The 2022 CJ Cup will visit its fourth different venue in four seasons this week as it heads to South Carolina and will be hosted by Congaree Golf Club. The event has become a mainstay on the PGA TOUR schedule and has a big prize purse attached to it of just under 11 million dollars.
Congaree is a wide open Southern style Par 71, which features lots of natural waste bunkers and easy to hit fairways. In 2021, it hosted the Palmetto Championship and, that season, five players opened with a 65 or better in round one. Of those five players only one, Dustin Johnson, was what you would call a prototypical bomber off the tee. Distance didn’t hold back the bottom end of the field from making a run on this venue in 2021 and we got an outlier winner that season as well with Garrick Higgo.
The CJ Cup also saw an outlier first round leader last year when it was played in Vegas. Robert Streb took apart the very open Summit Club (designed by Tom Fazio, who also designed Congaree) to post a 61 and the solo first round lead. The Fall schedule and the fact the top players are all coming in with varying amounts of form means it’s still OK to look further down the field for our bets this week. Weather won’t be an issue at all here and the waves will be condensed in terms of when the players are teeing off, just like last week. We’ll be using a strictly value based approach for the most part this week to put together the FRL targets.
As such, we’ve employed the OddsShopper golf betting tools below and looked to get exposure to players at the front half, back half, and middle of the Thursday draw. Some decent value targets did pop up, as detailed below.
2022 CJ Cup First Round Leader Bets
Best 2022 CJ Cup First Round Leader Bets And Information
Sebastián Muñoz First Round Leader +6500 | DraftKings
Sebastian Munoz is no stranger to going low in the first round of an event. The Columbian shot 60 in round one twice last season (the RSM Classic and the AT&T Byron Nelson) hitting multiple FRL bets for those who targeted him in this market relentlessly in that market.
He’s coming off his only Fall start of the season at the Zozo, where he finished 36th, but did put together three sub-70 rounds on what has proven to be a tougher than average course. Munoz will be playing Congaree for the first time this season but did pick up his only PGA TOUR win at the somewhat nearby Country Club of Jackson and has typically been a great Fall performer.
His betting price is somewhat suppressed this week due to his lack of play since the Playoffs and at +6500 in the first round leader market he seems like a very fair target, with a tee time that puts him right in the middle of the field. After a confidence inspiring week at the President’s Cup, don’t be shocked if we hear more from Munoz, a player who knows hot to get off off to massive starts when his game is right.
Aaron Wise First Round Leader +4000 | BetMGM
I’ll stan for Aaron Wise once more in this first round leader market this week. The American has drawn the earliest Thursday tee time on the docket at Congaree and, with sunny skies expected, it’s quite possible that his group ends up seeing the most receptive greens of the day.
Aaron Wise is also a player who has been a fast starter over the past year or so and was ranked 6th in first round leader scoring last season and shot a 63 to open at Mayakoba last Fall swing. While we could point to his lack of play this Fall or weak start at the Shriners a couple of weeks ago as negative indicators, Wise has at least gotten some competitive practice under his belt now and should still be full of confidence after making it to East Lake in the FedEx Cup playoffs — and moving up from 30th to 13th spot over the course of TOUR Championship. Aaron Wise ranks out 3rd in proximity stats from >200 yards and will be able to put that part of his game to good use given the length of the venue. Target him, regardless, but especially if you want some exposure to the players going out early.
If looking to make a wager on BetMGM this week, then Aaron Wise is a first-round leader target to consider at that sportsbook. He has solid 40-1 odds there (bigger odds than other places), and new BetMGM users get a risk-free bet up to $1,000!
2022 CJ Cup Longshots
This venue saw a lot of random names pop up the last time it hosted an event. With that in mind, even with the likes of Rahm, McIlroy and Scheffler playing this week, going with at least one long shot play seems worthwhile. Remember, that when searching for bigger odds, you can always use oddsshopper to check out and compare odds across the major sites.
Kurt Kitayama first round leader +8000 | BetMGM
Despite his lower ranking in the first round leader stats from last season, Kitayama was actually a prominent first round golfer many weeks in 2021-22 and paid off for first round leader betting purposes on multiple occasions. Kitayama tied for first in Mexico for the first round lead, and a month prior to that finished as a the solo first round leader at the Honda Classic, a course which just so happens to be another Tom Fazio design.
Kitayama came close to winning multiple times last season and the larger fairways at Congaree should help contain what can often be a wild off the tee game. He ranks sixth in around the green stats this Fall and should benefit from the setup, which does seem to have a lot of similarities to Mexico Open. Coming off a closing 65 in Japan, he’s an easy FRL bet here at a big +8000 betting number, over on MGM.
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