Golf
Charles Schwab Challenge preview: Todd can plod to victory at Colonial
Fresh off Brooks Koepka’s fifth Major victory at the PGA Championship, the PGA Tour heads to Texas and Colonial Country Club for the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Colonial is a difficult 7209-yard par 70, with an average winning score of just over -13 over the last 10 renewals. Most aspects of playing around this traditional, tight and heavily tree-lined course present challenges. It’s a course which requires plenty of strategy and players have rarely been able to overpower it.
Scottie Scheffler is the favourite at 4/1 and it’s unsurprising given the world number one’s recent form which has seen him finish inside the top 25 an incredible 13 out of 14 times on the PGA Tour. The fact 10 of those, including a tie for second at last week’s PGA, have been top-10s is all the more impressive. He’s by far the most likely winner and was beaten in a play-off by close friend Sam Burns in this event last year, so must go well if his exploits last week haven’t left too much of a mark.
Todd to go well at Colonial again
Brendan Todd might have missed the cut last week at Oak Hill but at around 7400 yards, it was a course that was never going to suit a player of his length. He ranked 38th in driving accuracy and eighth in putting over the first two days, though, so the attributes which he excels in were still firing on all cylinders.
He returns to Colonial and much better can be expected this week as this is a course where he tends to go well with a third in 2022 and eighth in 2021 showing exactly that. It’s a course that good putters tend rise to the fore at, and Todd, ranked 10th in strokes-gained putting – is certainly one of those. Furthermore, he arrives here in better form than he did the last two years with four top-10s this season and he had made six straight cuts before the PGA, with his best finish being a tie for eighth at the Wells Fargo Championship.
As mentioned, he has four top-10s this campaign, including a second at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AM – a prime example of the fact that Todd tends to go well at certain courses over and over again. Pebble Beach, with 3 top-10s from 10 starts, is certainly one, while Colonial is another and after a weekend off to fine tune his game, he should go really well this week at 66/1.
