BMW Championship 2024 First-Round Leader Tips: Picks from 40/1 to 55/1

• 40/141.00 Will Zalatoris was 12th last week and has FRL form in Colorado

• 40/141.00 Robert MacIntyre has FRL form and likes Nicklaus courses

• 55/156.00 Thomas Detry has made his mark early in big events

Weather forecast for Thursday

It looks like a troublesome forecast for day one.

Predictions show the possibility of scattered showers and thunderstorms with winds getting up to 15mph.

Therefore, it's hard to base anything on tee-times given the uncertainty. At least a field of just 50 limits the possibility of a being on a certain side of the draw.

Will Zalatoris @ 40/141.00

Will Zalatoris returned to form with a 12th place in last week's St. Jude Championship and said he'd felt relief after a poor patch since ninth at the US Masters.

"I've busted my tail for three or four months and haven't gotten much out of it," he said after round three in Tennessee.

And yet despite a miserable run, he had made a couple of fast starts.

The American opened with a 64 to sit second after 18 holes of June's Travelers Championship while he was fourth after day one of the Rocket Mortgage Classic a week later thanks to a 66.

Club selection is tricky this week due to altitude but it seems Zalatoris is quick to adjust.

He's played two previous (Korn Ferry) events in Colorado which is 6,000 feet above sea level, and in the first he was second after the opening lap and in the other, the 2020 TPC Colorado Championship, he posted the first-round lead before claiming a wire-to-wire win.

There are some promising angles for a punt at 40/141.00.

Robert MacIntyre @ 40/141.00

It's been a breakthrough year for Robert MacIntyre and, in truth, a fairytale one given that his Dad was on the bag for his Canadian Open win before he added a second PGA Tour title by capturing the Scottish Open in front of his home fans.

MacIntyre is now 12th in the FedEx Cup standings and kept the good times rolling with seventh place in the St. Jude Championship last week.

He opened with a 67 there while rewind a few months and he had first-round positions of 1st (Myrtle Beach Classic), 5th (US PGA) and 4th (Canadian Open) in the space of four starts.

The middle of those came at Valhalla, another Nicklaus design, which bodes well and a further delve shows that the Scot has three top eights in his last four starts on Jack's courses.

All were on Bentgrass greens and he faces those surfaces here.

MacIntyre is having a blast and can hopefully freewheel his way to another fast start here.

Thomas Detry @ 55/156.00

We have recent form on Nicklaus designs to look at given that the Golden Bear was the man behind Valhalla (US PGA) and Muirfield Village (Memorial).

At the former, Thomas Detry was fifth after 18 holes thanks to a 66 before finishing fourth and he's since ended day one in ninth at the US Open and third at the Scottish Open following a 64.

Last week's 46th at St. Jude doesn't look much but Detry gave himself a nice send-off for this event by closing with a 65.

A first-round leader at Pebble Beach earlier this year, he's worth a bet at 55s with just 49 rivals up against him.

Check out more golf previews on Betting.Betfair.com