It's Colonial, The Charles Schwab Challenge.

Historically this weeks competition has been kind to us. Grillo, despite hitting it into the water and making 6 on 18 in 2023, was a big price winner for us, and this place is a bloggers dream. It's an average field, headed by the best player in the world and some players have so much juice in their prices, it doesn't need a squeeze it's just dribbling out.

If you had told me on Saturday tea time that we wouldn't have a player placing I'd have called you insane.....as our field at the PGA all (barring Fat Pat) jockeyed into a strong position. 33 holes later when Tony Finau plopped his rock into the lake on his penultimate hole, our fate was complete. It was probably the strongest 2 days I have put up in terms of positioning, but it just wasn't to be as a mixture of pressure, complacency, insanity and putting yips derailed our chances and we left empty handed. It's a baron spell for us all, but we have been in a lot worse, and a lot of this is luck and fate, so I'm absolutely pumped for the next 6 weeks as we have money there for the taking with all the know how we have accrued down the years,

Colonial Country Club, in Fort Worth Texas, is a classic inland course and one of the stiffer tests on tour. It's a ball strikers paradise, and weirdly poor putters find their form here. Kevin Na, Tony Finau, Grillo and Keegan Bradley all perform well here, and with the premium in finding short grass, the performance when on it does not seem to be the deciding factor.

Last season the players had to reconstruct their thinking as Gil Hanse somehow managed to tear up the entire course and reconstruct it inside 11 months. The course was taken back to it's original design, with more undulations, a huge rerouting of the par 3s but still with a lot of trees and trouble at every twist and turn. It's a strong course and 10 under generally wins. which is a nice change.

So with Scottie pushing the field out by wide margins, it's a 5 strong team that is headed by an out of form but perfectly suited to here, TOM KIM. Colonial will be firm and fast and with 10-15mph winds and high temperatures length will not be an issue at a 7289 Par 70. He showed signs last week in the first 2 rounds on a beast of a course that did not suit him, and he only knows this place as it is now as he debuted here in 2024 finishing poorly eventually coming 24th when in contention. At 80/1 with Ladbrokes, his poor driving and poor putting are not insurmountable and with 10 places on offer he is huge, 3pts e/w.

Our next pick is a bit of a head scratcher in terms of prices. With a 7th place finish in the Myrtle classic in his last start and 5th here last year, the sweet swinging great driving HAYDEN BUCKLEY is just overpriced. He is not a great iron player but given how hard the new par 3s are here he performed great in 24. So for him to be 500/1 with PP and Betfair 6 places is not right. 1pt e/w with either of those.

Something with more of a winners profile for our next 2, and first up we go with BRIAN HARMAN. A winner on his last visit to Texas at the Valero, he finished 3rd at the RBC Heritage and to make the cut last week when hitting more hybrids and fairway woods than an 80 year old at the local club, he is in fine form. He finished 24th here last year when bang out of form, but what I love about his chances are his putting stats. He has that win and a 3rd with the worst putting stats of his career, he can only get better, he loves the Bentgrass greens in this part of the world and he is a massive 45/1 8 places with Hills and we are 4pts e/w.

Our best chance of the win this week, goes to AARON RAI. Tee to green only Scottie can outdo him. He gets in position so often, he is a truly top class ball striker and he is on the leaderboard most weeks. 4th in Mexico, 11th at Bayhill, 14th at the Players, 27th at the Masters, 19th last week, he is now inside the world top 30 and he is 33/1 8 places with Hills this week. He has to go well here and I like his chances of a 2nd tour win and we go 5pts e/w on him.

Last up this lad is not new to the blog, but RYO HISATSUNE seems to finally be finding his feet in America. After a rough Florida swing this lad finished it well with a top 5 at the Valspar, then another one in Texas at the Valero. He played well last week, and he has a tight game which suits Colonial as he hits it well tee to green and putts solid. He is way overpriced here, and a 2023 French Open winner at Le Golf in Paris will mean this feels very homely for the 22 year old Japanese star. At a whopping 100/1 with Hills we go 2pts e/w to finish.

There is 1 disclaimer this week and that is I fancy Tommy strongly to go close. At 25/1 he is a decent price, but I just couldn't get him on the staking plan.

Go well, keep the faith. TEWT