WGC-HSBC Champions: Sleeper Candidates to Watch at Sheshan

The PGA Tour makes it’s next stop on their overseas fall swing, as this week’s WGC-HSBC event takes place in Shanghai, China at the Sheshan Golf Club. Here are some sleeper candidates to watch out for.

The last couple weeks on the PGA Tour have been interesting, to say the least. Justin Thomas dominated at the CJ Cup, which was followed up by another dominating performance, this time by the GOAT, where Tiger Woods earned his 82nd career win. With two top names winning the two most recent tournaments, could we see a sleeper take the W this week?

I’m hoping so. I always love it when an underdog or sleeper candidate emerges to take down the field. Unless it’s a Tiger Woods win, which is my favorite by far. It can’t be the case every week, so let’s look at some sleeper picks for the WGC-HSBC Champions event this week.

Before we get there though, let’s do a quick check-in to see how my picks did last week.

• Adam Hadwin – T-41st (-1)
• Corey Conners – T-6th (-11) – A strong finish could’ve gotten him a top-three finish, but Conners shot 70 during the final round.
• Kevin Kisner – T-66th (+5) – Those five strokes happened during an opening-round 75, and Kisner was unable to make much headway to recover.
• Ian Poulter – T-13th (-8) – Poulter really turned it on, finishing 64-66 to jump up the leaderboard.
• Jazz Janewattananond – T-57th (+2)

T-6th and T-13th, not too shabby. Let’s see if we can top it this week with the sleeper picks for the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai. The cutoff is 45/1, meaning 21 golfers fail to qualify for my sleeper candidacy.

Thanks to Action Network for the odds, make sure to check them out for all your odds based information. They do their odds a little different. Some sites will give you 45-1 or 45/1, like I have done in the past. They do +4500 (meaning you would win 4500 if you bet 100, the standard bet), which can be easier to understand for some. That’s the methodology I’ll use going forward as well. Whatever number is by their name would be your winnings on a $100 wager.

Corey Conners +4737

I’m going with Conners once again this week as he opens up the sleeper picks. The hot streak continued, and this time it got him into the top ten. A T-6th place finish at the Zozo Championship earned him another nice paycheck, and got him into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup rankings. I like Conners to continue his hot play this week.

He’s been hammering GIR over the last three events, averaging over 75%, and above 73% in each tournament. He’s had a round of at least -6 in each of those events as well. I like both of those stats and think they happen again this week.

Louis Oosthuizen +5238

This will only be his second event of the young season, as the Zozo Championship was his first one. He played consistently all week shooting 69-69-71-71, finishing even for the tournament. I’ll treat it as a warmup for Louis, and feel a top ten finish in his sights this week. The consistency is why I like him, and it translates when you look at his SG stats. 79th, 62nd, 28th, and 55th across the four categories in 2019. His game is strong, so if any aspect gets hot, he is bound to contend.

Lucas Glover +8471

Unlike Oosthuizen, Glover has been playing a lot of golf on the PGA Tour already. This will be his 6th tournament, as he has only skipped the Houston Open. If Glover can put together a strong opening round, his finishes would be a lot stronger. He has gone +2 in each of the last two opening rounds. I like him to revert to the Shriners Hospital golf he was playing where he opening with a -5 67, en route to a T-9th finish.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout +9761

Bezuidenhout has had an intense life, much more than anyone as young as 25 should have to go through, and more than anyone should face in general. From ingesting coca-cola contaminated with rat poison, a severe stutter, and a nine-month ban for beta-blockers that he took to combat that stutter.

It still wasn’t enough to keep him down. He earned his first career European Tour win at the Andalucia Masters in June. He is on the cusp of a top 100 rating in the world and sits 10th in the Race to Dubai. He had another strong appearance recently, finishing 3rd at the BMW PGA Championship in August. I like him to finish in the top ten this week.

Kevin Tway +17145

One of the longer hitters on Tour, Tway is also one of the more inaccurate as well. He ranked 25th in distance last season, but 176th for accuracy. If he finds the fairway, he is going to contend due to his average approach (81st), and great play around the greens (34th). His best score of the year, 66, came in the final round at the Zozo Championship, which gives me enough confidence to take a flier on Tway and his long odds for a strong finish this week.

That’s it for this week’s edition of sleeper picks. Best of luck everyone.