Will the real Bryson DeChambeau please stand up?

Is it the swashbuckling, shot-making media darling who’s finished second and first in the past two major championships? Or is it the player who’s barely been a factor in LIV Golf tournaments this season? And is it at all reasonable to expect that the now two-time U.S. Open winner will maintain his Pinehurst form at a breezy, 54-holes-in-shorts LIV tournament set for this weekend in Nashville, Tenn.?

For sports bettors, these are all very legitimate questions heading into LIV Nashville, set to tee off Friday at The Grove, a course that for the past three seasons had hosted an event on the Korn Ferry Tour, the PGA’s Triple-A circuit. DeChambeau has been a whirlwind in the majors this season, finishing T6 at the Masters and runner-up at the PGA Championship before his up-and-down for the ages netted his second U.S. Open crown. And then there are his results in his last three LIV starts: T18, T27, T26.

Of course, none of that prevented DeChambeau from opening as odds favorite at LIV Nashville, even though his most recent top-10 on the circuit was in early April. DeChambeau could may well be one of those players (like his fellow LIV-mate Broos Koepka) who gets better as the course gets harder, yet struggles to stand out in a target-rich environment where everyone’s posting red numbers. And there should be lots of red numbers at The Grove, where last season’s Korn Ferry winner finished at 17-under-par. 

LIV Golf Nashville Odds

Odds as of June 19

LIV Golf Nashville Best Bets

Sergio Garcia to Win +1650

Garcia hasn’t won anywhere since claiming the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship in 2020. Since joining the LIV tour, though, the Spaniard has shown hints that he’s capable of snapping that skid. Garcia has lost three LIV events in playoffs, two of them this season, the most recent in April when he fell to Dean Burmester on the second extra hole in Miami. But more importantly, Garcia has been very competitive his last two times out—he finished fifth in the LIV event in Singapore, and then opened with a 69 on his way to a T12 at the U.S. Open.  

Joaquin Niemann Top-5 Finish (+180)

The steadiest player all season in LIV Golf hit his first real speedbump in the form of a final-round 77 in the circuit’s most recent tournament in Houston. It was completely out of character for Niemann, who had opened with a 67 and 69 before tumbling to a season-worst finish of T32. Given that Niemann had finished ninth or better in five consecutive LIV events heading to Texas—and had reeled off eight straight rounds in the 60s before his double-hockey-stick—we’re writing off that Houston finish as an aberration.

Brooks Koepka Top-10 Finish (-110)

The majors haven’t been kind to Koepka this season, and the U.S. Open was no exception—a second-round 75 knocked him out of the running and sent him to a T26 finish, the same place he wound up in the PGA Championship. His recent LIV results, though, have been excellent: T9 in Adelaide, win in Singapore, T9 in Houston. Koepka is capable of going really low wherever LIV plays, as evidenced by his final-round 65 in Houston and a 64 in Singapore. This is supposed to be the guy who thrives when the courses get tougher, but he’s proving he can take advantage of more accommodating setups as well.

LIV Golf Nashville Betting Tips

Despite all the big names that LIV Golf lured away from the PGA Tour, the circuit’s event winners have largely been second-tier players—Niemann, Abraham Ancer, Burmester, Brendan Steele, Carlos Ortiz. DeChambeau has yet to win on LIV in 2024. Koepka and Dustin Johnson have won just once each. Jon Rahm has yet to win despite seven straight top-10s, and who knows how he’ll play this week given he’s coming off a foot injury that caused him to miss LIV Houston and the U.S. Open.

And outside of Rahm and Niemann, it’s tough to find any LIV players who have shown legitimate week-to-week consistency. Koepka, with three straight LIV top-10s, it about as good as it gets. Adrian Meronk has been top-10 in two straight LIV tournaments, falling to Ortiz in a playoff in Houston. Beyond that, you have a lot of guys like Mito Pereira: eighth one week, a tie for 47th the next.

All this to say that past results can be a mixed bag to sports bettors trying to parse these LIV Golf fields. Ortiz went T14, T22 and T19 before his win in Houston. Steele had finishes ranging from T18 to T53 before his shocker in Adelaide. Ancer went T28, T21 and T12 before winning in Hong Kong. Maybe that’s all due to the layoff between LIV tournaments, maybe due to the team concept that brings out the best in certain players at certain times. Or maybe these LIV course setups are so conducive to scoring that all it takes is the right guy getting hot at the right time.

There’s nobody hotter this week than DeChambeau, who’ll be landing in Nashville on the heels of a whirlwind media tour that followed his epic U.S. Open victory. A letdown almost seems inevitable—but then again, DeChambeau has certainly surprised before. Just ask Rory McIlroy about that.