WGC-Match Play Picks and Preview: Elite Bracket Set for Second-to-Last Tune-Up for the Masters

Picks and preview for the PGA Tour's WGC-Match Play 2022. Don't miss out! SBR - trusted by bettors for over 20 years.

Esten McLaren

Last Updated: March 23, 2022 4:18 AM EDT • 5 minute read

Fifty-eight of the world’s top 64 golfers are back at Austin Country Club for the 2022 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. We break it down with our top WGC-Match Play picks.

Billy Horschel leads the PGA Tour back to Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas to defend his 2021 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play title. It's the week’s marquee event on the PGA Tour, with the Corales Puntacana Championship in the Dominican Republic hosting a weaker field. Next week’s Valero Texas Open will be the final event before the 2022 Masters, so start locking in those bets now.

The field of 64 originally included the top 64 golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR). However, Cameron Smith (No. 6), Rory McIlroy (No. 7), Hideki Matsuyama (No. 11), Harris English (No. 22), and Phil Mickelson (No. 45) all opted out, with lower-ranked golfers replacing them. Sam Burns also withdrew on Monday after winning last week’s Valspar Championship.

Recent winners in the field include Kevin Kisner, Bubba Watson, and Dustin Johnson.

Here are my top outright picks for the 2022 WGC-Match Play at Austin Country Club.

WGC-Match Play Odds

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WGC-Match Play Odds Analysis

Despite the always-loaded field, the bracket format of the WGC-Match Play typically lends itself to upsets and some surprise winners. The pre-tournament odds of the last eight winners have ranged from +600 to Horschel’s +8000 last year. He was 34th in the OWGR entering the event.

Jon Rahm is once again the pre-tournament betting favorite, a common theme in 2022. He’s coming off a T-55 at The Players Championship. The 2021 U.S. Open champion has never won a WGC event, but he was the runner-up in the 2017 match play and a quarterfinalist in 2021.

Scottie Scheffler, the 2021 runner-up in this event and a two-time PGA Tour winner since February, holds the fourth-best odds at most sportsbooks. He’s fifth in the OWGR, and the fifth-best golfer in the field by that measure.

Horschel has been given odds as high as +3300 at BetMGM to defend his title this week. Bryson DeChambeau, who has slipped to No. 13 in the OWGR after not playing on the PGA Tour since a missed cut at the Farmers Insurance Open, holds odds as high as +3500 at DraftKings Sportsbook.

Austin Country Club Course Profile

Austin Country Club has hosted the WGC-Match Play since 2016, with Jason Day winning the first event over Louis Oosthuizen. Johnson, Watson, Kisner, and Horschel are the other winners in Austin. Rahm, Kisner, Matt Kuchar, and Scheffler were the respective second-place finishers.

The par-71 Pete Dye-designed venue measures 7,108 yards. Both long hitters and short-game specialists have found success on this course. A reason for that is the distinctly different front and back nines. The first nine holes are played on elevated terrain, and the back nine are played at a lower elevation alongside Lake Austin.

Only four of the 11 par 4s exceed 450 yards, with five playing shorter than 400 yards, and two between 400 and 450 yards. The par 3s are spread between 150 and 201 yards. The three par 3s all exceed 575 yards.

WGC-Match Play Stats

There isn't strokes gained data available for this event or for Austin Country Club. Based on course layout and past winners, we’ll focus on:

Strokes gained: off-the-teeSG: tee-to-greenSG: around-the-greenPar 4 efficiency: 350-400 yardsScrambling

Robert MacIntyre is the lowest-ranked player in the field at No. 70 in the OWGR. Just eight others enter the week ranked outside of the top 50 in the OWGR, including former world No. 1 Lee Westwood (No. 53).

In addition to past performances in the WGC-Match Play (at Austin Country Club and otherwise), we can look at Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup experience.

WGC-Match Play Picks

Scottie Scheffler (+1800 viaCaesars Sportsbook)Kevin Kisner (+7000 via BetMGM)Ian Poulter (+9000 via FanDuel Sportsbook)

Check out our top-rated sportsbooks here

Who Will Win the WGC-Match Play?

Scheffler (+1800)

Scheffler returns to Austin Country Club in the best form of anyone who has logged a measure of success in this event. After winning the WM Phoenix Open on Super Bowl Sunday, Scheffler took the Arnold Palmer Invitational three weeks later before a T-55 finish at The Players Championship.

Scheffler is ninth on the PGA Tour with 1.83 total strokes gained on the field per round during the 2021-22 season. He led the Arnold Palmer Invitational field with 2.02 SG: approach per round, and he's gaining strokes per round in all key areas. Thought of predominantly as a long hitter, Scheffler is fifth on Tour in par 4 efficiency: 350-400 yards, and he's averaging 0.64 SG: putting per round.

In addition to his runner-up finish in this event last year, Scheffler went 2-0-1 in the Ryder Cup last fall. He won his singles match over Rahm 3&2. They would potentially meet in the WGC-Match Play semifinals on the left side of the bracket.

Kisner (+7000)

Kisner has advanced to at least the Round of 32 in each of his last four appearances in this event at Austin Country Club. He also participated in the 2017 Presidents Cup, going 2-0-2.

The veteran finished fourth in The Players Championship ahead of a T-33 finish last week. He relied heavily on his putter at Innisbrook Resort while registering 1.26 SG: putting per round, and Kisner also averaged 0.24 SG: around-the-green. For the season, Kisner is averaging 0.33 SG: around-the-green and 0.84 SG: putting.

Caesars is offering odds of just +5000 on Kisner to win, so be sure to get the higher number at BetMGM.

Poulter (+9000)

Ian Poulter won the 2010 match play in Arizona. He's made three appearances at Austin Country Club, registering a quarterfinals finish in 2018 and a Round of 16 berth in 2021. The Englishman is also a Ryder Cup veteran with a 15-8-2 career record. While Team USA was blowing out Team Europe last year, Poulter defeated Tony Finau 3&2 in his singles match to help save face.

Now ranked 67th in the OWGR, Poulter has started his 2022 PGA Tour schedule with three straight made cuts. He opened the calendar year with a T-6 finish in the DP World Tour's Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

Unfortunately for us, he's in the same group as Scheffler for the Round of 64. But he'll become a value play at these inflated odds if Poulter advances.

Where to Bet on the PGA Tour

Here are our top-rated sportsbooks:

FanDuel Sportsbook Caesars Sportsbook DraftKings Sportsbook PointsBet BetMGM

SEE ALSO: All picks, odds, and sports betting news. Be sure to check out SportsbookReview.com’s community forums and betting tools.

Picks made on 3/21/2022 at 4 p.m. ET.

Written by:
Esten McLaren

Esten is the Senior Publishing Editor for SportsbookReview.com. He has been in the sports betting industry since the legalization of mobile sports betting in New Jersey, and with SportsbookReview prior to the launch of sports betting in Ontario. Esten's previous stops include the USA TODAY network, including GolfWeek. He previously worked in the fantasy sports industry, with FNTSY Sports Network, theScore, and USA TODAY. Esten graduated from the College of Sports Media with a diploma in Radio and Television Sports Broadcasting after acquiring a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Guelph. He has appeared on FNTSY Sports Network, VSiN, and VSiN's Long Shots podcast, where he correctly called Will Zalatoris as the winner of the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship. Esten is a big proponent of the entertainment side of sports betting and loves to dip his toes into the novelty and alt-markets while chasing long shots with reduced wagers on golf outrights and futures markets. He's also been known to sprinkle some lunch money on touchdown-scorer parlays with two notable hits still funding his bankroll. Esten looks at sports betting much like golf and advises beginner bettors to compete against themselves rather than being concerned with what others may or may not be doing based on social media claims.