With our outright wagers placed, we now turn to the prop market for our expert selections for The Northern Trust. It’s always important to search for value in the top finishing markets, so remember to shop around for the best lines for your Northern Trust Open prop bets as they typically differ from sportsbook to Sportsbook.
Liberty National plays host this week as this will be the first time it returns to the public eye since hosting this championship in 2019. It was then that Patrick Reed captured the first leg of the 2019 FedEx Cup Playoffs. At 16-under, he was able to get the better of the likes of Abraham Ancer, Harold Varner III, and Jon Rahm.
At just north of 7,400 and playing a par-71, trouble lurks around nearly every corner whether penalty areas or high grass. With driving at a premium and smaller than average greens, players should be ready for a complete test in the Garden State.
When looking at the 2019 leaderboard, those players who found themselves inside the top-10 by week’s end all enjoyed strong tee-to-green performances. Outside Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose, who each gained more than 7.5 strokes on the greens, the rest of the top-10 gained at least five-strokes tee-to-green.
This is magnified even further when venturing into the top-5 where each player gained more than eight-strokes in said category. While each player got the job done in a different variation of off-the-tee and around-the-green, the one mainstay was iron-play. Combine this with strong par-4 play that will be our bare bones operation for The Northern Trust.
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The Northern Trust Open Prop Bets: What to Look For
The top-70 players will gain entry into the second playoff event next week in Owings Mill, Maryland making those on the bubble all the more nervous this week in New Jersey. Notable players currently on the outside looking in ahead of The Northern Trust include Bubba Watson (No. 71), Ian Poulter (No. 79), and Adam Scott (No. 82) who is fresh off a heartbreaking playoff loss at the Wyndham Championship.
The Northern Trust is the only playoff event to feature a cut at the halfway mark despite only hosting 124 players. The top-65 and ties will make their way into the weekend in Jersey City with the hopes of solidifying their positioning in the FedEx Cup standings. With 2,000 FedEx Cup points awarded to the eventual winner, a good week at The Northern Trust can not only set a player up for success at the BMW Championship, but also the TOUR Championship.
In order to so, players will need to strong throughout their bag as a complete tee-to-green examination awaits them at Liberty National as it did in 2019. With an emphasis on finding the fairway and elite iron-play, the world’s best tend to rise to the top of the leaderboard in the FedEx Cup Playoff events, yet there are still avenues through which we can be successful.
I’ll be venturing down the odds board in search of some perceived value and targeting the top-20 market this week at The Northern Trust. The hope with this strategy is to give us some leeway as we have been flirting with fire, narrowly getting our top-10 wagers across the finish line.
At Sportsbook, tournament-favorite, Jon Rahm is –200 to finish inside the top-20. These odds imply a 66.67 percent probability of him being able to do so. As for us, we’ll venture a bit further down the odds board as it worked out for us last week. Brendon Todd came through for a top-10 for us at the Wyndham Championship extending the nice run that we are on in this article. Let's keep the momentum rolling into the playoffs as we outline our Northern Trust Open prop bets.
The Northern Trust Open Prop Bets & Best Bets: Our Recommendations
Maverick McNealy (+500 To Finish Inside The Top-20):
While it is always a crapshoot to wager on McNealy away from Pebble Beach, a course such as Liberty National could be a spot where he finds some success. The Stanford alum has been on a sneaky, hot streak as of late, playing himself inside the top-60 of the FedEx Cup standings over the last couple of months.
Making five consecutive cuts, McNealy has employed a balanced approach to his success. With three top-20 finishes and two top-30 finishes during this stretch of golf, the tee-to-green game that abandoned him in the middle part of the winter and into the early spring has returned with a vengeance.
Averaging +5.47 SG: Tee-to-Green in the month of July, McNealy has been able to post positive figures despite his entire bag failing to cooperate for a full week. Yet I believe this will be the week that it finally does, as it was nearly a week to remember at the 3M Open if not for a faulty putter. That’s unlike McNealy as he can get red hot with the flat stick. If that part of his game returns this week, he should at least find himself inside the top-20 and as such makes for one of our best bets for The Northern Trust.
Hank Lebioda (+600 To Finish Inside The Top-20):
I thought about letting Lebioda ride the pine this week as we have been making a (bad) habit of backing him. Yet when odds came out and a number such as this was available and even longer at some places for a top-20 finish, I couldn’t help myself. Having missed the cut by a stroke last week at the Wyndham Championship, I am hoping the extra couple of days gave the Florida State alum some time to work out the kinks in his swing.
This week at Liberty National should provide a good litmus test for Lebioda as he has been doing most of his damage against weaker fields. The stretch of three top-10 finishes in a row, two of which doubled for top-5's, should still be fresh enough on his mind to come into The Northern Trust with plenty of confidence.
As it will also bring a return to bent grass for Lebioda, who typically does his best work with the putter on said surface. With strong putting performances at Detroit GC and TPC Deere Run, I expect the flat stick to enjoy a mini resurgence this week in New Jersey. If that’s the case, it’ll just be a matter of keeping his ball in play off-the-tee as the rest of his tee-to-green play appears strong enough for top-20 consideration.
Chez Reavie (+700 To Finish Inside The Top-20):
Like Lebioda, some may still be feeling the sting from Reavie missing the cut at the Wyndham Championship as he was a popular play leading up to the season finale. While Sedgefield CC may have been the last course of the year to suit his game on paper, I am willing to give Reavie a chance given how strong his recent play has been.
It’s not as if Reavie can’t compete as some of these bigger courses, especially for the sake of a top-20 wager. Tee-to-green, there’s no denying that he has been exceptional this summer with performances of +8.7 SG: Tee-to-Green at Congaree, +7.8 SG: Tee-to-Green at Torrey Pines, +5.7 SG: Tee-to-Green at TPC River Highlands, and +7.7 SG: Tee-to-Green at TPC Twin Cities.
He now comes to a tournament where has actually find a good bit of success, especially as of late. In his last five appearances in The Northern Trust, Reavie has played the weekend in each of them, including a stretch from 2016 to 2019, where he finished inside the top-40 in each outing. While the 2019 version, hosted at Liberty National, yielded a T-39, I expect Reavie to give the top-20 a run for its money this week.
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Henrik Norlander (+1200 To Finish Inside The Top-20):
Our final Northern Trust prop bet will reside in the big Swede who we haven’t seen stateside since the Barbasol Championship. Finishing in a tie for fifth in Kentucky, Norlander packed his bags for Tokyo where he sandwiched two poor rounds with two solid ones.
Yet at 87th in the FedEx Cup points race, I expect Norlander to give himself a realistic opportunity to sneak into the BMW Championship as once the calendar flipped to June, he has been a completely different player. Gaining strokes tee-to-green in every start since the Memorial, he appears to be an average week from around-the-green away from a strong showing.
As the ball-striking has been more than competent, posting +8.9 SG: Ball-striking in his last PGA Tour start. While rust is a possible concern, Norlander understands what is at stake and has no wiggle room to start slow. At a large number like +1200, he finds himself as my final best bet for The Northern Trust.
