Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge

2024 Charles Schwab Challenge Fantasy Sleeper Report

A matter of millimetres can be the making or the breaking of a sportsperson.

For Xander Schauffele, his putt at the 72nd hole of the PGA Championship had all those hallmarks. It found the left edge of the hole, circled….and then dropped, much to the Californian’s delight.

It struck a line through the notion that he’s a choker once and for all, because even for the length of his drought – no win on TOUR since June 2022 – and that hapless final round at the Wells Fargo, Schauffele is too good a player to be denied for too long.

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Victory at Valhalla wasn’t gifted to him either, with Bryson DeChambeau and Viktor Hovland – both major-worthy talents – pushing him hard down the back nine. But Schauffele stood tall and made a stack of birdies….including that crucial one at the final hole that would see him win by a single shot from DeChambeau.

A short stint in jail probably cost Scottie Scheffler a chance of even more silverware, but the world number one is set to be back – providing he doesn’t withdraw in advance – at it in the Charles Schwab Challenge this week.

He’ll be joined in the field by the likes of Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, and Brian Harman, who will all be looking to parlay their mixed experiences at the PGA into something more substantial at the Colonial Country Club this week.

The defending champion, Emiliano Grillo, will be looking to defend his honor, while the player he vanquished in a playoff 12 months ago – Adam Schenk – will be looking to go one better.

They, and the rest of the field, will be looking to defeat a Colonial layout that continues to offer a decent test to the players nearly a century after it first opened its gates.

The reason for that is not extravagant length – it plays to around 7,200 yards for its Par 70 – but its tightness, with narrow fairways flanked by thick tree lines, and with 12 of the holes doglegging, there’s few opportunities for the bombers to make their advantage count.

Instead, the shortness of Colonial means that this becomes something of a wedge and short-iron shootout, with so many approaches from inside 150 yards struck into small, often elevated Bentgrass greens.

This is not the highest GIR layout either, and so quality chipping around the greens, and getting up and down, will also prove vital – particularly if the wind gets up as suggested. 

About that forecast. Type Fort Worth into your chosen weather app and you’ll get the general idea this week. There’s thunderstorms, rain, winds of around 15mph, and even temperatures of up to 95 degrees in the offing. Winning the Charles Schwab this week could be a test of patience, as much as anything else.

Grillo was an 80/1 winner here 12 months ago, following the likes of Jason Kokrak (60/1, 2021), Daniel Berger (66/1, 2020), and Kevin Na (70/1, 2019) into the winners’ circle at Colonial at long odds.

Could we see history repeating this week? Let’s take a look in our 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge sleeper shortlist.

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Christiaan Bezuidenhout – 50/1 – Given his lack of length off the tee, there’s only a few places that Christian Bezuidenhout can truly contend on TOUR.

But we’ve seen what the South African is capable of as recently as the PLAYERS Championship, where he finished T13 in what was basically the best field the PGA TOUR has to offer. This, of course, is much lower-grade action.

It’s interesting that Bezuidenhout has performed well recently at tracks you might not consider him a natural fit for – the lengthy Valspar Championship (T9) and Wells Fargo (T16) amongst them.

He even managed a top-30 finish at the RBC Heritage despite losing strokes to the field on approach – that has been a rarity indeed from Bezuidenhout this season, as he returns to a venue this week where he has recorded 15-21 finishes in the past two years.

Akshay Bhatia – 60/1 – He’s very much still a ‘boom or bust’ type of operator, but when he’s on there’s no doubting the class of Akshay Bhatia.

His game has come on hugely in 2024, and for one good reason: he is now putting with confidence. In 14 starts this year, he’s won the Texas Open, recorded six other top-20s, and gained strokes on the field putting in all nine of the events he’s made the cut in.

Bhatia missed the cut at the PGA Championship, but gained +2.16 strokes on the field on approach through those 36 holes – there’s nothing wrong with that at all. A rare off-week for his short game was the root cause of his missed weekend, but he’s a solid scrambler who has been putting well, as a rule, so there’s no concerns here.

Keegan Bradley – 60/1 – These odds seem more than fair about one of the more prolific winners in this field, and a player vaunted for his wedge and short iron play.

Keegan Bradley has won a handful of PGA TOUR trophies over the years, and it’s his precise ball-striking that has done the bulk of the damage – that can be undone, it must be said, by a weak week with the flat stick.

But here’s the thing: Bradley has been better in that department lately, doing just about enough at The Masters, Wells Fargo, and PGA Championship to gain strokes on the field putting – two of those, you may have noted, played on the same Bentgrass greens as we’re getting this week.

Justin Rose – 60/1 – Getting partnered with one of his old mates, Shane Lowry, seemed to do wonders for Justin Rose and the Irishman at the PGA Championship.

They combined for a score of -16 at Valhalla on Saturday, with Rose contributing -7 of those in a much-improved show of ball-striking.

He went under par on the Sunday too, which suggests he will be heading to Colonial full of confidence. And the good news of that for his backers is franked by his amazing record at the venue: 12-MC-20-3-58-1 revealing the huge upside that Rose brings at this Texas venue.

Thomas Detry – 66/1 – If Thomas Detry continues to play well and knock on the door, surely it won’t be too long before he falls through and claims a maiden PGA TOUR title.

He’s recorded three top-10s in his last five outings, with T2 at the somewhat correlating Memorial Park (Houston Open) followed by T4 at the PGA Championship this past week.

The Belgian does the bulk of his best work on the greens, but it was noteworthy that at the PGA Championship he delivered his finest approach play performance of the year to day – that form, heading to a layout where he was T21 on debut 12 months ago, suggests we have every right to expect further improvement on that this time around.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Charles Schwab Challenge here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2024)

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