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Posted Wednesday, June 22 at 5:00 PM EST.

2016 Quicken Loans National. Event begins Thursday at 4:30 AM EST. 

Congressional Country Club (Blue) in Bethesda, Maryland measures in at a whopping 7,569 yards and will play as a par 71. Despite the length, long distance hitters haven’t shined through as we’ve seen in previous contests. Congressional is a difficult and long golf course, and scrambling and GIR’s will be the deciding factor. We’ll provide more analysis of how the course plays and which indicators we’re favoring in our choices below.

Players coming over from Oakmont will be a little relieved, but still have a daunting task ahead of them. It’s still a tough course, and the winner (Justin Rose) in 2014 won the event at -4. Congressional will offer a ton of of challenges and with the summertime east coast shaggy rough and fast, undulating greens are getting nastier as the heat picks up.

So what’s worked here in the past? To answer that question you have to jump back to 2014, which was the last time this event was played at Congressional (last year it was held at Robert Trent Jones).  As proven in past events, power and accuracy are key here, and our choices are heavily weighted on those two stats this week. Although Rose doesn’t possess excessive power off of the tee, he shined that week in ’14 at Congressional, with stellar Scrambling and GIRs numbers.

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#7036 K. Bradley +100 over F. Molinari

Keegan Bradley is a high risk/high reward type player. He misses a lot of cuts but when he’s on his game, he’s dangerous as hell. Bradley has missed the cut in three of his last four events. However, when he made the cut at the Memorial in the first week in June, he ended up finishing T8. He also had a decent showing at the Players Championship, an event he won outright back in 2011. Bradley has won three tour events overall in his career. He comes in ranked 113th while Francesco Molinari ranks 83rd in the world. Those rankings has Molinari favoured here but this course HUGELY favours the underdog. 

Bradley ranks 21st on tour in GIR (greens in regulation) while Molinari ranks 155th. That’s significant. In driving accuracy, Bradley ranks 38th while Molinari ranks 83rd. Bradley is four years younger than Molinari but has 27 top-10 finishes to Molinari’s 10. Bradley’s stock is low because he’s missed the cut in 11 of 19 events this year but he’s been adjusting to life with a new short putter after replacing his belly putter at the end of 2014. The switch resulted in a 2015 campaign in which he made a career-low $1,565,079 thanks in large part to finishing just 127th in strokes gained/putting (Bradley had finished in the top 50 in that category the prior three seasons) on the PGA Tour.

Things got worse on the greens to start 2016 but then things started to change. Entering the Valspar Championship on March 10, Bradley ranked a dismal 208th on tour in strokes gained/putting and had missed four of five cuts. However, he showed signs that those growing pains might finally be coming to an end. Bradley fired an opening 67 at Innisbrook's Copperhead Course, gaining nearly 2.4 strokes on the field with his putting and grabbing an early share of the lead. He’s been practising relentlessly since and is a big sleeper to make some noise here. If he plays to his capabilities, this one should win in a romp. Play: Bradley +100 over Molinari (Risking 2 units). 

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To win outright to be played at BET365 because of their “Cashout” option.

Jaime Lovemark 55-1

Lovemark has been quiet for a while after going on an impressive run in the spring before cooling down a bit as of late. Perhaps the rest will serve him well this week. As for the stats, this boy knows a thing or two about scrambling (7th on TOUR) and power (10th in Driving Distance). Needless to say, Congressional matches up well to his strengths. Lovemark is certainly under the radar here because of the “outta sight, outta mind” market mentality. (Risking 0.2 units)

Keegan Bradley 70-1

See our analysis in the head-to-head matches for more information on this choice. (Risking 0.2 units)

Charlie Hoffman 30-1

Charlie Hoffman is ready to pop again soon. Hoffman has shown great consistency and is beginning to charge at just the right time. In fact, Hoffman hasn’t slowed down much this season, having two top 15’s since his huge win in San Antonio two months ago. He already owns a T3 at Congressional just two years ago, and his power and putting indicators are looking mighty favorable. (Risking 0.2 units).

Hudson Swafford 80-1

With his explosive power and strong GIR stats, Swafford makes for a solid sleeper pick this week. He has four Top 25’s this season and is coasting into Maryland on a 5-for-5 cuts made streak. He ranks 5th on tour in driving distance and 30th in GIR. That combo could have him near the leaderboard on Sunday and from there anything can happen. (Risking 0.2 units). 

Please note that we will update this in our records at the end of the event. In total, we are risking 2.8 units. 

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