WGC-Bridgestone Invitational betting preview: Louis Oosthuizen to shine

Ben Coley casts his eye over the field for this week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Ohio, where he tips South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen to impress.

The stars are out in force for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, played as ever at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.

The South Course on which the event is played is a classical monster, redesigned by Robert Trent Jones in 1960 and now playing to a phenomenal 7,400 yards despite being a par-70 with just two par-fives, one of which tends to be out of reach even for the longest hitters in the game.

Yet thanks to pure greens and a field of abundant quality, winning totals remain low with the absent Rory McIlroy registering 15-under-par last year, just as the absent Tiger Woods had done in 2013.

Live World Golf Championship

I've long felt that this course favours in particular those who drive the ball well and perhaps that's the biggest cause for optimism among those who wish to oppose the 5/1 favourite, Jordan Spieth.

The world No 2, who will pass Rory at some stage unless the current top dog finds a quicker-than-expected return to fitness, has made giant strides throughout the bag but if there is a chink in the armour it's that he's not particularly long, nor particularly accurate.

Certainly, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson can boast superior skills from the tee box and they take their places behind Spieth in the market. Of the trio, Day looks the most appealing option having coming a long way since his finishing fourth here in 2011. At 14/1 he looks fairly priced and is only narrowly opposed.

Instead, though, I'll start my selections with Louis Oosthuizen at more than twice the price. One wonders just how many titles the South African would now have were it not for the fact that he's been plagued by injuries since winning the Open Championship five years ago, a feat he so very nearly repeated at St Andrews last month.

Certainly, Oosthuizen hasn't been able to truly fulfil his potential and in the main his successes have come in low-grade company, but few can match his close-calls in major championships with a brace of seconds this season as well as one at Augusta in 2012.

Already in 2015 he's produced a pair of top-six finishes in the two World Golf Championship events he's taken part in so if we isolate just the biggest and best events, his record is second only to that of Spieth in terms of consistency.

Here at Firestone, Oosthuizen has two top-10 finishes from four visits including fourth place behind Bradley in 2012, so it's a course which suits his eye. After doing very little wrong at St Andrews last time and being a player who is accustomed to producing on the back of a break, he rates a solid each-way bet at the odds.

It's hard to envisage much of an upset here, certainly nothing to rival that of Troy Merritt's 250/1 success last week, but Billy Horschel is one of those who could from beyond the front of the market.

Horschel made his debut here in 2013 and will be returning for the first time since closing with a sublime round of 66, a score nobody bettered and an obvious indication that the South Course is to his liking.

As with Oosthuizen, that certainly makes sense given that Horschel ranks among the best on the PGA Tour when it comes to total driving and while it was a predictably slow start to the season after last September's FedEx Cup heroics, recent signs are that his game is right back where he wants it.

Keegan Bradley just has to go into the staking plan for the third year in succession, having finished second as a 40/1 shot in 2013 and having claimed fourth spot behind a rampart McIlroy last year.

While the absence of Woods can hardly be used as a positive at the moment, that McIlroy isn't in the field one year on from that fourth place is enough to suggest that Bradley is the wrong price at 45/1 having only enhanced his already outstanding course record. Returning here to Firestone and with his driving statistics as good as they've ever been, I expect Bradley to up his game and once again stick around at the top-end of the leaderboard.

Finally, it’s worth being seriously tempted by both Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose, both of whom are quoted at 16/1. It could be significant that while the best players in the world have had their feet up for a week or two, Fowler and Rose got the competitive juices flowing at a not-dissimilar course last week in the Quicken Loans National.

Both showed flashes of their best but just lost momentum at crucial times and had to settle for places behind Merritt, who Fowler in particular will have been happy to see win given that they're close friends.

Fowler's record the week before a major has long been outstanding and now includes a win in the Scottish Open, while it seems he's become one of the best back-nine operators in the sport over the last six months. Remarkably, he remains outside the Presidents Cup top-10 and while he'll get a pick whatever happens between now and selection time, personal pride will ensure that he gives his all to qualify automatically.

Rose meanwhile has four top-five finishes here including in two of the last three years and his driving was breathtaking at times last week. He'll relish this more demanding test and anything resembling a positive week with the putter will surely see him contend at the business end of the tournament.

Watch the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational live throughout the week on Sky Sports 4 - your home of golf