PGA Tour: Workday Charity Open preview

This week, the PGA Tour welcomes a new event to the calendar — the Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village in Ohio.

Back in late May, the Tour decided to cancel the annual John Deere Classic in Illinois, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and created a one-time replacement, the Workday Charity Open.

Many top golfers will join the field of 157 this week and will remain in town for next week’s Memorial Tournament, which is also at Muirfield.

The No. 5 golfer in the world, Justin Thomas, is favored to win (+1000). Thomas sat out last week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic and missed the cut at the Travelers, but posted top-10 finishes at the Charles Schwab Challenge and RBC Heritage last month.

While the Muirfield layout is slightly modified for the Workday Charity Open, Thomas is familiar with the par-72, 7,456-yard course. He landed in fourth at Memorial in 2017 and eighth in 2018.

Patrick Cantlay (+1200) is another player to consider. He won at Muirfield last year and hasn’t finished worse than 17th since the start of 2020. Cantlay waited until the Travelers to make his return to golf — after the Tour resumed play in mid-June — and placed 11th at TPC River Highlands.

The Workday Charity Open will use tee boxes intended to make the course shorter and protect the tee areas used for next week’s Memorial. The Bentgrass greens are expected to be slower, and the rough will sit around 3 1/2 inches, then increase next week. The course also features 74 bunkers and 13 water hazards.

Like the previous four Tour matches, the Workday Charity Open will be held without fans in attendance. Next week’s Memorial had originally planned to allow fans, but will no longer, because of the ongoing challenges with COVID-19.

Since the Tour resumed play, five golfers — Nick Watney, Cameron Champ, Dylan Frittelli, Harris English, and Denny McCarthy — have tested positive for the coronavirus. Brooks Koepka also withdrew from the Travelers, after his caddie tested positive.

All but English will return to play this weekend.

One more player sitting out the Workday Charity Open is Bryson DeChambeau, who won the Rocket Mortgage Classic last week. DeChambeau has finished in the top 10 in every tournament he’s played since February and will participate next week in the Memorial, which he won in 2018.

The winner of the Workday Charity Open will earn 500 FedEx Cup points, plus $1.1 million of the $6.2 million purse.

You can catch all the tournament action on CBS, the Golf Channel, and PGA Tour Live.

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Find the latest prop odds on the Workday Charity Open at BetAmerica!