Tag: safeway open

2020 Safeway Open odds, predictions, picks and PGA Tour best bets

Here are golf betting odds for the PGA Tour Safeway Open at Silverado Resort & Spa in Napa, California.

Following Dustin Johnson’s Tour Championship and 2019-20 FedEx Cup victory, the 2020-21 PGA Tour season starts up Thursday with the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort and Spa. Below, we look at the betting odds to win the 2020 Safeway Open and make our PGA Tour picks and best bets.

The event serves as a bridge between the Tour Championship and next week’s U.S. Open. As a result, this is one of the weakest fields we’ve seen since the PGA Tour returned to play in mid-June. Mark Hubbard is the top golfer in attendance by the Golfweek/Sagarin world rankings at No. 23.

2020 Safeway Open Championship Betting Picks – Favorite

Phil Mickelson grabs a club during the final round of the 2020 PGA Championship. (Photo Credit: Kelvin Kuo – USA TODAY Sports)

Odds provided by BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Tuesday at 9:20 a.m. ET.

Phil Mickelson (+2000)

Mickelson went without a PGA Tour victory in the 2019-20 season and his FedEx Cup Playoffs run ended with a missed cut at the opening Northern Trust. He used his time off to go wire-to-wire for victory in his debut on the over-50 PGA Tour Champions.

He returns to one of the weaker PGA Tour fields in which he has played in quite some time. It’s an event where he finished eighth in 2016 and third in 2017 but missed the cut last year. He ranks fourth among those in attendance with 1.60 strokes gained per round at Silverado Resort, according to Data Golf. He’s the rightful betting favorite.

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2020 Safeway Open Betting Picks – Contender

Luke List plays his shot from the second tee during the third round of The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club. (Photo: Aaron Doster – USA TODAY Sports)

Luke List (+6000)

List has played 14 career rounds at this venue with an average of 1.03 strokes gained per round. He missed the cut last year but was fourth in 2018. Like Mickelson, his 2019-20 PGA Tour season ended with a missed cut at The Northern Trust roughly two months after he won the Korn Ferry Challenge on the secondary tour. He finished T-10 in a loaded PGA Tour field at the Memorial Tournament.

2020 Safeway Open Betting Picks – Long shot

Kristoffer Ventura tees off during the final round of the Barracuda Championship. (Photo: Andrew Wevers – USA TODAY Sports)

Kristoffer Ventura (+8000)

Ventura is representative of the betting value we haven’t seen since the PGA Tour returned to play. Marquee events loaded with the PGA Tour’s best golfers have capped the range bettors could look at when betting outright winners.

The two-time winner on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019 will play this event for the second straight year following a 62nd-place finish in 2019. He’s an excellent putter and should improve on a career-best PGA Tour result of T-18 at last year’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

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Safeway Open announces September dates on next season’s PGA Tour schedule

Tournament organizers for the Safeway Open have announced that it’ll be the first event on the 2020-2021 PGA tour schedule.

As the pro golf calendar continues to be a fluid situation, there is a report that the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, will restart the PGA Tour season June 11-14.

Now we get word that the Safeway Open presented by Chevron is scheduled to be the first event on the 2020-2021 PGA tour schedule.

In a release sent by the tournament, which posted the same information on its website, the Safeway Open will be Sept. 10-13 at at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, California.

That weekend falls in between the previously announced new dates for the Tour Championship (Sept. 4-7) and the U.S. Open (Sept. 17-20).

This means the Safeway Open is the first event on next season’s schedule and will come a week before the 2020 U.S. Open as well as other 2019-20 season events, such as the Ryder Cup, still on for Sept. 25-27, and the Masters, now set for Nov. 12-15.

“We are excited to have our dates confirmed by the PGA Tour for September,” said Jeff Sanders, President, Lagardere Sports Golf Events, the management company responsible for producing the Safeway Open, said in a statement. “This is a very difficult time in our country and throughout the world and we are hopeful that the PGA Tour’s return to competition in the near future will provide some joy and a bright light at the end of the tunnel for our fans, while continuing to provide valuable charity dollars to the community. We are looking forward to another great week of world class golf by day and amazing music by night in Napa in September.”

Cameron Champ won an emotional tournament in last year’s event for his second PGA Tour title.

For more information, go to safewayopen.com.

Forecaddie: With $17 million payday, are Tony Romo’s Safeway days behind him?

Romo opened with a 70 at last year’s Safeway in Napa, leading some to speculate about CBS’ backup plan for his Sunday game assignment.

Tony Romo has signed a record $17 million deal to stay put at CBS, leading The Forecaddie to wonder if we’ll see him tee it up again next fall on a sponsor invite at the Safeway Open.

At $850K per game, will the bosses at CBS take a chance their man won’t make a scheduled game?

Last year at the Safeway, Romo opened with a 2-under 70. If he had made the cut in Napa, the former Cowboys QB would have missed his day job calling a Bears-Vikings game on Sunday. Unfortunately he made nine bogeys in the second round, ending any speculation about what CBS had as a backup plan should Romo make the weekend.

According to the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, Romo’s new deal makes him the highest-paid sports analyst in history, surpassing the $8 million per year John Madden pulled down. Romo was poised to become a free agent, with ESPN aggressively pursuing him, the Post reported.

Since 2017, Romo has worked alongside play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz. TMOF would love to be a fly on the wall when the two discuss the state of Romo’s game.

With $17 million a year, it’s no stretch to think that Romo had all the leverage in the world behind him in these contract negotiations. So here’s guessing we’ll see him back out at Silverado next September.

In the meantime, Romo is slated to make his next appearance alongside professional golfers in April at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Veritex Bank Championship, to be played at Texas Rangers Golf Club in Arlington, Texas. Fittingly, his Korn Ferry debut will come in front of a home crowd.