Action Network contributors and golf betting experts Robert Arguello, and Spencer Aguiar discuss their favorite golf bets for this year’s Charles Schwab Challenge on the Links and Locks podcast presented by bet365. Click here for more golf picks: bit.ly/GolfAction
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00:00 – Intro
01:12 – Best Bets
07:44 – Course Preview
18:59 – Outright Bets
27:11 – Placement Market
36:07 – One and Done
45:30 – Bet365 Promo
46:21 – Rapid Fire
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hello you beautiful degenerates and welcome to links and locks the action Network’s golf betting podcast presented by bet 365 this is your 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge tournament betting preview alongside Spencer agar you can find him on Twitter at tof sports I’m Roberto aruo and you can find me on Twitter or X Roberto a213 this is the Charles Schwab challenge the fourth and final stop on the PGA tour in the Lone Star State at historic Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth Texas fewer than 24 hours after this tournament concluded last year Gil Hance and Jim Wagner started their restoration renovation project he’ll both turn thrown around this week a lot they’re trying to make the course looked like it did back in 1941 when it hosted the US Open we’ll jump into how we’re handicapping that in a few moments I won’t be betting this week since I am on PJ tour Liv’s featured holes stream so be sure to tune in to J Townsen and me on that stream all week long cover the new part 3es and I think the number eight toll is going to be a lot of fun this year that changed it up so I’m not betting this week which means Spencer you’re our lone handicapper this week because Nick is out what is your best bet for the 2024 Charles Schwab challenge so I grabbed this on Monday atus 115 it did very quickly jump to minus 135 has now fallen back into this minus10 range if you f if you shop around but I will go with sep straa minus 120 over Taylor Moore all right so Spencer Knows I’m not betting this week I can’t bet on Taylor Moore We bet on him last week he was one shot away from cashing our top 10 I believe that was 16 to1 he did cash the top 20 we had it at six to1 so profitable week backing Taylor Mo also had him out right at 280 but Spencer is turning on him Spencer’s had a great feel for a few golfers this year and notably in our best bet segment you had you had Shane Lowry four weeks ago to win at the classic New Orleans he won then you faded him in his next start he missed the cut badly then you back in last week and he’s in contention until the final 15 holes so Spencer’s got a lock on some of these guys you’re going to want to listen to his cap what is the reason why you’re fading Taylor Moore this week coming off of a strong strong performance at the PGA I think it kind of goes to the the general assessment that you just talked about a little bit there’s an overcorrection that hits the market in a lot of these spots and I think with Taylor Moore there’s undoubtedly a boosted stock in his profile he’s made 18 consecutive Cuts if you date it back to last year’s Open Championship you’re going to see any of those returns pop heavily inside a safety model which a lot of that does directly correlate to at least some extent with head-to-head matchups however here’s the key to this I think that those results have ignored this two-part problem that Moore possesses this week for Colonial Country Club specifically I’m probably more willing to ignore his back-to-back miscuts at the property over the last two years you do get this recent onslaught of maid weekends that’s going to demonstrate that he’s a much safer golfer than we’ve probably gotten during any of those events here’s the problem though I’m not willing to overlook this statistical profile that doubles down on why Moore has struggled at this course in the past he ranked 94th for me when running the data over a 2-year perspective to fit this week’s venue that was highlighted by some extremely low end marks that placed them 93rd in weighted Strokes gain total 102nd when taking on courses in Texas 95th for weighted scoring and then 108th for what was probably my favorite category that I built this week there was a lot that went into it I labeled it in my model as weighted approach plus weighted put putting plus G percentage we’ll get into that a little bit more when I talk about the course breakdown here in a second but you know my model believes he loses a lot of that recent driving Acumen that has spiked him up these boards and then the key to this whole thing for me which is why I think he has struggled here in the past the putter experiences a negative downturn when we put them on similar green complexes there has been that renovation that we’ve talked about we’ll talk about that in a second of I if that changes this in any which way with the greens being a little bit redone and we’ll we’ll talk about that but 122nd place for me in Strokes gain putting on average to fast screens we talked a little bit before and we were we were having this this discussion about Scotty where I think there are certain players that are going to see a spike in production for that reason my model seems to be going the opposite way here with Taylor Moore so at least according to my model in this spot Moore is getting a lot of the benefit from these recent results that he’s had but I’m not so sure that it’s baking in the statistical profile that I do have concerns about and it just so happens in this spot and you know specifically here against sep straa straa is one of my favorite values on the board but e even if you shop around like I thought Tom Kim presented value that you could consider there’s a lot of different ways that you can take on this Taylor more profile for a golfer that just seems to be a little bit overvalued for me this week yeah you’re mostly focusing on why you’re fading Taylor more I think sep straa has a really high Baseline this week with the Run of approach play he’s had over the last four consecutive tournaments with data and then he also mixed in a TI for 11th in a tournament without data in this Twan Zer classic of New Orleans he’s been Saka has been hitting the lights out uh with his irons and he’s a completely different driver of the golf ball which is something we don’t often see on matchups against each other where Moore has been this golfer who’s been extremely long off the te around 15 yards over the average driving distance in the field over the last month in his competition whereas staka has been a fairway finder above average driving accuracy every week but around average distance if not a little bit below average most more often than not so very different types of golfers and both have upside and I think if you look at Taylor Moore’s success this year it’s come on golf courses where he’s able to use that driver as a weapon like he was last week whereas sep straa can go really low on these courses that are a little bit more positional although we do know Taylor Moore We cashed him last year when he won at the V barar he can do well on these positional golf courses as well so I’m intrigued to see how he does this week in this matchup whether you get him on whether you fade him with SE straa or with Tom Kim yeah just just very quickly I just want to just say one thing about that because I didn’t talk about the straa part of it and there were nine golfers I ran six statistical categories this week that attached the major all of my uh metrics that I was going to run outside of the course history in the current form there were nine golfers in this field that graded inside of the top 60 for me in every single category that I ran stco was one of those names that fit into that mix so I I agree with you more loses that driving Acumen that he’s gotten recently to propel him up the board he also gets that diminished nature with his putter that I was talking about and it just so happens to pair against the golfer in my sheet that has one of the safest floors one of the best Baseline results and a ball striking return that we’ve gotten over the past couple months that is really staggering in some of these performances that he’s been able to put together with both the driver and the irons yeah I think that if his short game had been a little better recently you would have seen him in contention and you wouldn’t be getting his price on SE St I agree we’ve noted the changes at Colonial Spencer I’ll give you the first shot at breaking down how you are modeling Colonial Country Club this weekend there’s going to be a lot of discussion like it was the very first thing that you talked about but the impact of Gil hans’s restoration of Colonial Country Club is going to be what everybody wants to talk about over 20 million doll was invested in the property to try to return it to its original design I think you’re going to get two separate viewpoints on exactly how much influence that factor is going to have compared to past iterations of this contest my model seems to believe that this is a glorified pit and pitch and Putt contest that’s going to somehow remove high-end birdie making Potential from the equation as you know Roberto that’s an extremely weird answer to give since you typically attach The Narrative of a short course being more straightforward in nature however I think this is the key to the whole equation Here length doesn’t necessarily make a venue problematic we see that with the track consistently grading as one of the more challenging stops yearly you get Treeline Fairways and forc layups that are going to begin the sty second shots if drives go Wayward off the te I thought the most interesting return from that sentiment is that distance was completely eradicated from the equation in my model when I ran it from past results uh the dispersion of scoring delivered over a 3% decrease in off the expectation um accuracy is going to matter here but even just in that grand scheme of off the tea data like I would rather have a golfer that’s accurate there is a 0.25 shot increase in accuracy over distance it’s more noteworthy than it may sound but I think the entire encapsulation of the off the data isn’t necessarily as important as you would normally get and it’s the least amount of weight that I’ve attached inside of my model for pretty much the entire year of any single uh model that I’ve put out there so you get these smaller than average greens you’re going to get the Field’s performance with a putter that’s going to be deemed noteworthy because uh there are these isolated distributions from specific distances that are going to render over a 6% increase in hold putts from 10 to 25 feet that’s also accompanied by a very complicated return because it contradicts what I’m trying to say there with over a 4% inspected increase for strokes gain approach essentially what that means to simpli y that and this is where it becomes convoluted in my eyes irons aren’t being hit as close to the pin as an average tour stop yet the approach metrics still demand quality production to find success so I think that’s where we need to try to figure out what the reason is for that my takeaway which is why I added it so frequently in my model is I believe hitting a green in regulation is going to outweigh everything else to yield such a projection I think that partially helps to explain why we’ve had an average winning score of just under 12 or just yes just under 12 underpar over the past five years but Roberto like this is going to come down to how much does H’s construction these new 007x Bentgrass greens like maybe you can talk a little bit about those and uh tell me what your thoughts about there that sounds like something straight out of a James Bond movie to me but uh I didn’t really feel the need to alter my model substantially compared to past iterations I think one if you’re altering it at least to the extreme end of the equation there you’re doing so and really playing a guessing game of why that is and I never want to extrapolate out numbers by guessing I I always want there to be a statistically backed and a data infused reason behind what I’m doing and really no matter how I viewed this course it always went back to be able to find a fair way to start like I think that’s just like a very natural thing there and it’s going to work for everybody with the way that this course is set up unless you’re just completely ertic off the tea but then I also want the ability can you hit a green in regulation with your iron and then can you make a putt once you get on the green and that’s kind of that two-step process there is really what my model was trying to find and that’s why that category that I keep talking about of the weighted proximity plus weighted putting plus G percentage was so heavy for me this week it’s going to be the key indicator of the players that can actually produce a score because this this is not a birdie Fest from what we’ve seen in past years and and I don’t necessarily have the belief that it’s going to be that this season either I don’t think it’s gonna be a birdie Fest at all one of the thing that contributes to that is that there are only two par fives this week whereas I think pretty much every week on tour we’ve seen at least three if I can recall um at least among the courses that have four rounds on them on the PJ tour to this point in the season a couple things that I am looking at uh so just in case you haven’t heard there’s a redesign done by Gil Hance and Jim Wagner so they completely ripped up the golf course normally this would take 18 months to completely renovate it but it took 11 months so that they could get it ready in time for this tournament because this tournament has been played every single year on the PJ tour since 1946 which is the longest active streak of any course other than the Masters on the PJ tour um it’s got all new grass all new irrigation all new drainage hydraulic cooling system for the greens so that they can survive bent grass in the Texas heat Colonial back in 1936 when it was founded was the first golf course in the state of Texas with Bentgrass that was a point of emphasis for Club founder Marvin Leonard and it’s still an emphasis to this day and then there are more so in 2008 there was a renovation by Keith Foster that wasn’t a full renovation that didn’t quite restore the course back to its roots when it hosted the 1941 US Open so the membership as early as 2016 wanted to get Gil Hance on this project and because of supply chain issues following covid-19 in 2020 they really hadn’t had the ability to get the renovation done in the 11 months they needed to in order to have the tournament the following year as well without delaying that so uh they enlisted Gil Hance in order to bring the course back to its original design and vision got rid of a lot of the stone that you’d seen on the course throughout the last few years it’s a more rugged terrain that looks more like the area in the surrounding Fort Worth and in the Texas region a couple of things that I’m going to watch out for this week which I think will be a key part in handicapping who wins a tournament and maybe you can incorporate this into your analysis if you’re doing matchup bets throughout the tournament or live outrights or you want to bet on Sunday afternoon firm greens because they’re brand new green complexes a couple weeks ago we saw at Quail Hollow brand new greens and people were saying in lead up to the event that Brian Harman could stand on the green the ball would bounce over him after t- shots on most part threes The Firm greens make a huge difference I think that was why it made two weeks ago at Quail Hollow a lot more interesting than or a lot more challenging than last week at the much softer uh golf course in Louisville and additionally to the fast to the firm greens the bunkers are we going to play very different historically the bunkers at Colonial have been the easiest on the entire PGA Tour it’s important because a lot of these bunkers are just on the bottom side of the green um approaching the green and so you’re hitting uphill bunker shots from absolutely perfect sand perfect lies going uphill that’s relatively easy for PJ tour Pros they’ve changed both how greens on most holes on the golf course before the renovation were elevated a couple yards at least so you’re hitting an uphill second shot throughout and if you don’t hit the green it’s going to fall off somewhere either on the back which is an absolute no-go on this golf course previously or you’ll miss in the bunker and the bunker is not super penal so you just keep the ball below the hole you don’t necessarily need to be as aggressive on some of those second shots now the bunkers are going to be a little bit different they’re not going to be as cookie cut oval perfect grass they’re going to have some weird little green islands of grass in the middle of them so you can potentially get some weird lies I hope we see some some of those and they’re going to be flatter Greens in relation to the Fairway which is kind of part of that bunker issue as well so I’m going to look at Bunker play this week I think that’s going to be a little bit different I think that because the greens aren’t elevated it means that when you were previously stymy in the woods it was really tough to run it up because you have that uphill aspect to it now it’s a little bit splatter so you can roll it up a little bit easier and there are also some bunkers I think 20 of them that have been removed so one of the part 3es is the fourth hole it’s ridiculously long like 245 yards now you can land it short and roll it up a little bit so I think that that hole is going to be a little bit easier uh 345 is the horrible horseshoe you got a par four dog leg left where you’ve really got to hit the Fairway then you got that 240 yard par three and then you’ve got what I think is one of the best golf Halls on the PJ tour and I think by far the best golf ball on this course which par for fifth hole it’s not obnoxiously long but you’ve got to hit a perfect shot in there on this dog leg right where the Trinity rivers on the right and they’ve added a new baranka I believe on the left so you’re going to find some trouble where you miss that Fairway and the green has trouble around it as well so very excited for Colonial this week going to be a different look going to be more in touch with the roots of the course the surrounding area with the Trinity River I think this be a lot of fun um but and I think the firm are going to be awesome this week because doesn’t matter how long a course is if it’s not firm and fast it’s not going to really challenge PJ tour players as we saw lastek yeah I mean that that came to fruition last week you give them a soft soft golf course it doesn’t really matter how long the venue is players are going to get to 20 underpar don’t think that’s going to be the case this week you get a shorter golf course that I’m hoping is going to play in the single digit range but even if we get this from single digits up into that 13 under it’s going to be a much more challenging tournament I think the only thing that I would add to it that I at least wanted to note cuz I did run it in my model Texas is always known to get some blustery conditions and I’ve looked into the forecast and it looks like all four days currently you’re looking at somewhere between 10 to 25 M per hour wins that are going to come into play um it’s just something to keep in mind I don’t think you need to overly weigh it into your model but it might be something to note for individual matchups if you want to run that from an internment Outlook or if there’s close tie breakers for DFS or any of those answers from a daily perspective like that’s kind of more for me of where I’m looking is on a day byday basis than the overall encapsulation of that but uh wind will play at least some significance in the outcome I think that’s a big reason why it’s been one of the few golf tournaments on the PJ tour that’s played in the single digits under Pary the last two years so should be a lot of fun Spencer we talked about your best bet which is a matchup fade of Taylor Moore who is on your outright card this week at Clon we get a board here that I thought delivered a ton of implied win probability up top but still delivered a very intriguing list underneath if you were willing to take on some of those options in that 402 let’s say 100 to one range we talked off Aaron and I just want to have this conversation very quickly Scotty sheffler at three to1 is not a bable commodity that I can get to it’s not even that we could talk about what is true prices or whatever that discussion we want to have but the amount of exposure that you would have to get down to make that wager work is so beyond like to me that ends up being essentially three outright cards to get it to where I need to be like I don’t even ever on any of these tournaments want to get to one outright card like I I always talk about a unit in exposure is about the max that I want to enter from my pre-tournament bets in an Ideal World I’d like to be more in that half unit to a quarter of a unit range so I I have really no interest in putting down three units two and a half units on Scotty shuffer to win this golf tournament he might win it I think those firman fast conditions definitely help him we could make an argument about anything that happened last week on the legal end of it either being a deterrent for him or whatever that situation is there but for me the one option that I did consider and I did not get there and I know that um this is a spot where the price might not sound like exactly where you want to be but I thought calling morawa at 12 to1 was very interesting as a name to at least keep in mind I didn’t eventually and inevitably get there with those prices but I took this route to where I started with Brian Harmon at 40 to1 Harmon was an option that I think when you look at this board like if you want to take Scotty and like for me it would be these three guys it would be Scotty Colin and hom are the three favorites to win this golf tournament according to my math I think once you get lower than that range you have a lot of these players that I always talk on this show about negative trajectory in my model for upside and you get a lot of golfers that experience that negative trajectory Mark that worried me ever so slightly the reason why I was willing to back all of those names and that’ll be a Harris English that will’ll get to in a second that price has moved and that’s a different discussion that we need to have but all of those options had this high end mark that they were able to reach Harris English did it with his putter sep straa did it with his ability to to gain Strokes with his irons and the putting and hit a bunch of Greens in regulation Brian Harmon at 40 to1 and I mean thankfully Nick is not on this show I guess because Nick wouldn’t take more than five seconds of a Brian Harmon conversation I’m gonna probably have about a minute Brian Haron conversation here but my model really liked him for multiple reasons he was fifth in my model for weighted scoring six for weighted Strokes gain total when you add that to the first place rank that he generated for expected for scoring you got a golfer with an extremely high ceiling output to consider here at 40 to1 I always talk on the show I’m either very high or very low on his chances for most of these weeks and it just so happens that my model aggressively decided to back him here I took Harris English at 40 to1 I talked about him being one of those safe Commodities he excels in My overall rank but he really did fail to generate high-end numbers for any individual category outside of putting I was willing to to overlook that he opened at 50 he got bet down the 40 I thought that 40 was the bottom line of where I wanted to be unfortunately at this moment and I think it’s just because he’s one of the most popular bets like there there may be some sentiment to this answer to where there’s a little bit of sharp money that hit him early I feel like the more recent stuff that has come in is a lot of public money that’s pushed this down even further into that 30 to 33 to one range so you know if I got an ability to rebuild the card I’m not so sure I would necessarily get there at 3 to one but even still like my model had him from an overall rank perspective as a top six golfer in this field there was a lot of the data that it lik there’s that high-end output that he has with the putter there’s his ability to find a bunch of Fairways and then there’s the question mark of what happens to somebody like him and even JT Poston that may struggle on some of these other courses that are longer but you give them a facility here where they can use their accuracy they’re not behind the eightball having to hit irons from 200 plus yards I think specifically with Poston that was a name that I took at 80 to1 I thought this was a really nice spot for him I talked about this at the uh RBC Heritage now Roberto he gained nine Strokes with his short game so I don’t know if this is necessarily the prime example to talk about because he didn’t necessarily even produce set of course that you would expect him to there it was all through that volatile stuff that is what you don’t necessarily want to see but I think this is a nice spot for a golfer in a boomer bus sort of a market I’m not playing him for safety I’m not playing him in matchups he’s missed four of the five cuts over the past five years at this tournament the one time he didn’t he came in 10th place that’s kind of the overall um production that I would expect when it hits it’s going to hit into that top 10 range and when it misses you’re going to probably get a Mis cut out of it but thought 80 to1 you were able to take that value there and take a chance and if you wanted to play this more aggressively into the top 10 Market I certainly think that’s something that you can consider I took sep stro at 50 to1 I’ve not really talked all that much about sep for the reasons I liked him more so talked about the reasons why I wanted the Fay Taylor more but um I guess the one thing that I at least noted is it was that weighted proximity the weighted putting the expected GI percentage that really boosted him in my sheet he’s gained a minimum of 3.6 Strokes with his irons in his last four starts and then if you look off the t uh 10 of 11 there he’s been positive so I think the profile is trending for him took more cupboard at 90 to1 that was the play that I wrote about that has now dropped into the 80 to1 range uh talked about that on Action Network in the Best Bets column on Monday uh we can get a little bit into that later and when talking about even the potential to put him into into a matchup or the potential to put him into a placement but I thought hubard at 90 to1 was one of the better values just because any time you give him one of these shorter courses we’ve seen this increase come into play and I know most people don’t think of him as that high upside sort of player but give him a much better tournament at Pebble Beach he landed fourth place at one of these shorter courses so thought this was about as much upside as you’re ever going to get for him in a tournament and then I closed out my card with Justin low at 200 to one uh I will also talk about him because I think he’s one of the better placement Wagers that you can get to and when we move into that sector we can have that conversation but uh this to me felt like an extreme price for a golfer that has been churning out top 28 finishes over the past four and if we want to equate this tournament I keep calling it a pitch and Putt contest and it’s kind of a glorified version of that because there’s not actually birdies being made to go along with that answer there was only one golfer inside of my model that graded better in a quote unquote pitch and Putt tournament this is a 200 the one golfer we’re talking about here I’m willing to take that upside that my model had here at 2011 and I think he’s probably best bet as a top 40 which we’ll talk about in a second I like it so to recap you’ve got Brian Harman 40 to1 Harris English 40 to1 sep straa 50 to1 JT Poston 80 to1 Mark hubard 9 to one and Justin low 200 to1 did I miss anybody nope I believe that is it awesome um I think all these guys have legitimate upside Low’s an interesting play so I’m interested in the and which other markets you’re playing him in as well um as I just hit on that Taylor Mo top 20 have some upside if you if you like a guy at 200 to one who you think might not be able to win that means there’s probably another Market out there that you can also back him in not saying you shouldn’t bet him at 200 one but if you like him relative to the market that much there’s probably some other way you can find a way to back him uh given the plethora of market so uh we can transition right into that who is on your placement bets this week I I’ve talked a lot this year about placement markets having issues because of how thin books are stretching these prices I it’s the one part of the board where my numbers are in the red this season it’s the matchups are still producing around that 60% rate from both the pre-tournament tournament uh standpoint the outrights have been overall good hit three of them added Xander on Saturday night that plus 275 very small two-unit win there but still over 10 units of profit there the placements have been where the problem have problems have come into play I think you give a very good point there about any player that you like at 200 to one and there are examples and we did a really good job of that when Taylor MO W uh last season where we bet him across the whole board like we had him top 40 top 30 top 20 top 10 we ran it from top to bottom and there are some Wagers where that’s going to come into play I don’t necessarily think every single option necessarily needs to be looked at in that fashion there are some golfers that are going to have even if you like their upside there are certain markets that grade better for them than others and for me that market just because we’ve gotten such a lack of upside in a lot of these results it’s it’s a lot of those tournaments that I talked about with laow where he’s landed inside of the top 30 but is not necessarily cracking the top 10 and I saw him at plus 190 to come top 40 I’ve talked about the four consecutive top 28 finishes a few times now I think this is probably the single best location of any of those results for him to reach that higher level I don’t necessarily think you need to get that aggressive though to make this wager it was one of the bigger placement bets that I put this year 0.7 units to win 1.33 I’m normally betting them to win 34s of a unit or one unit so uh you know at at a bare minimum you have 0.33 more of a win at the max you’re probably looking at 0.5 0.6 more units than I normally would try to win in one of these spots so I’m going to aggressively back low in a market where I had my most substantial Edge I didn’t necessarily see the point of spreading it across the board with it if if he comes in second place I I will be perfectly fine with this bet that I have winning 1.33 units and in the off chance that he does capture this title and win this tournament I bet him ever so slightly more to win eight units versus the typical seven to win this event so um I would rather just get a little bit more aggressive with the outright price and and play this for a few more units than I normally would um or at least percentage of the units that I would play in the top 40 another way of stating that you should bet him not only just to win is because if you truly believe that he’s not a 2001 golfer the books are going to catch on sooner than later so you’re going to have a finite window to capitalize on that so you got to be strategic with knowing hey if he plays well this week he’ll be priced at a similar price at the rocket mortgage next month or the 3M open or whatever um so you got to know when on the calendar you want to bet these guys um when when books just very quickly when when books and we’ve talked about this a million times Roberto when books are aware of somebody either they have produced recently or the market gets overcorrected for that reason all the value is lost and as betters here and as people trying to make money whether you’re doing this as a hobby or doing it as somebody like myself who does it professionally you’re always trying to beat the closing line and you’re always trying to do it because you have value in a number I thought this was a particular situation here where the market was very slow to move on Lower I think if you throw a different name into the mix here and you had given four consecutive top 28 finishes this price would probably be cut in half for a lot of those names that you could put him as like his contempor contemporaries that are priced near him of any of those names that have shown that upside in the past I I I think he’s one of those out of sight out of mind golfers that while he has produced books haven’t necessarily caught on to that factor yet and if he does end up rendering a result that my model believes he does this is where the next time around if he comes in seventh place or whatever number you want to throw out there we’re going to chop him in half and he will not be 200 the one so it’s a very similar answer just at a much higher level than we talked about all these weeks with Xander Schley like I would tell everybody out there try to find a show that has been more aggressively backing Xander choffle than this show has been over the past six months and unfortunately books were very Savvy when it came to the PGA Championship and him in a way where he was no longer 25 to one like you could have gotten him at the Masters that price was cut in half and because it was cut in half I didn’t end up getting a ticket to the window there for that reason but when books overreact and when these things come to fruition the numbers are gone fast and and the whole goal is always how do we beat the sports books by catching on to a number before it moves on us yeah and Xander is one of those guys where you bet him to win he entering last week had eight top 10 finishes believe Scotty had nine entering last week they both finished in the top 10 nobody else had more than five entering last week so he’s been the second best golfer both in top 10 Strokes game total entering last week the whole season on the PGA tour so there’s reason to back him it’s just you win you finished in a TI for second in one of the toughest fields of the entire year at the player championship and Scotty Sheffer beats You by a shot what are you really going to do uh best player in the world but you’re another guy this week who tied in that week and Brian Harman have for second at the Players guy who we know has upside Champion golfer of the year you mentioned your placement bets your mat did you have any other matchup Spencer no I I think the one player though that I would at least be looking for of a different way to try to back him would be Mark hubard I did not like the matchups that I have seen like I saw him paired against Austin ekro I think ot’s a really good fit for this course that is just good versus good and books have done a much savier job this season for the most part and it’s something that I’ve talked about quite frequently on this show I I’ve noticed this output from almost any book you want to talk about like bet bet 365 I would say is probably the the one shop that you can still sometimes find some creativity on their end where it’s not those cookie cutter good versus good bad versus bad and bad versus bad being like the fade versus fade candidates that the Market’s clearly pushing you in that direction but I thought with hubard most of the opp on that you could find in the space I also liked who he was taking on so he might just end up being an inter tournament bet for me see if I if he has a bad round one see who they Place him against in round two and maybe there’s the ability uh to buy back in on a on a golfer that maybe either underperformed or the market overreacted to from a bad performance because like I always talk about there is too much of an influx of inter tournament data that people want to use like like I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard somebody tell me or or have the conversation so and so gain five Strokes ball striking on Thursday he’s playing good golf we need to back him on Friday and it’s like okay well where did you have him projected pre-tournament is that in line or did he just overachieve on the round and he’s going to regress back to his Baseline and uh that works on both ends of the spectrum I I when I’m trying to find fade candidates I’m always trying to find the players that have overachieved that I thought the model didn’t believe that they were going to be that sort of a quality player and a lot of times that comes because of a putter or a short game but uh the answer for me in a lot of these spots where I like a golfer is H how do I find a way to back them once the Tournament begins if I can’t figure out a way to do it pre-event you mentioned Austin ekra I think he’s an interesting golfer puted the lights out last week at Valhalla and in his short career on the PJ tour believe this is his second year on tour uh with a full-time card yes it is uh obviously he won earlier this season at the cogon classic in the Palm Beaches t42 at the Sony Open in Hawaii looking at other club down courses he played uh the RBC Heritage in a signature event now that he’s a winner t17 even though he lost Strokes on approach t11 and Zurich uh recently so top 20 finishes three of his last four starts one of them was that two-man event but last week t18 at the PGA approach play hasn’t been great for him lately but I would think this profiles as golf course that he can play really well and he is just 25 years old so still a golfer who’s getting better getting into his prime I think he’s a really interesting golfer this week and we can make that transition into oneandone discussion he’s somebody that I’ve considered this week I think that for me just positionally if I was in more of a chasing mode I think he’s somebody that I would be looking at I think that Harris English is a little bit too chocky for that um in a leading role nobody caught me last week at the PGA thankfully so I’ve still got 1.2 million in hand over second in our Action Network pool everybody’s got Scotty gon which means there’s a clear second tier golfer in colum morawa I would put him and hom in the same tier although I’ve already used hom at the Arnold Palmer Invitational so I think that morawa has to be the the play for me just because I’m in this leading role um although when I’ve made the conservative choices it hasn’t worked out for me yet this year uh the ROM play did not work last week got me zero doar so I am leaning toward morawa I’m optimistic on eot I think English is an interesting play uh but I think English is gonna be pretty chalky as well who are you leading for in one and so I think the two most popular selections will probably be Harris English and Colin morawa uh you brought up the point like wow people would like to well I mean I shouldn’t even say people would want to play Scotty sheffler this is a reduced purse but I I do think there are some people that could consider him I think he’s already been used at this point by most participants it’s very unlikely I mean I I talked about this I I used him the very first week like there I just I unfortunately went way too early on the mark there with it and that’s kind of the answer that I would say about every single selection I’ve made I I played Xander two weeks too early I played Rory two weeks too early um I would love to be in a spot here where I could play Brian Harmon not going to happen I’ve already used Brian Haron it it’s one of those situations to where you are in a position like you talked about where you can play the chalk from a game theory perspective there’s no need to get yourself caught by trying to go off the board and get unique and different you can safely pencil in a name like Colin morawa and be perfectly fine moving forward I do think eek Root’s going to be an option that people are going to potentially try to Pivot to to get unique and different and they’re maybe not even going to get as unique and different as they think with it um Harmon’s going to be popular I think H and fena will be popular if you have them even make an argument that this might be a spot that people want to play Baden with some of the recent form that we’ve seen at a club down course there’s only so far that I can go down this board I still have to try to figure out a way to get as unique and different as I can because I guess at this moment Roberto and I didn’t even realize this which this is for everybody out there that plays competitions you should probably read the fine print of what the payouts are and you informed me last week that there’s 5% of the pool that goes to whoever makes the most Cuts yes I’m down by 47 and a half million dollars or whatever we’re actually at 4.7 well I mean tomato tomato at that point like it’s it’s pretty much the same thing that’s actually not as bad for the record of what I thought like that’s within Striking Distance if I could have I I didn’t have Xander available to me but I guess there are options like Bryson would have been a great option to play there I don’t know how popular Bryson was the contest but there are ways to claw my way back in it’s not over until it’s over I I think for me I’m probably going to go with sep straa he has the safety and the profile that gives me what I want to see uh in the made cut range because I am trying to make Cuts there that’s going to be my number one way to try to actually produce money in this contest I also think Harris English is just too popular so it gives me a route that’s slightly different from everyone else while still producing a name that’s top five in my model and overall rank does have a little bit of that negative trajectory for upside but top 10 producer for safety so I’m probably going to go that safety route with a name that when he opened at 50 to1 which is a completely different conversation thought there was value in that price for all the reasons that I’ve talked about and maybe I can steal a win here which my luck in the situation Roberto this feels like the exact spot that I will get a win where we’ve had all these tournaments where three million4 million doll for first that everybody has continuously hit and feel like I I don’t know what the first place prize is here but I can promise you it’s not three or four million that leads me to the second lend end of my analysis um K morawa hasn’t quite put it together he’s gone back to one of his old swing instructors and he’s certainly got some feels that he’s developing that are very familiar and His short game is as good as it’s ever been this year statistically uh around the green and with putter so once he gets his fastball back on approach play that’s when I want to back him so far he’s had a few really strong weeks as far as results T4 at the PGA T3 at the Masters and his approach play was really strong in those two weeks but other than that since the beginning of March there’s haven’t been any really impressive weeks on approach for Mor CWA where he’s gained over a stroke for the whole tournament so my question is is the iron play back and should I back him in this small event small purse event where I know I can at least maybe penil him in for a six figure paycheck or do I want to save him for a place like mirfield village where last year technically he withdrew but I believe he was in contention two three shots back before he withdrew in that final round and then already has a win there at the 2020 workday charity open uh has a solo second in 2021 at the Memorial tournament as well I believe that’s when John ROM withdrew so he was third but I think that’s a great spot to use morawa if you can Bank on his form so my reasoning for not playing morawa because I have him available this week if I end up changing it is because I want to back him at that specific week I’ve been penciling in havland or Klay for that week the whole year but I don’t know that I want to back cat lay there I think that having more guys available I want to have at least two big time players available for the playoffs for the um first two weeks the in Memphis and then in Colorado this year so one of them I penciled in wiam Clark for the tournament in Colorado but I think maybe keeping Colin morawa for that tournament in Memphis as well the FedEx St Jude could be a strong play as well so I think I like Colin morawa a lot this week but there just isn’t that much money left and you’ve only got so many top tier players that are going to be available for these top tier Payday events so I’m actually kind of talking myself out of using Mar c this week even though I do like it the one thing I’ll say and this isn’t to try to convince you or not I mean I don’t want you to earn extra dollars unfortunately like I’m a very I I I like you Roberto I’m a very competitive person I need a couple miscuts from you and everybody that’s every the other 14 players that are playing I need I I need everybody to take the same golfer like for me that’s my easiest way to get back is everybody takes Harris English this week he misses the the cut I hit a winner and I can just keep like piling on these totals with these miscuts I I think hland after what we saw at the PJ Championship that is a prime tournament for him at the memorial to be considered the one thing with Colin morawa here where I you can make the argument that the purse isn’t big enough to actually use him there may be a better spot to deploy him in one of these other events we have talked frequently over the past couple months that the one downside to morawa game this year has been the long iron proximity from 200 plus yards there is a reduction at this tournament 88.3% less shots are occurring from 200 plus yards over a typical tournament all the other approach numbers inside of my model still look very strong that’s one of the reasons why I think this might be one of those situations where morawa even at that 12 to1 ticket that I talked about previously might be the one that ends up walking out of this week Victorious I don’t have him available unfortunately and he is going to be popular but I don’t even have that as a choice I I don’t know where I’ve used half these players orto like I I enter the week and I expect like oh I probably haven’t used Brian Harmon at this moment I should be fine and Brian Harmon’s off my list and you take the top 10 golfers and they’re all just blanked out in choices I can’t use so that’s the unfortunate truth every single week that I make these picks but probably one of the better tournaments that you’re going to get with morala but I I do agree with everything that you’ve talked about at the beginning and this is where contest uh where you are in the contest matters as a front runner morawa is a great pick as somebody who’s trying to play catchup it’s probably less advantageous to use him just because he is going to be a popular choice this week I agree I think it’ll be interesting to see how that iron play for him develops this year and if it does become to the elite if it returns to the elite level that we become accustomed to for morawa he’ll be in the mix a lot more often and somebody whom I think it’ll be really fun to see battle Scotty sheffler down the stretch would be awesome to see that this but first as a reminder this podcast is presented by bet 365 bet 365 doesn’t do ordinary that’s why they get you more boost than anyone else every day they power up the odds on hundreds of bets to give you a chance to win more bet 365 boost specific markets your winnings and even parlays and they don’t stop there keep an eye out for their biggest and best odds with the incredible super boost check out the Boost and see why it’s never ordinary at bet 365 must be 21 or older and present in Arizona borado Indiana Iowa Louisiana North Carolina New Jersey Ohio Virginia or 18 and older in Kentucky gambling problem call 100 Gambler or8 100 bets off in Iowa terms conditions and restrictions apply all right Spencer are there any other bets that you have on your card this week or you ready for a little rapid fire let’s move into rapid fire all right we touched on Sheffer and Mory Cabo the the two at the top of the board Jordan spe is 24 to1 Max H is is an identical 24 to1 among those two golfers if I gave you a free outright ticket at 24 to1 odds who would you take I understand the Texas success that Jordan spe has put together I think a lot of that though is being baked into this price if I was going to bet one of these two options I would prefer to go the max Homer route um I thought spe pricewise was one of the more significant fade candidates on the board I think you’ve even seen the market when we talk specifically head-to-head markets move in that direction he is a substantial dog to any of those favorites like we’ll exclude Scotty from the mix because Scotty himself is minus 300 against Colin morawa but uh I think morawa was in that minus 160 minus 170 range over speed hom has been trending in that minus one30 section against him I just think that of all those top names he’s probably the least enticing op for me next up we got a couple guys who struggle with the putter we’ll bypass Harris English Tony fenal is 32 to one I would have taken complete credit for feno’s win last week had he won because I was the sacrificial lamb who bet on him the week before at Wells Fargo when surprise surprise the putter let him down again but fenale went from having that putter with the toe straight up in the air uh and using a more normal grip to going to to the claw grip and now the putter is flat on the ground like it’s supposed to be it looked good last week can pull up the numbers on his putting but I know in the first round he was one of the best in the field um he ended up being a zero last week putting but approach play was Immaculate and t18 for fow lost Strokes off the te surprisingly so probably found some water but fow remains an elite ball Striker the putter now has I think more signs of life just being a zero is a big Improvement on where it’s been for most of the Season see Kim would love to have his putter be a zero he might in I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to do whatever Bryson’s doing I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to go to a not torque putter because he tries a bunch of different things and none of it has seemed to work yet SE Kim is 37 to1 coming off his first miscut of the season last week Brian harman’s 38 to1 you already have him on your card so between fow and siuk Kim ball Strikers that we love to bet on who never win who would you like uh to bet on this week got a free car a free ticket probably neither of them uh but if you’re going to give me a free ticket I mean I I bet Tony fenel 90% of the weeks to begin with um both of them have such negative downturns with the putter that I think when we’re actually talking about winning an event that would be my concern it doesn’t mean that they can’t find success it doesn’t mean that they can’t top five the tournament I just don’t know if the putter is going to be able to hold hold up to the pressure of a weekend push at a course that is difficult where there’s a lot of trouble you can find and I can promise you on Sunday you’re gonna have to make a putt or two to win this tournament so I don’t know if I necessarily trust either one of them to do it I would prefer Tony Fen out if forced to make a decision I I I thought SEIU maybe more so than a lot of these names that we could talk about was overpriced because of the consistency that he’s provided but we’re really still lacking the highend upside and and a lot of it comes down to the putter I understand that but that is still a consistent issue that has come in week in and week out completely agree with that analysis and one thing to note is that well two things first off can’t say they never win both those guys won last year including F who won multiple times but siuk Kim in his win last year at the Sony Open in Hawaii was one of the very few golfers who won a tournament in the last couple years while gaining fewer than than three Strokes per round that’s very rare um if we bring up last week I would guess that shle was closer to five than he was to three normally you need to be at least over four to win a major um shaffle was 4.53 Strokes game per round um going to Thomas dietry who finished in a tie for fourth he gained 3.03 Strokes per round so it’s more in his T5 where he was five six Strokes behind the winner than what seu win seu gained in his win so less upside I agree with sewu but higher floor moving along we’ve got minwu Lee 45 to1 sunj M 45 to1 we’ll skip over sepa at 50 Tom hogi somebody who I think would be a very popular Pi this pick this week is 50 to1 just in the shadows of his college campus over there at TCU and then Denny McCarthy 50 to one as well if you had to put a ticket down on sjm or minu at 45 or hogi or McCarthy at 50 which one would you take it would probably be a decision between hogi and McCarthy I think the problem with hogi comes to the answer that you just talked about of anytime that you have narratives of either a HomeTown narrative a college narrative a course that somebody knows really well a course that somebody’s a member at any of those things that come into play just like proximity to a venue the price gets all of that gets baked into the price that would be my biggest concern that you’re not actually getting the value that you think you’re getting on Tom hogi but here’s the thing I talked about there being Justin low when I took weighted proximity uh weighted putting and G percentage and I threw it into one category Justin low was the number two projected scorer for me in that area uh that’s that’s kind of the the the upside mix that really made me like him a lot the number one player there was Tom hogi I think hogi does have the skill set skill set requirement to find success here I will very minimally take hogi over that like McCarthy profile um I don’t really have interest in the other names though I’d agree with that I am shocked though because like we said hogi went to college in TCU they practiced at the golf course at Colonial he’s never finished better than 17th in seven starts and prior to last year he had missed three straight cuts t52 last year and he’s a much better golfer recently than he was back when he finished t17 in 2016 but despite being a much better golfer over the past few years he hasn’t found success at this golf course I think it’s pretty surprising given that he has experience on this course and if you take the lack of driving distance out of the golf course for him it should suit his game to a te so surprised by that I’m sure a bunch of people will be on him this weekend one and done and a variety of formats so that’ll be something to watch again this week I’ll get you out of here on this one Spencer last group of guys Keegan Bradley’s 50 to1 Christian bazen out 50 to1 Justin Rose is 55 to1 and Billy H horel is also 55 to1 among those four CZ Bradley Rose and horel who’ you take the outright ticket on see Roberto all all the negative answers I’ve given of the players that I don’t really want to back where I feel like you know it’s I don’t want to say forced into a decision to be made but that’s not necessarily the range where I want to be these four options that you just talked about would be much more conducive to how I’m trying to build an outright card I know nick uh texted us that he is on Keegan Bradley this week I thought Keegan Bradley was one of the more intriguing names to consider he’s going to be very popular choice which much more so than I anticipated I I thought for DFS he was going to be a leverage play I thought for an outright ticket you were going to be able to even potentially get drift on that number that has not been the case he is a very popular choice that is being backed I think rightfully so though he’s a top 10 player in my model for projected win Equity Christian Baden Hout carries a very similar answer with that with a little bit of a negative leverage for upside so he drops slightly further than that but uh all four of these choices were options that my model liked considering for different outlooks this week it doesn’t necessarily just mean outrights but DFS matchups in tournament bets placement Wagers these are all names that I’m fine trying to find a way to get exposure to I like it I think that there will be a variety of golfers who can take advantage of this golf course this week because of the lack of driving distance and the emphasis on Precision on a lot of these shots and where you have to be should be a blast checking out the new look Colonial which is restored to its roots this week and hopefully some firm and fast conditions doesn’t look like there’s going to be any rain this weekend might be a pop thunderstorm tomorrow afternoon but shouldn’t be a case of flooding or making the course soft like we saw last week at Valhalla Spencer where can the people find you and your work this upcoming week you can find me on Twitter at Toff Sports I will have my Wednesday article over at Action Network one of the things I’ve been doing with that is when I have a round one matchup I’ve been using that uh for the past couple weeks over just talking about the outright board so stay tuned to see exactly where that ends up Landing hopefully I can find a round one play I’ll have two of the three rounds being covered from the inter tournament bets uh that’s something that I hope we can continue the run on and then you can find a lot of my written work uh additionally over at R baller and my model over there also awesome love seeing those internate bets those have been a lot of fun tailing you and sometimes you give outright bets like you did on uh like you did on Saturday night with Xander shafley at plus 275 we’re talking about how was see the same price as col Mory Kawa going into that final round didn’t make any sense um you can find me on X or Twitter or whatever you call it Roberto 8213 I’ll be on the par three featured whole stream this week for coverage of the Charles schwap challenge Jay Jay talson is going to be my analyst so that should be a lot of fun Jay’s a great guy I got to work with him for like one hour one time at last year’s Wells Fargo very much looking forward to checking out the new look golf course I mentioned it very briefly but the eighth hole is going to be one of the holes that looks more different they moved it more into the corner toward the Trinity River so the banka is going to come into play over there they’ got different bunkering I think the part threes are going to be a lot more fun than they’ve been in the past and it should make for more intriguing television and also they’re going to be firm and fast so it should reward better shots and separate the ones that aren’t as precise as well so very excited for that be sure to tune in on PJ Tour live on ESPN plus this weekend want to give a big thanks to all of our supporters here at the Action Network whether you’re a women’s basketball fan with the WNBA men’s basketball fan with the NBA going on hockey we got MLB got a tons of great people covering all these Sports for the Action Network be sure to tune in or Minnesota Timberwolves made it past the Denver Nuggets so a lot of us are licking our chops hopefully they can get past the Nuggets But be sure to tune in to all of our other Action Network content whether it’s on the app on the website uh or on podcast form like you’re consuming now or even on YouTube shout out to YouTube uh but want to give one big final thanks to everybody who makes this podcast possible especially our producers Noah neher David Payne and Matt Mitchell thanks for tuning in this week and we’ll see you next week for the RBC Canadian open for
1 Comment
Rodgers vs Hodges!!!