Golf best bets: Dougherty's outright picks for Paris Olympics

There isn't a PGA Tour event on the schedule this week, but that's because many of the best players in the world will be teeing it up in Paris for the Olympics. The men's golf competition will be held at Le Golf National, which recently hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018 and hosts the Open De France on the DP World Tour every year.

Le Golf National is a shorter course with tight fairways and water hazards lurking on most holes. This isn't a course that can be overpowered by the longer hitters. You need to be extremely accurate off the tee and with your irons to stay out of trouble, even if that means taking less than driver on a handful of holes.

With that in mind, here's how we're betting the outright market at the Paris Olympics.

Scottie Scheffler to win (+400 Bet365 )

We can already hear the boos reverberating from your laptops and phones, and we don't blame you one bit. The last time we took a swing on Scheffler in the outright market, he barely made the cut at the U.S. Open and finished T41. This is much different.

The men's golf competition features only 60 players, and at least 20 of them have no chance of winning the gold medal. So, that leaves us with about 40 contenders, and Scheffler is the same price he was at the U.S. Open in a field four times the size. Let's see how the World No. 1 has fared in limited fields this year, shall we?

Scheffler has made five starts this season in fields with 73 players or fewer. Here's how he finished in those five starts: T10, win, win, win, win. That's four straight victories in limited-field events. This is a perfect golf course for Scheffler due to his ball-striking prowess. It may not be an exciting outright price, but it truly should be lower.

Winner without Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele: Tommy Fleetwood (+1400 FanDuel )

We only have room for Scheffler on our outright card, but we can squeeze in Fleetwood in this market and possibly get both wagers to the window.

Fleetwood absolutely loves this golf course. He won the Open De France at Le Golf National in 2017. The following year, he led Team Europe to a dominant Ryder Cup victory with four points and a 4-1-0 record. Fleetwood's greatest strengths are his accuracy off the tee and his iron play, making him a perfect fit for Le Golf National.

We don't trust Fleetwood to beat the best players in the world at 22-1, but we love him at 14-1 when you take out the top four contenders for the gold medal.