ISCO Championship Picks: Favorites Plus Longshots

I’m fairly certain they don’t hand out Pulitzers for social media headlines regarding in-progress golf tournaments, which is a shame, because the PGA Tour could’ve submitted this gem from the midst of a five-man playoff at last year’s Kentucky-based opposite-field event: “Panic! at the ISCO.”

Once again, there will be plenty of players with “High Hopes” at the opposite-field ISCO Championship, which – like this week’s Genesis Scottish Open – will feature both PGA Tour and DP World Tour players, as the tourney is co-sanctioned by both circuits.

There are a few different ways to bet this week’s event.

ISCO Championship Picks

One is to take all your money and throw it on pre-tourney favorite Michael Thorbjornsen (+1400), who’s fresh off a final-round 63 at the John Deere Classic and seems poised to win very soon. In fact, there might be a few parallels to Collin Morikawa at the 2019 Barracuda Championship, as he earned his first win and never witnessed an alternate field ever again. That’s actually a bigger price than I’d expected and if this is your preferred method of betting this outright market, my advisement is to play earlier rather than later, as his price backed up 10 points in the days leading up to last week’s event.

After Thorb, we find the trendy selections of JDC runner-up Emiliano Grillo (+1800) and top-fiver Kevin Roy (+1800), as the oddsmakers attempt to harp on our collective recency biases. I’d rather go with Rico Hoey (+2000) and Mark Hubbard (+2500) at longer odds, but instead I’ll bypass all of them to get to another phenom.

My first play – if indeed I’m taking the non-Thorbjornsen route on this card – is Jackson Koivun (+2500), the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world. I wrote about him in last week’s preview and the Auburn kid showed out, collecting a few finishing position tickets with a T-11 result. He won’t be able to fly under the radar this week, but I do believe that this one is in another perfect spot on the schedule for an amateur to find some success, as the college schedule is behind us and the U.S. Amateur and Walker Cup are still yet to come. 

I spoke with Koivun’s college coach, Nick Clinard, on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio recently, and while he might be a bit biased, the glowing report suggests that Koivun has a lengthy career ahead of him. I love the fact that, unlike most college studs these days, he does less of his damage with driver than putter, which could have him posting some early Spieth-like results early in his career.

Every so often, a strong prospect gets sent down the minors, only to prove he still belongs in the big leagues. S.H. Kim (+4500) had his PGA Tour card for a few years before going back to the Korn Ferry this season. In 13 starts, he owns a win, two runners-up and six top-10s. Expect him to be hungry to get a W here and jump directly back into the bigs.

If it’s difficult to figure out which Americans will head across the pond and play well at the Scottish, then it’s downright mind-boggling to discern which European regulars will come stateside and thrive here over the next two weeks. One guy I’ve been watching is Angel Ayora (+5500), who’s still a few months shy of his 21st birthday. It’s tough to pinpoint, but the Spaniard has a game which looks like it might translate better to bomb-and-gouge American tracks more than those on the DP circuit, so he’s a guy I’ll target for the next couple of weeks.

I’ll veer out of pricing order to keep the continuity here, as another Euro regular whom I like is Brandon Robinson-Thompson (+10000). The 32-year-old from England played his college golf in the Southeast at South Carolina-Aiken and was named the conference player of the year a decade ago.

Speaking of guys right at home on this type of turf, Jackson Suber (+6600) grew up in Tampa and played his college golf at Ole Miss. With finishes of T-18 at the RBC Canadian Open and T-6 at the Rocket Classic before an MC last week, I thought his price might be half this number, so I like taking a chance here.

David Skinns (+12500) is probably more of a finishing position or FRL play, but he’s got one of the wilder stat profiles for the season, as his SG numbers are so close to field average across the board at just about every tournament that he could be classified as the PGA Tour’s most average player, which isn’t the insult you might believe.

It would be irresponsible of me to not at least mention Davis Bryant (+10000), an American who’s trying to do the Brooks Koepka thing by plying his craft on the DP World Tour early in his career – and he’s fresh off a top-five in Germany.

I’ve always believed Callum Tarren (+15000) owns the talent to win on some circuit, somewhere. It hasn’t quite materialized, but I do believe he’s the type who could win an event like this without firing any sort of warning sign.

Karma is a crazy thing and it wouldn’t be out of character for the golf gods to reward Troy Merritt (+25000) with a nice week after the long-time PGA Tour veteran decided to go overseas and continue chasing the dream this year.

I’ll conclude with Frankie Capan III (+35000), whom I thought would be contending for Rookie of the Year honors at this point in the season. It’s been a woefully poor campaign, but perhaps he’ll thrive in one of his final opportunities to turn it around.