Carver endorsed Daniel Berger for a Top-10 at +240. Berger owns a win and three additional top-20s at Colonial, thrives on shorter positional layouts, and looked fully healthy with a T-13 at Valhalla where he gained 6.1 strokes on approach. That iron form coupled with elite history makes the plus-money tag attractive in placement markets that exclude Scheffler’s outright dominance.

Carver prefers betting Scheffler as an 11-1 first-round leader instead of swallowing the +240 outright. He argued Scheffler has opened hot in Texas all spring—gaining at least 4 strokes tee-to-green in Thursday rounds at both the Houston Open and Masters—and Colonial’s soft early conditions favor early wave scoring. By targeting FRL, bettors capture six-times the outright price while avoiding weekend variance.

Carver highlighted Eric Cole at 100-1 as a perfect Colonial play. He emphasized Cole’s combination of fairway-finding (21st in driving accuracy) and elite wedge work inside 150 yards (3rd in proximity from 125-150 over the past 50 rounds). Those traits mirror previous winners like Kevin Kisner and Daniel Berger. Carver added that putting on bentgrass is Cole’s best surface, so any spike week with the flat stick could cash a triple-digit outright or high-end placement ticket.

Carver called Akshay Bhatia’s 70-1 outright number "crazy" for Colonial, arguing his elite iron play (5th in SG: Approach over the last 24 rounds) should not be listed below several journeymen. While Bhatia lacks course history, Colonial traditionally rewards high-spin wedge players—exactly Bhatia’s strength. Carver believes the pricing gap is driven by one missed cut rather than Bhatia’s overall form, making him a buy for outright tickets or the ‘without Scheffler’ market.

Mike Carver said Si Woo Kim is worth an outright stab at 40-1 because the South Korean’s tee-to-green game has been dialed in for weeks. Carver noted Kim keeps putting himself on leaderboards—ranking top-25 in SG: Approach in three of his last four starts—yet has not pieced together four clean rounds. Colonial rewards precision more than length, which matches Kim’s profile (12th on Tour in driving accuracy). Carver thinks a field weakened by Scheffler’s dominance creates a perfect window for Kim to finally close.