Back Big Bubba For The Cadillac

A stellar field hits the East coast for the WGC Cadillac Championship as the PGA Tour moves to Florida.

The Tournament

From Palm Beach, the PGA circus moves down the Atlantic coast of Florida for this week’s event, the WGC Cadillac-Championship. First staged in 1962, this has always been one of the world’s richest tournaments, and this year the prize fund is a healthy $9.25 million, making it the second most lucrative event on the Tour, behind the Players Championship and the PGA Championship. As usual, this year’s field includes most of the world’s top fifty golfers.

The Course

Since 2007, this tournament has had a home at the TPC Blue Monster, Doral, near Miami, but the layout was substantially redesigned in 2013, effectively making it a new course. At 7481 yards, it’s one of the longest and toughest courses on the PGA Tour. Its defining feature is the water that lies along the entire left hand side and the possibility of turbulent Atlantic weather, although the forecast is for relatively mild weather this year.

In The Bunker

Those lumping on Rory McIlroy for the Honda Classic endured a miserable couple of days as he struggled through two rounds at Palm Beach and missed the cut. His record in this event is pretty good, but the question, as ever, is what price are you prepared to back him at? He’s 11/2 rather than 10/3 this week, but that’s still far too short for such a competitive event so I don’t see any reason to jump on the McIlroy bandwagon this week.

Recommended Bets

Doral is a big hitters course and few players hit it further than Bubba Watson.

He wasn’t phased by the redesigned course last year, finishing runner-up for the second time, and goes into the 2015 edition with three consecutive top-fifteen finishes to his name, including a second at the Phoenix Open a month ago. At 16/1 he offers more value than McIlroy.

Dustin Johnson is another big hitter who should be on your shortlist. As predicted, he struggled at Palm Beach last week, but he has never played well there, and back at a course that suits, he is sure to be in contention on the final day. He thrived at Doral last year, finishing in the top five and prior to last week’s effort, had finished second and fourth in his first two events after a long lay off. He’s bang in form and has to be backed at 16/1.

At bigger odds, it might also be worth taking a chance on Jamie Donaldson. He was one of few players to show a liking for the redesigned course last year, finishing alongside Watson in second, his best result yet in a PGA event. He goes into this event in good form, having cracked the top ten at the Honda Classic thanks to a sparkling final round of 66, and is worth a look at 40/1.