/bet: -110
The book: FanDuel Sportsbook
Our take: Went through a ton of “expert” picks before I lined up my one-and-done pick in the final week of the contest. (Pick one golfer a week throughout the season, but you cannot pick the same golfer twice.)
Fowler breaks my golden rule of having to be at his best as of late, and I would have gone with Lucas Glover had I been hellbent on sticking to such a rule. But overall this season, Fowler has been super consistent. Leading up to his win at the Rocket Mortgage six weeks ago, he had seven straight top 15s, and overall this season he has 15 top 20s.
So to get him at nearly even money to finish almost in the top half of this 50-golfer event with no cut seems to be a nice value. (But we wouldn’t be upset if he won the thing at +3000 and moved well into the top 10 before next week’s championship.)
HOW WE’VE FARED
MLB total: Yankees at Braves over 10.5 runs (LOST)
MLB money-line parlay: Reds over Guardians and Red Sox over Nationals (LOST)
Tuesday’s record: 0-2
Total for the week: 1-3
Total for August: 13-20
Total for 2023: 187-214
NOTE: If a line or odds are minus, it considers the juice one must lay to place the bet. Ex: Team A is -160 on the money line, one would have to bet $160 to win $100 (or $16 to win $10). OR Team B is a 5-point favorite at -110, one would have to bet $110 to win $100 (or $11 to win $10.)
Conversely, on positive lines, if Team C is +140 on the money line, $100 would bring in $140 (or $10 to win $14).
