Sanderson Farms Championship Predictions: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – No rest for the weary, they say, but that’s not completely true. Every U.S. player will take this week off after an exhausting Ryder Cup, and only about half of the Europeans will be competing, split amongst the two main tours.

As you can tell by the dateline, the grind rarely stops on this side of things, either.

Yes, I was fully engaged in this weekend’s competition, but there’s always a little time to research the Sanderson Farms Championship – even at Bethpage Black.

Let’s get right to the selections on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.

Sanderson Farms Championship Outright Winner Picks

Conservative: Rico Hoey (+3500)

Conservative: Emiliano Grillo (+3300)

Over the last half-decade, the Sanderson Farms has been won by a trio of ball-strikers who struggle at times with the flatstick – Sergio Garcia, Luke List and, most recently, Kevin Yu. That would suggest some predictive metrics at the 7,461-yard CC of Jackson, but with elite-level putters Sam Burns and Mackenzie Hughes winning the other two, it’ll make you think twice. That said, I still like targeting the best of the best from tee to green.

That’s Hoey’s jam. On the SG: Tee to green list for this season, he’s the only guy in the top-five who wasn’t playing at Bethpage this past week, ranking only behind Scottie Scheffler. Coming off a top-10 in his last start and with a new and (hopefully) improved putting style, he was my first click for this one. I also wanted to add Grillo. Nobody embodies the Yu-List-Garcia spirit like Emiliano, who absolutely fits the profile of those past winners. As a bonus, he’s in-form, coming off a top-five in his last start, and was T-11 here last year. 

Aggressive: Davis Riley (+10000)

This tourney doesn’t exactly yield massive longshots as winners, but does show a recent list of players who were each listed at a bigger number than we would have believed – Yu (80/1), List (50/1), Hughes (100/1) and Garcia (50/1). That’s enough to get me perusing the second half of this board and why not attack the PGA Tour’s ultimate ceiling player. In the last 16 months, Riley owns a win, a runner-up (at the PGA Championship!) and four top-10s, but he’s also missed 16 cuts in that time. For a longshot outright, I can ignore a low floor when there’s this kind of range. It’s not a big play whatsoever, but back in his home state of Mississippi, I’ll take a chance on Riley’s upside.

Sanderson Farms Championship Top-5 Picks

Conservative: Nicolai Hojgaard (+750)

If you’re not sure which twin this is, he’s one who didn’t play last week. While Rasmus didn’t quite look on the verge of winning a tourney, going 0-2-0 in the Ryder Cup, his twin bro should be buoyed by the European victory. Oh, and he happens to be the much higher-ranked sibling in that tee-to-green category, too. If you want to skip over the top-five ticket and go straight for the outright, I won’t talk you out of it.

Aggressive: Doug Ghim (+900)

Some Ryder Cup captains live and die by the analytics; some, well, like to play a hunch here and there. I’m certainly not immune to hunch plays when making my selections, but I’m going to stick with #TeamAnalytics with most of ‘em this week, which is why I wound up here on Ghim, who’s another of the highest-ranked ball-strikers in this field.

Sanderson Farms Championship Top-10 Picks

Conservative: Sam Stevens (+400)

Granted, field strength matters – a lot – but there aren’t many players whose odds have swung back and forth from one week to the next like Stevens, who was as short as 25/1 in a full-field early-season tourney, but north of 100/1 on more than a dozen other occasions. He’s the kind of player who can win during this fall portion of the schedule and I’ll be taking a chance when that price doesn’t get too short.

Aggressive: Hayden Springer (+600)

Unlike most of the players on this list who do their damage with the irons, Springer is a driver/putter combo guy, which as mentioned earlier, can also be a recipe for success in Jackson. He hasn’t broken the top-10 barrier since January, but does have results of T-14, T-18 and T-23 in his last five starts and was top-10 here a year ago.

Sanderson Farms Championship Top-20 Picks

Conservative: Lanto Griffin (market not yet available)

He tends to be a streaky player and coming off a solo third in Napa – when he probably wished the guys at 1-2 didn’t head west for their Ryder Cup prep – Griffin should be coming into this one with plenty of momentum.

Aggressive: Michael La Sasso (market not yet available)

Ding, ding, ding. Here’s your play of the week, folks. If you’ve liked the PGA Tour results from amateur Jackson Koivun – who has four straight top-11 finishes – then you might like La Sasso, the world’s eighth-ranked amateur who plays collegiately at Ole Miss and has a big price next to his name this week. If we’ve learned anything about these young players in the past couple of years, it’s that they have plenty of game and are usually undervalued in the markets until they prove otherwise.

Sanderson Farms Championship Top-40 Picks

Conservative: Thomas Rosenmueller (market not yet available)

It took a while this season for the rookie’s game to come around, but he’s now posted top-40s in three of his last five starts. I’m still not sure the ceiling is necessarily there at this level, but I like him as a conservative floor play.

Aggressive: Jackson Suber (market not yet available)

There aren’t that many players with Mississippi ties on the PGA Tour, but I think I might’ve named most of ‘em in this preview. Another Ole Miss product, Suber was leading the PGA Tour in SG: Approach for a little while early in the season and has three top-10s on the season. He’s admittedly probably a better ceiling play than floor, so if you want to nibble in that market, I don’t mind it.

Sanderson Farms Championship First-Round Leader Picks

Conservative: Davis Thompson (+3300)

I’m not so sure that Thompson isn’t the most talented player in this field – although I’ll admit that label could extend to Akshay Bhatia, Min Woo Lee, Michael Thorbjornsen, Max Homa or either of the Hojgaards. That said, for a player of his skill set, it was a wildly disappointing season. I’m not ready to back him for a full-tournament investment at his short number, but wouldn’t be surprised if he kicks things off with a low one, even if it’s quizzically been the opening and closing rounds which have undone him this year.

Aggressive: Keith Mitchell (+5500)

Much of what I wrote for Thompson could be copy-pasted here for Mitchell, who has top-20 in the world-type of talent and yet just can’t quite get there after the opening rounds. While he has cooled off a bit in those openers after we started calling him Thursday Scottie, Mitchell still owns plenty of FRL equity here – and maybe an outright play at 40/1 if you believe this can finally be the week he gets his second.