BMW Championship Each-Way Tips: 25/1, 33/1 and 66/1 picks in Illinois

• 25/126.00 Max Homa has progressive form figures

• 33/134.00 Russell Henley is another form horse

• 66/167.00 Emiliano Grillo won recently and has strong stats

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The Playoffs continue at Olympia Fields near Chicago this week with 50 players left standing after the field was whittled down from 70 in the opening leg at TPC Southwind.

Another 20 will fall by the wayside this week, leaving the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings to fight it out for megabucks in the Tour Championship at East Lake.

Thankfully, we landed the winner of last week's FedEx St. Jude Championship as 66/167.00 Lucas Glover ousted Patrick Cantlay in a playoff.

Glover - he couldn't could he?! - is 33/134.00 to pull of an astonishing treble after his back-to-back successes at the Wyndham Championship and St. Jude while Cantlay is chasing a hat-trick of his own.

This event was played at Wilmington in Delaware in 2022 and at Caves Valley in Maryland in 2021. Cantlay won them both, edging out our 100/1101.00 Scott Stallings by a shot 12 months ago and Bryson DeChambeau in a playoff the previous year.

Cantlay won that 2021 edition with 27-under, a staggering 23 shots lower than the winning total here at Olympia Fields in 2020.

Both Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson dug deep to shoot that number, the Spaniard eventually getting it done in a playoff after holing a 66-foot putt.

Olympia Fields looks tough for scoring as soon as you see the combination of par (70) and yardage (7,366).

Only five players broke par in that 2020 event - Joaquin Niemann, Hideki Matsuyama and Tony Finau were the other three - and it would have been even fewer but for the course being watered and the wind dying down on the final day.

Going a little further back, Jim Furyk (a 33/134.00 shot) won the US Open at Olympia Fields in 2003 with 8-under.

Furyk was having a cracking season with two top fives in his previous three events and he'd go on to win four starts later.

As for last year's play-off protagonists here, DJ had finished first and second in his previous two events while Rahm had landed the previous month's Memorial Tournament and placed sixth at the Northern Trust a week earlier.

Both Rahm and Johnson ranked in the top 10 for SG: Off The Tee, Approach, Tee To Green and Putting that week.

Coming in with good form seems like a major plus here, as does doing just about everything well.

Max Homa @ 25/126.00

After a sticky spell and some more disappointment in the US-based Majors, Max Homa has run in to form again.

Indeed, he's improved his finish in each of his last four tournaments, that sequence reading: MC-21-12-10-6.

The 10th place came in the Open Championship at Hoylake - not exactly the story of the week but his first top 10 in 17 Majors - and, clearly taking confidence from that, Homa cracked the top six in last week's FedEx St. Jude Championship.

As with the Scottish Open (T12), that came on a par 70 while he ranked in the top five for Strokes Gained: Off The Tee for the second tournament running (other was Hoylake) and 10th for SG: Tee To Green last week at TPC Southwind.

Homa starts the week ranked 6th in the FedEx Cup standings so 25/126.00 seems a fair enough price given his form and ability to win.

The greens this week are Bentgrass-Poa and that should work in his favour too.

Looking at Homa's record, the last five of his PGA Tour triumphs have come on courses with one or both of those grass types and let's remind ourselves that he's posted four victories over the last two seasons and two in the current campaign.

"I feel good about my golf swing," said Homa after round three at TPC Southwind last week and winding back to last year he's now finished sixth (St. Jude) and third (2022 Tour Championship) in the two most recent Playoff events.

I honestly believe that first top 10 in a Major could be a springboard for a huge end to the season. Hopefully it starts here.

Russell Henley @ 33/134.00

In terms of recent form, Russell Henley comes high on the list after following up his near-miss second place at the Wyndham Championship with tied sixth at the FedEx St. Jude.

His round scores across those two events: 62-66-65-69-67-68-67-67.

Last week's top six put him 15th in the FedEx Cup standings and secured a first visit to the season-ending Tour Championship in six years.

In all the numbers that fly around at this time of year, that simple stat will mean an awful lot to the American.

Henley was leading the Wyndham Championship with three holes to play before finishing with a trio of bogeys but last week's performance suggests it hasn't haunted him.

It might have done a year or so ago given his loss of the winning feeling but the 34-year-old ended a drought with victory at the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico earlier this season.

The combination of that victory and making East Lake should free him up here and his stats look ideal for a tough test.

Henley has ranked 7th (St. Jude) and 13th (Wyndham) for Driving Accuracy in his last two events while he ranked 19th and 1st for SG: Putting respectively.

In fact, he was in positive figures for all the Strokes Gained categories in both events and ranked 6th for Approach in round four at TPC Southwind on Sunday.

Finally, Henley has a good record in Illinois and is a former John Deere runner-up (2019).

He played here at Olympia Fields in 2020 and was 12th with a round to go after shooting 69-70 over the middle two rounds (third best in the field over Friday/Saturday) before finishing 23rd.

With plenty to like, I'll take Henley at 33/134.00.

Emiliano Grillo @ 66/167.00

My best hope of repeating last week's 66/167.00 win has to be Emiliano Grillo.

It's back to that form argument again and the Argentine isn't short of that.

Like Homa and Henley, he's a winner this season and a recent one in fact following his play-off success over Adam Schenk in May's Charles Schwab Challenge.

That was achieved with just 8-under which bodes well for a tough test like this.

Grillo had a little dip after that but he's found his rhythm again over the last month or so.

At Hoylake, his sixth place represented a best-ever finish in the Majors and he followed that strong Open performance with 10th in the 3M Open.

Last week he was third at the halfway mark of the FedEx St. Jude Championship and sixth with a round to go. A closing 71 saw him slip away to 20th.

He's ranked in the top 15 for SG: Approach in six of his last 11 events while Grillo's short game stats have improved dramatically in recent times.

It's not quite a Glover-esque transformation with the putter but he's come a long way since losing nearly 10 strokes on the greens at Bay Hill.

Across his last three events, Grillo has ranked 22nd or better for Strokes Gained: Putting so the flatstick has become an asset not a hindrance.

A runner-up on his penultimate start in Illinois (2022 John Deere Classic), Grillo enters the week at 23rd in the FedEx Cup standings so in a good place to reach East Lake.

Back him each-way at 66/167.00 - 1/5 odds, 6 places this week given that just 50 go to post.