New York bettor chasing $442,000 on longshot at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba

A single New York bettor stands to profit as much as $442,000 if one of his notable longshot wagers pays off at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba.

While the field in Mexico boasts the likes of world No.2 Scottie Scheffler (+900), three-peat seeker Viktor Hovland (+1100) and two-time major winner Collin Morikawa (+1600), it is a quintet of players further down the board that has one New Yorker excited ahead of Thursday’s opening round at El Camaleon Golf Club.

Five separate bets of $2,000 have been placed at the BetMGM Sportsbook on Tom Hoge, Matt Kuchar, Kevin Yu, Brandon Wu and Danny Lee to win the tournament.

A Hoge victory would win $60,000 while a Kuchar victory would bring $100,000. A Yu win nets $180,000 and a Wu trophy-earning week would bring a $200,000 payday. If New Zealand’s Lee wins the return would be $450,000. The $8,000 outlay on the other players would need to be deducted from any win.

Hoge tied for third at El Camaleon two years ago and has started the new season with four straight top-15 finishes. The 2021 champion at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am currently sits 15th in the FedExCup after a career-high 10th place finish last season. He sits fifth in Rob Bolton’s Power Rankings this week.

Kuchar is a former champion at Mayakoba (2018) and is perfect for making the cut in six career trips. The nine-time PGA TOUR winner last saluted in January of 2019 but had a runner-up and T3 last season and has started the new season with two top 30s. He is featured as a ‘draw’ in Bolton’sDraws and Fades this week.

Yu sits fourth in Bolton’s latest Rookie Ranking thanks to his tie for third at last week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship. After missing the cut in the season-opening Fortinet Championship Yu has posted results of T19-T37-T3 as he chases a maiden PGA TOUR win.

Wu is in the midst of his sophomore TOUR season after a respectable 82nd in last season’s FedExCup. Given he missed nine of his first 10 cuts last year it was an impressive turnaround highlighted by a T3 in the Puerto Rico Open and a T2 at the Mexico Open at Vidanta.

Lee, a former U.S. Amateur winner with one TOUR win in 2015, has a good record at Mayakoba. As Mike Glasscott points out in Horses for Courses, Lee has made four straight cuts at the event and six of eight in his career with a T26 his worst result when making the weekend. The 32-year-old was runner-up against Kuchar in 2018 and held the first-round lead in 2019. He was T7 at the event a year ago.

Wednesday has seen significant line movement at the higher end of the board with Scheffler moving from +1000 to +900 as the outright favorite. He was T4 a year ago and can reclaim world No.1 status from Rory McIlroy with a win or solo second finish.

Hovland, who looks to join Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker and Stuart Appleby as the only players in the last 40 years to win the same event three straight seasons, has eased in the market from +1000 to +1100. Morikawa, in his first visit to Mayakoba, is popular with BetMGM bettors, coming from +1800 to +1600. He has the second-highest handle at 8.1% and is third in ticket percentage at 6.7%.

As of Wednesday morning, the highest ticket percentages belong to Tony Finau (8.6%) and Emiliano Grillo (8.0%). Finau has moved from +2000 to +1800 and holds the highest handle at 10.8%. Grillo has come in from +4000 to +3300. The pair represent the biggest liabilities to BetMGM.

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