This year’s Charles Schwab Challenge will take place Thursday, May 25 through Sunday, May 28 at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Sam Burns outlasted Scottie Scheffler in a playoff last year and has around +2200 odds to win this year. Scheffler is the Charles Schwab favorite at +450. Below we will provide a betting guide for the 2023 contest, which will include Charles Schwab odds as soon as they are posted by top sportsbooks.
CHARLES SCHWAB ODDS
Charles Schwab odds have been posted by top sportsbooks. Scottie Scheffler opened as the favorite at +450. Jordan Spieth was +1200 to win on Monday.
The field for the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge will be officially announced on Friday, May 19. Until then, here are the golf betting odds for John Haslbauer’s projected favorites a month out from the event.
- Scottie Scheffler +800
- Jordan Spieth +1000
- Justin Thomas +1200
- Sam Burns +1400
- Collin Morikawa +1800
The Charles Schwab Challenge is a top tune-up for upcoming majors like the PGA Championship and US Open.
Colonial Country Club
Colonial Country Club has longstanding history on the PGA TOUR, which has helped attract strong fields for this event year in, year out. With a heavily treelined, parkland design, Colonial CC rewards a positional game plan and precise ball striking both off the tee and on approach. Playing to 7,200 yards as a par-70, longer hitters have begun to find success by taking more aggressive lines over doglegged holes, as exemplified by Sam Burns and Jason Kokrak over the last two years.
How It Breaks Down
Colonial CC is fairly average in length for a par 70 by PGA TOUR standards, sitting at 7,209 yards. There are just two par 5s on the property. The first, hole No. 1, is the easiest hole on the course, measuring 565 yards. Most will reach in two, which yields a scoring average of about half a stroke under par. The second par 5 is a bona fide three-shot hole, measuring 635 yards. It still plays as the third easiest on the course, but averages just 0.14 strokes under par. Colonial is defined by its par 4s, with 12 in total on the property.
What makes Colonial CC unique is its concentration of par 4s in the shorter ranges of 350-410 (5x) and 410-450 (4x). We’ve typically seen the more challenging PGA TOUR courses rely on lengthening the par-4s into the 450-yard range in order to challenge the fields. It’s refreshing to see this Perry Maxwell design still impose itself on stronger fields year over year via precision off the tee and on approach. There are just three par 4s on the course which measure over 450 yards, each having a scoring average of at least 0.1 strokes over par.
Traits And Recent Notable Facts
Compared to TOUR average, Colonial CC’s defining traits are in its difficulty off the tee. The fairways are the third-most narrow on TOUR, measuring just 27 yards on average. That has made this the second-most difficult course on TOUR to gain strokes off the tee. The Bermuda rough can give players challenges, but it is not a pronounced penalty, with scoring from off the fairway about in line with the TOUR average. Still, when hitting into smaller, 5,000-square-foot greens, it’s a huge bonus to be able to control spin from the short grass.
There are two ways to go about a course like this. You can either hone in on the most accurate drivers off the tee who will have the highest percentage of approaches from the fairway into these tight greens, or you can take the Bryson at Winged Foot approach. If nobody is hitting these fairways and everyone is hitting their approaches from the rough, it’s better to have a wedge in hand than a mid-iron.
Jason Kokrak won the 2021 Charles Schwab challenge despite losing two strokes around the greens. That’s a bit misleading considering he lost all of his strokes in the bunkers. He performed very solidly in terms of chipping from the green-side rough. In general, this is not a course that is going to be won with your short game. We should expect a higher scrambling rate from the field, even from players who are more deficient around the greens.
In terms of Course History, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Tony Finau, Kevin Na, and Jon Rahm highlight the list of players who have repeatedly played well here, suggesting an advantage for elite, in-form iron players.
Putting And Approach
Given the smaller greens, we’ve seen less of an emphasis on lag putting or three-putt avoidance. This instead shifts the importance to precise approaches and greens in regulation. Winners here have consistently generated a volume of 20-foot birdie opportunities with a simple formula of Approach + Putting separating them from the pack. We want a player who can gain 5+ strokes in both categories.
In terms of proximity ranges, the concentration of nine par 4s under 450 yards and only two par 5s creates a notable deprioritization on approach shots from 200+. Instead, we’ll see a higher than average volume of approach shots from 125-200 yards. With ample options to lay back off the tee, we should expect varying dispersion on approach yardages for each player. They’ll set up approach shots from their preferred yardages on most of these par 4s.
The Donald Ross-designed courses on TOUR (Detroit Golf Club, Sedgefield CC, East Lake) share an interesting trend of top-putting players finding the most success, given that the greens define the course and act as its best defense. Players who are historically best at reading intricate greens have gone on to find the most repeated success on these golf courses. Colonial CC is not a Ross course, but it does share a similar identity and has a storied history of the game’s best putters succeeding. For that reason, I’ll weight SG: P a bit more heavily this week than most.
COLONIAL CC COURSE SPECS
- Yards: 7,209
- Par: 70 (4x 3s / 12x 4s / 2x 5s)
- Greens: Bent (Fast)
- Average Green Size: 5,000 sq. ft. (Average)
- Average Fairway Width: 27 yards (Below average)
- Architect: John Bredemus & Perry Maxwell
- Historic Cut Line: +2
- Comp Courses: Sedgefield CC, Harbour Town, Waialae CC, Memorial Park, Pebble Beach GL, TPC River Highlands, Austin Country Club, Innisbrook Resort
- Hole-by-hole Breakdown:
CHARLES SCHWAB CHALLENGE PAST WINNERS
Colonial Country Club’s firm and fast conditions and exposure to gusting Texas winds have created difficult scoring conditions over recent years, which have taken longshots out of contention. Each of the last nine winners have opened at 70-1 odds or shorter, so the Charles Schwab Challenge has proven to be a viable tournament to target the mid range of the odds board.
The below table tracks consensus pre-tournament outright odds for the last 10 winners of the Charles Schwab Challenge.
| Year | Winner | Pre-Tournament Odds | Winning Score | Field Median Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Sam Burns | +2500 | -9 | Even |
| 2021 | Jason Kokrak | +6000 | -14 | -3 |
| 2020 | Daniel Berger | +7000 | -15 | -6 |
| 2019 | Kevin Na | +7000 | -13 | +1 |
| 2018 | Justin Rose | +2000 | -20 | -5 |
| 2017 | Kevin Kisner | +3300 | -10 | +1 |
| 2016 | Jordan Spieth | +700 | -17 | -1 |
| 2015 | Chris Kirk | +3500 | -12 | -4 |
| 2014 | Adam Scott | +1800 | -9 | -3 |
| 2013 | Boo Weekley | +10000 | -14 | -4 |
How to bet the Charles Schwab Challenge
Legal sportsbooks like DraftKings, Caesars and BetMGM will have plenty of options to bet on the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge. These books have basic golf betting odds like outright winner. They also have options to bet on a Top 5 finisher, Top 10 finisher and Top 20 finisher.
You can also bet on who will win each round of the Charles Schwab Challenge. And there are tournament specials like “Will there be an Albatross?” and “Wire to Wire winner.” Bettors can even wager on if there will be a hole in one or not at Colonial.