The Players Championship Odds 2017: Tournament Betting Lines, Preview

Despite having to withdraw from the Masters last month due to an unfortunate and untimely back injury, Dustin Johnson still sits atop the board heading into The Players Championship this week at TPC Sawgrass as the +700 betting favorite (wager $100 to win $700) at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.

The 32-year-old Johnson returned to action last weekend at the Wells Fargo Championship, though, and impressed as he tied for second place to take home $660,000 in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Johnson started slow but finished strong at the Wells Fargo Championship, ending up one stroke behind winner Brian Harman and tying with Brian Perez with a nine-under par 279. The 32-year-old South Carolina native shot 67 in each of the last two rounds and enters The Players Championship as the No. 1 player in the world.

However, Johnson finished tied for 28th in last year’s event and was not in the top 30 in his previous seven appearances there.

Defending champion Jason Day has struggled this year on the PGA Tour, which is the main reason he is the +2200 eighth choice on The Players Championship odds to win back-to-back titles at Sawgrass.

Day’s best finish in 2017 is fifth at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am back in February. He has not teed off in a tournament since finishing 22nd at the Masters, which followed 23rd and 64th places at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Genesis Open, respectively.

Last year, Day tied a course record with an opening-round 63 at Sawgrass and finished 15 under.

In between Johnson and Day are six golfers listed between +1000 and +2000 to win The Players Championship. Rory McIlroy is the +1000 second choice, followed by Jordan Spieth (+1400), Sergio Garcia (+1800), Hideki Matsuyama (+2000), Jon Rahm (+2000) and Rickie Fowler (+2000).

Of that group, only Garcia and Fowler have previously won the tournament, with the latter doing so two years ago.

Garcia is coming off his first major victory at the Masters in April when he edged Justin Rose in a playoff. The 37-year-old Spaniard also won The Players Championship in 2008, beating Paul Goydos in a playoff then as well.

McIlroy does not have the greatest history in the event, missing the cut three times (2009, 2010 and 2012) and skipping it altogether in 2011. Since then, the 28-year-old Irishman has finished eighth (2013), sixth (2014), eighth (2015) and 12th (2016).