Steve Palmer's Shriners Children's Open final-round preview, best bets

Where to watch

Sky Sports Golf, 10pm Sunday

Best bets

Sam Burns bogey-free round
2pts 4-1 Coral, Ladbrokes

Story so far

Adam Schenk is the surprise pacesetter after 54 holes of the Shriners Children's Open in Las Vegas and the PGA Tour maiden will take a one-shot lead into the final round at TPC Summerlin.

Schenk, a 29-year-old from Indiana, won on the Web.com Tour (now the Korn Ferry Tour) in 2017, but has failed to make a serious impact in the higher grade, never finishing better than fourth on the PGA Tour.

Schenk, a 175-1 chance ante-post, is a general 3-1 for Shriners glory. Alone in second place is Matthew Wolff, who won the 3M Open just a month after turning pro, before finishing runner-up in the 2020 US Open.

Sam Burns, who won the Sanderson Farms Championship last Sunday, is still well in the hunt for back-to-back PGA Tour success. The world number 18 suffered a frustrating back nine in round three, but shares third place, two shots behind Schenk.

Leaderboard
-18 Adam Schenk
-17 Matthew Wolff
-16 Andrew Putnam, Sam Burns, Chad Ramey
-15 Sungjae Im
-14 Harry Hall, Adam Hadwin

Best prices
11-4 M Wolff, 3 A Schenk, 7-2 S Burns, 10 C Ramey, S Im, 12 A Putnam, 35 A Hadwin, 50 H Hall, 90 bar

Final-round preview

Adam Schenk led the Barracuda Championship - a modified Stableford event - by four points going into the final round in August. He made six birdies in his Saturday round to set up a golden opportunity of a PGA Tour breakthrough.

On the Sunday, Schenk needed 71 shots to get round the par-71 Barracuda venue, dropping to fourth place and ending up seven points behind the winner.

Schenk is ranked 207th in the world, he has not posted a top-30 finish since that disappointing Barracuda Sunday, he has never had a top-ten finish in the Shriners, and bookmakers appear to be respecting him way too much in the outright market.

This is no spring chicken with huge scope for improvement - Schenk turns 30 in January with a career which has not amounted to much. It seems far more likely that he gets gobbled up by the chasing pack in round four of the Shriners than kicks clear from the front.

Matthew Wolff is back in business. Coronavirus and the social restrictions which resulted affected people in different ways. Wolff, a talkative 22-year-old who enjoys the company of others, found the pandemic particularly unsettling. With the world creeping back to normal, though, Wolff's mood and golf has improved, and he has attacked Summerlin in trademark fashion this week.

Wolff, a former college superstar, would have a US Open title on his CV but for the brilliance of Bryson DeChambeau at Winged Foot last year. Wolff is in a different league to Schenk and there should be more of a gap between the two of them in the betting. It is shocking that they are almost the same price.

Outright punters are advised to concentrate on Wolff and Sam Burns, who still has the scent of back-to-back victories in his nostrils. Burns let the rest of the field off the hook in round three by covering the final seven holes in one over par. A succession of putts slid just by the hole, then, perhaps with frustrations boiling over, he got over-aggressive with his second shot to the final par-five (16th) and found the water short of the green.

Burns seemed a club short on both his second shots at the two par-fives on the back nine, although he only needed an extra yard of carry at the 16th and his bogey would have become an easy two-putt birdie.

This week is proving almost identical to last week for Burns. He ended last week 57th in the putting stats, and he is 38th in the putting stats at the Shriners. He topped the strokes-gained tee-to-green stats last week - and is doing so again this week. His driving has been awesome again - he found 13 fairways from 14 attempts in round three despite averaging 337 yards off the tee.

Despite holing nothing on those closing seven holes, and visiting the aqua at 16, Burns is only two shots behind. His sublime driving should set up another series of birdie chances in round four.

A calm, sunny day is forecast, and scoring should be low. Sungjae Im and Andrew Putnam are arguably the main dangers to Wolff and Burns, but preference is for the latter duo.

Wolff at 45-1 and Burns at 25-1 were both Racing Post Sport pre- tournament recommendations, so hopes are high of a healthy return. Cautious punters on both selections may choose to have some cover on Im (10-1) and Putnam (12-1), but anyone yet to get involved should be concentrating on Wolff (11-4) and Burns (7-2). The tee-shot stability of Burns might just edge that contest.

A Burns-Wolff one-two is the prediction, and the 4-1 available about Burns going bogey-free on Sunday seems fair. He did it in round two and would have done it comfortably in round three had he carried a club-length further with his approach at the 16th hole. Perfect weather is forecast for his entire round.

Schenk and Wolff tee off at 9pm UK and Ireland time in the final twoball.

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