World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play Betting Odds and Analysis

Despite winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play PGA event in two of the past three years, defending champion Jason Day is just the +1400 fourth pick (bet $100 to win $1,400) to take home the title again this year at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.

A big reason for that is Day’s struggles on the tour so far this season, as he has failed to pick up a victory to date after earning three wins with 10 Top 10 finishes a year ago.

The 29-year-old Australian has placed in the Top 10 only once in 2017, finishing fifth in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in the first half of February. He had missed the cut in his previous tournament, the Farmers Insurance Open, and ended up in a tie for 23rd in the Arnold Palmer Invitational last weekend.

Marc Leishman won that event with an 11-under 277 while Day shot 2-under and Rory McIlroy tied for fourth at 9-under.

McIlroy is the betting favorite on the match play title odds at the Austin Country Club in Texas at +650. The 27-year-old Irishman won the event two years ago in between Day’s two wins. He is in much better current form than Day as well with a Top 10 finish in each of the four events he has entered this season, including second place in the BMW SA Open on the European tour in the middle of January.

American Dustin Johnson is right behind McIlroy on the betting board, though, at +900 at online sports betting sites, and he will be looking to win the event for the first time. Unlike Day and McIlroy, Johnson has already won two PGA events heading into Austin, posting back-to-back victories in the Genesis Open in mid-February and the WGC-Mexico Championship in early March.

The 32-year-old won in Mexico for the second year in a row and hopes to stay hot with the first major, the 2017 Masters tournament, just two weeks away. Johnson took home his first career major title last year when he won the U.S. Open.

Fellow American Jordan Spieth won the Masters two years ago, and he is the +1000 third choice to win at a course he will be familiar with after leading the Texas Longhorns to the NCAA title in 2012. Spieth won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am event this year and has four Top 10-finishes in his six tournaments entered.