BMW Championship 2024: Course Preview & Rithmm Best Bets

We are coming off of a riveting ending to the St. Jude Championship last week. Hideki Matsuyama was able to shake off a few mistakes midway through his final round to come away with the win in Memphis over Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland.

Next up is the BMW Championship, hosted at Castle Pines Golf Club just outside of Denver, Colorado. As we move onto the second round of the playoffs, this week's event will be a 50-person, no cut event.

I personally watched the Good Good Major (check it out here) featuring Wyndham Clark where he showed the guys Castle Pines and gave us a very good look at how the golf course will look for this week's action and I'll be referencing my notes throughout.

Let's dive into my 2024 St. Jude Championship course preview and of course, the best predictions according to my Rithmm model that we'll be following this week.

Castle Pines Golf Club Course Preview

Not a single golfer in this field has played at Castle Pines in a tournament round in his career, which makes this officially interesting. Another interesting data point is that less than 10% of this field really has any experience playing golf at the significant altitude that Castle Pines sits at, 6,500 ft. above sea level, which makes the ball travel about 10% further than normal.

Castle Pines is a Jack Nicklaus-designed track that was built in 1981 and was thought of as a course that be the Western Augusta National and have pieces of Muirfield Village in it. Sitting at 8,130 yards and with extremely firm and fast Bentgrass greens, Nicklaus got the marriage that he dreamed of, although the course should play around 7,300 yards.

There are plenty of water hazards around the track, coming into play on ten different holes and strategically lining the fairways and greens. There is also a much greater penalty for wayward drives on his course than at Augusta National as well, with those water hazards, pine trees, fairway bunkers and four-inch thick Kentucky Bluegrass rough to contend with.

Rithmm Models used for 2024 BMW Championship Course Preview

In every Course Preview, we’ll be diving into Rithmm’s proprietary model to help you build the best betting model for that week’s course! Rithmm has its own AI model that it generates based on thousands of sims, but you also might want to build your own model, so that’s what this section is for.

When we get into Rithmm’s modeling aspect, it has five customizable sliders that you can mess around with: Recent Performance, Par 5 Performance, Par 4 Performance, Par 3 Performance, and Course Fit. You can adjust these to your heart’s content, and make it reflect the way you see the important stats.

My model for the 2024 BMW Championship at Castle Pines is below:

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With Castle Pines being a completely new course for this generation of the PGA Tour, we don't have much to go off of Strokes Gained-wise. In times like this, we should default to judging the players by their abilities on comp courses and how they fit with the course from that standpoint. Thus, Course Fit is the mot important metric in my Rithmm model this week.

You can see that my sliders for Par 3, 4 and 5s are the same, and that's because no holes really are more important than others on this course. It should absolutely be noted though, that with the length of the four Par 5s (three over 600 yards), that making birdies on those holes is paramount.

Lastly, this being a FedEx Cup Playoff series event, you need to be in good recent form.

I think the most important thing one player can focus on at Castle Pines is good distance control, especially with your irons.

Best Betting Predictions for the BMW Championship 2024

It’s time to build our Rithmm betting card for this week. We’re going to go into each of my predictions that are based on my custom Rithmm model, and whether I agree or disagree with it.

Top 20: Aaron Rai -105 (61.4% Rithmm Win Probability)

This is a great spot for the brand-new PGA Tour winner, as his lack of distance won't hurt him in this Colorado elevation. He's also an absolute stick with the irons, ranking consistently near the top in Strokes Gained: Approach and Ballstriking.

He also ranks in the top third of this field in Good Drive %, which should help him stay out of this rough off the tee box. Scrambling can sometimes be an issue for the Brit, but with his distance control on his irons, he may be able to mitigate things.

Top 10: HIDDEN

To view this pick, check out our Rithmm app and input my model!

Top 5: HIDDEN

To view this pick, check out our Rithmm app and input my model!

Outright Winner Predictions for the BMW Championship: Collin Morikawa +1400 (8.9%)

I'm usually not one to slam a guy ith such short odds, but Morikawa has been looking for a spot as good as this since - you guessed it - he placed second at Jack's actual Place, Muirfield Village, in the Memorial Tournament.

This place being a hybrid of Augusta National and Muirfield works out well for Collin because his lack of distance will b mitigated by the elevation and altitude so he'll be able to go for it on the longer Par 5s, and since he is one of the most accurate off the tee in this field, he should be in good spots to fire at the pins.

Morikawa ranks 12th in Scrambling % over the last few years among this field, and while he'll look to stay away from some of the 77 (19th-most on Tour) bunkers on the course due to his struggles there, he can get up and down fine around the green from both the short grass and the rough.

After finishing fourth and second at Nicklaus tracks this year, it's time for a win for Collin.

AI Caddie Predictions for Round 1

The AI Caddie is an awesome Rithmm tool that allows you to go hole by hole with any player you choose and it will show you a chart of how likely that player is versus the field to get any score on a hole.

Closing Remarks on 2024 BMW Championship Course Preview

With all of the major championships finished, we now move on to the FedEx Cup Playoffs! Castle Pines promises us a terrific weekend of golf in Colorado for the first time on the PGA Tour in 16 years. I hope that my best bets & course preview gives you all the insights and predictions needed to make informed wagers.

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