Alex Blickle previews the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic. He dives into Detroit Golf Club course fits, best bets, PGA DFS picks, and one and done strategy.
Timecodes
0:00 – Intro
1:10 – Rocket Mortgage Best Bets
9:12 – One and Done
11:09 – DFS
17:45 – Underdog Picks
PGA Betting Model: https://ftnfantasy.com/pga-betting-model
PGA Ownership: https://ftnfantasy.com/dfs/pga/ownership-projections/
PGA Bet Tracker: https://ftnfantasy.com/bets/pga/bet-tracker
Course Fit: https://ftnfantasy.com/pga/course-fit-model
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what’s going on everybody Welcome to Prov Pro for the rocket mortgage classic as you can tell I am solo today we had uh some it was just tough to schedule with Justin this week got so much going on with his kids and sports and that nature and then also playing golf today so uh you’ve got just me I’m G to show the model here we’re going to talk rocket mortgage classic we’re GNA go through the Best Bets we’re going to go through one and done then we’ll flip over to DFS talk some DraftKings very unique pricing this number of ways to game that lots of course fit sensitivity this week one of the more unique not so much fun uh course fit models we’ll talk about why but potentially an edge with the course fit model as there usually is and then we will close with some Underdog plays hopefully we’ll be able to build at least one three pick play over an underdog and call it a day and uh next week for the John Deere we will cover the John Deere of course we will also turn that into to an open ship Open Championship preview show hopefully have some future bets for you guys then but for now let’s Jump Right In two outrights and you can see where we differ from the market we have AA batia as the most likely player to win 6.7% chance to win we’ve you know that makes him 1380 as a fair price he’s available 20 to one most places so I don’t know that I’m making that bet as you guys know I like going to the higher guys guys we’ve got guys with some really really favorable odds this week but there’s no question there’s an edge on oaba in the outright Market if I do place that I will not go to an eway I will just take the pure outright there there is value on the eway as well it’s not that there isn’t it’s just if I’m going to play something for you know smaller odds than I usually do I want just the pure 20 to1 payout I don’t want to cut that payout at all so that’s I’d go to start at the top of the board there are some other really interesting ones in fact Eric Van royan not somebody that you would necessarily expect to be near the top in win odds we’ve got his fair price at 3180 he’s available at 70 to one in some places now do I think that Eric Van royan actually has a 3.1% chance to win honestly no because the the number one criticism of this bet is going to be oh van R can’t get a done in pressure situations honestly I somewhat agree I don’t think that he’s going to close the deal as often as most but remember what we talk about a lot we can’t we can’t say which guys don’t have that skill of knowing how to win because for most guys it’s they can’t win until they do now van royan has won but we’ve also seen him kind of fail under the gun a number of times where I still really love this bet is again 3180 the price that we can get on him is 70 to1 so there’s a heck of a lot of room between 3180 and 7,000 in terms of what his fair odds should actually be maybe he’s not 3180 maybe the fact that he hasn’t gotten it done means he should be more like 40 or 50 something like that that still leaves a lot of value so Eric Van Roy probably my favorite bet of the week especially if you can get that as an eway he’s available 70 to1 on bet 365 with an eway 66 at the moment within each way on vet Rivers so there you’re getting you know protection over the fact that maybe you think he can’t get it done maybe you think if he’s leading with three holes to go he’s gonna find a way to finish third or find a way to finish second in which case he still catches the each way so if you can make it an each way bet it makes it even better but even if it’s just a pure outright 70 to1 is too high I do really like that couple other guys I find interesting um in fact I should even talk course fit for a moment this course fit model is all about P it’s the only statistic this week that is more predictive than usual and it’s uh let’s see we have a 43% decrease I do I have the wrong one here yes I do there’s a 43 um wait let me I had to uh I had to adjust something in my spreadsheet the only stat with a better than usual predictive value is putting and it’s about 50% more predictive than usual everything else is slightly negative there’s nothing hugely negative but this is a week where putting is the Premier thing that we need to be looking at and so there are some guys like actually I think part of the reason by the way why van historically has struggled with the lead is that his putter has always been a bit of a weak point for him he’s turned it into a strength and I think that’s one of the reasons why this week we do have an Edge is because so often when you get into Fields like this people have preconceived notions of who players are and they don’t necessarily confirm whether those preconceived notions are still correct or not with data people probably still view van royan as a poor putter or at least somebody who tends to struggle man his putting has been fantastic there are other guys in this field who really really stand out with the putter like Taylor pendri you can see he’s right below van royan in win odds the problem with pendri though is he’s priced 25 28 to one something like that so I don’t think I’ll have an outright on him but somebody I’m very interested in this week in DFS for example we’ll get to that momentarily going down the board I I do feel like this is a pretty good week for Long Shots the problem is I just don’t see that many who really stand out I wonder what Wallace is let’s you know what let’s check Wallace at 61 and gim at 78 let’s see where they’re at at in the prop shop Wallace 65 so pretty good price there and uh Doug gim gim 90 to1 so a little bit of value on Doug gim maybe not enough for me to fire that one Jake nap he’s a really interesting course fit super super volatile so he’s available at 110 to one I think we have a nap at let’s see what was that I think nap is a thousand so we have his fair far ODS at 9480 so yeah we do show again a little bit of value on Jake knps outright maybe not enough for me to actually place it so maybe the only two and in fact if we only have two it makes it a lot easier to handle that AA batia number at just 20 to1 is is 20 to1 the best available I should confirm that as well yeah 20 to1 on bet 365 on BET MGM on FanDuel and on draftking so you can get that 20 to1 number on batia basically anywhere and then uh if we only doing two bets only two outrights makes it a lot easier to get that 208 to one other one would be Eric Van royan at 70 to1 within eway so that’s probably going to be my outright plan for the week in which case we can now talk a little bit of one andone um in fact you know what for one and done let’s go let’s go to PGA ownership for a little bit and the reason why I’m bringing this up is because now we can also look at ownership projections for DFS so we have it sorted by salary here and then we’re going to use the projected ownership we can just use mme it doesn’t really matter um whenever you have the most expensive player as the highest owned player you can pretty much guarantee that unless everybody has already used him and one and done he’s going to be the most popular one and done pick so I’d be very shocked if Tom Kim and a batia are not one and two in oneandone popularity I do think I want to go a little bit off the board there and we can do so Taylor pendri looks like he will slip through the cracks a little bit in one and done we can also go down and now you see maybe Keith Mitchell is a great option for those who still have him we’ve got him with a 3.6% chance to win in fact that’s a good point we need to look at Keith Keith’s available at 40 to1 so actually uh 40 to1 is available at bet 365 if you have bet 365 that is a fantastic bet with the eway so there’s another one um so maybe it’s a maybe it’s a three player card this week also a 13.9% chance to finish in the top five so that again that 40 to1 each way would be really really strong that would be 10 to one for a top five finish and we’ve got him at 13.9% in instead of the 9 to1 that you would need to make that a fair price so like Keith a lot as well there all right so we got three Ys instead of two we got three but then for one and done he makes a lot of sense it looks like he’s not going to be as high owned plus you’re coming down the board so he might be you know like a 4% oneandone pick whereas these two Tom Kim oy baa they could be 15 20% something along those lines so I definitely want to go down I think pendri might be seven eight n% something like that again Mitchell’s down the board and then Eric Van royan might be like a one two% play in one and done so I think van royan might be my lean personally but at this part of the Year remember it really depends on how you are doing in your oneandone contest if you’re doing quite well man get chalky use AA batia use the guy who we have with the highest win Equity if you’re doing pretty well which is where Justin and I are uh you know we’re just outside the top thousand so still have a very good chance of cashing probably not going to win the whole damn thing but good chance of cashing we might go to Taylor pendrith and and really lean into the fact that we just think he’s a really good player excellent excellent putter so a great course fit and uh and yeah so I I like that strategy for one and done I don’t think you need to go more off the board than Eric vanroy and though you can it’s not like there aren’t other options that you could go to in fact one thing we can do is you could just come here you could sort by win odds and then you could look at ownership right so again Keith Mitchell up there he looks like a fantastic play Van royan will be really solid anybody in this range now we’re under $9,000 and we’re under 20% own outside of Maverick mcney so any of these guys are going to be really low own maybe you go to MAV or maybe you go to Robert McIntyre we’ve seen his ceiling he’s playing well so he could be a solid one andone option as well lots lots of ways that you can go but let’s talk DraftKings now because the very interesting thing about this slate is that the top end Talent has been priced up to where we would usually see some of the best players we’ve got 11,000 we got 10700 you know four guys over $10,000 and it’s four guys who have never been over $10,000 before this year so it’s not that they haven’t priced guys up but no notice how quickly the prices fall off after four guys over 10,000 we only have five in the 9,000 which means we’re very quickly in the eights and then we’re very quickly look we’re now already below the average price of a player per lineup so very quickly into the sevens and then we get a hell of a lot of guys in the sevens sixes and we have a $5,000 range so what happens look at all of the projected ownership that we have near the top every single guy is chalky and consequently every single guy has negative gpp scores what does that mean for us well for one thing it doesn’t mean that we have to completely avoid this completely avoid this range it just means okay everybody is a little bit over owned in this range because they’re not actually as expensive they’re not as price prohibitive as their price tags would initially lead you to believe because everybody else is so cheap so you know 10,500 for minu Le this week is more like 97 9800 in a typical pricing structure so everybody’s a little bit cheaper than usual which means what they need for a ceiling outcome is a little bit less than what we have so when you see like negative 6.2 gpp for for Taylor pendri it’s still pretty easy to say okay you know what negative -6 is better than negative 111.6 for OAA so we can still use the gpp to guide us on how to play this top end cam Young minu Lee Alex noren Taylor pendri all solid options Tom Kim OA probably too expensive or too popular for my taste and part of that too is look at the expected Strokes gain projections everybody’s bunched together 1.15 1.15 1.02 1.22 so if you go to you know 0.82 for pendri or 1.15 for minu Lee or 1.02 for Alex norin you’re really not losing much to the 1.22 and 1.15 of AA batia and Tom Kim makes it very easy to make those pivots when you’re suddenly using a guy who’s half his own or even less than that so that’s the way I’ll be viewing the top of the board it also means by the way that there are so so so many guys in the seven six and five range that we’re not really seeing any major Chalk in those ranges let’s now sort by gpp score so what you’ll see is there are ton of guys at the top of the gpp scores in those really cheap ranges same idea right be just as the most expensive players aren’t really over owned even though they have negative gpp scores some of these really cheap guys aren’t really that under owned even though they have solid gpp scores it’s just a pricing structure kind of changing anything so what we want to do is we want to find the guys who stand out in the gpp scores at a higher price tag so Keith Mitchell looks like the best play on the Slate to me solid putter just really solid allaround game couple other guys that stand out Eric Van royan once again mentioned him already Ben Griffin stands out a little bit too this is kind of Ben Griffin’s course right like he’s certainly not a ball Striker certainly not great off the te those don’t matter as much as usual he’s a great putter putting is what matters most this week so Ben Griffin a solid option so if you wanted to start Keith Mitchell Ben Griffin Eric Van royan guess what you’re probably going to have three of the guys who end up in my lineup I can’t say that for certain yet but seems very likely to me that I’ll have those three part of that will be you know what what happens when I run the next ownership update what you know if Ben Griffin said only goes from 7.2% expected ownership in single entry contest to 15% okay I’m probably not using Ben Griffin but if if ownership stays where it’s at currently I think that that will be the the three guys who start my lineup maybe at the top I would then go you know Taylor pendrith and then see who’s left not entirely sure but the the thing to remember this week as you’re building lineups is that the price of each player that’s listed it’s almost like it’s not really his price because of this pricing structure so just keep that in mind what you’re really trying to do then don’t view the gpp scores in a vacuum so like if you want to say okay who’s the best play between Bud collie and Keith Mitchell don’t evaluate that on the gpp score look at who which of the two separates more from the rest of the guys in their price range in gpp score if we look at it that way scrolling down it’s negative number negative number negative number and then suddenly Robert McIntyre plus 3.5 Keith Mitchell plus 6.7 negative number negative number negative number so Mitchell phenomenal play McIntyre solid play as well that’s the way I’ll be doing it whereas if you go all the way down like let’s just click here everybody’s got a positive gpp score right so that 5.1 for Matthew neith for example is a good is it better than Zack Johnson Kevin Dy Zack Blair yeah but does it really stand out the way that Keith Mitchell stands out no so that’s the way we want to use the gpp scores this week and of course we can also just look at how they Faire in the win odds top five odds so same idea right n Smith is 4.8% better than the one to three to two and a half perents and guys around him absolutely is it the same kind of difference that we see between Keith Mitchell here at 13.9% relative to you know four and a half eight and a half 9.1 again no Mitchell is the one who stands out more that’s the way we want to use the gpp scores for DraftKings so uh pretty straightforward there makes it very easy as always the gpp scores regardless of the Slate context super super helpful see anything else I want to touch on before we get out of here I don’t believe so again I I was oh of course Underdog we got to do Underdog so let’s let’s go over there let’s see if we can build a three- pick play and then call it a show I will blow this up a little bit for you guys so it’s easier to see let’s go to PGA and in fact let me go grab the stats shout out to Josh Culp as always for compiling these stats for us we’ve got 4.17 birdies or better per round 2.31 Bogies or Worse per round so 4.17 2.31 let’s keep those in mind 9.1 Fairways and 13.0 greens in regulation per round um in fact you know what let me jot down those numbers okay all right so with that let’s go over here and let’s look at so we’re going to start birdies again the average number for the entire field 4.17 so we’re looking at you know most of these guys are going to be better players than the average player in the field so we should expect to see higher numbers Tom Kim five and a half cam young five and a half I think those are solid um but we might be able to do better and in fact so one one way to kind of evaluate this is look at Talent right so Scotty shefer has consistently had a number for birdies or better and a number for Bogies or Worse that’s either higher for birdies or lower for Bogies than everybody else in the field Underdog has done a really good job of identifying the fact that he’s just that much better than everybody else in this field Tom Kim cam young they probably are that much better at at least making birdies than everybody else in the field so the fact that we have a number of other guys Chris Kirk Alex norn Robert McIntyre Aaron Ry also at five and a half is a good indication that five and a half is solid for Camy young and Tom Kim I’m going to put both of them in for now um and if you’re wondering remember Tom Kim at the very top in expected Strokes gained Camy young was a little bit behind them but Camy young probably the best scorer on tour in other words he makes more birdies for his overall Strokes gained than maybe anybody else on tour so I’m going to put those two guys in for now we might end up taking them out as you guys know we’ve talked about payouts a lot when you put both of these together too higher than plays it’s going to view that as correlated plays and hurt the payout a little bit we can counteract that with a higher than on Bogies which we might be able to do we’ll check that out next but I want to look through the rest of the birdies maybe we can find someone at four and a half who’s not deserving of being at four and a half if everybody else is just at five then we’re GNA stay um so everybody else either at five or five and a half which means Tom Kim and cam young are the guys that I’m going to go to here I’m going to mute this for a second I’m at my grandparents house of the landline it’s it’s been an enemy of ours it’s it’s back okay so now we’re searching for Bogies and if you see so if I go higher on Adam spencon instead of going to the standard 6x X we get 6.4 3x so just one higher than bogey play will now give us an even better payout if use this as inverse correlation but remember what what did I say was the average bogey number 2.31 so one and a half is a pretty solid number especially if you can find somebody who everybody in this list same as on the burries everybody on this list is going to be a better player than average so we should expect them to make fewer than the average number pois but we can find guys who are better than average because of the way they make birdies not the way they avoid avoid bogie so we can still get some solid numbers Bor is intriguing Bor has been a bogey machine this year yes this is a course that he won it last year yes he’s coming off one of his better weeks on tour still a bit of a bogey machine so there are definitely guys that I’m intrigued by I would say I don’t want mini I don’t want AA batia I don’t want joerger I don’t want Mitchell don’t want Thompson mad mcne is in play I Don’t Want Ry Hustler very much in Play Hustler might be the best way to go in fact let’s uh let’s bring this up let’s look at boster for a second how has he been of late coming off a missed cut at the US Open where he drove the ball extremely poorly he’s a great Scrambler and a great putter that does typically boat against um bogey makers but sometimes if your ball striking is just that bad you’re G you’re going to be stuck making some Bogies let’s see how his numbers look so the easiest way to do this I like just searching guys uh you can just Google like Bo Hustler PGA then you go to Stats and then I just command F search for bogey avoidance so Hustler 32nd in bogy avoidance this year 69th in birdie or better percentage what I’m looking for guys bad in bogy avoidance good in birdie or better percentage which also by the way you can do the exact same thing for those birdi or better picks so for example I was talking about how good of a scorer cam young is so let’s let’s look at those exact numbers here and you know what here I’ll even share this for you guys so that you can see exactly what I’m doing just go to Camy young hit this stats button and now you can just search for bogy avoidance there it is so 143rd in bogy avoidance and 21st in birdie your better percentage Yeah that’s that’s why I really like his birdie numbers it also shows why he hasn’t won yet even though he’s super super talented he just can’t stop making the silly silly sloppy mistakes as soon as he corrects that that’s when he’s going to win hey it could be this week who knows but regardless I love his chances to make a lot of birdies here and remember this is also very dependent on the courses you’re playing he’s mostly played tougher golf courses elevated events and so his his birdie rate the fact that he’s 21st like that’s signific iFly better than some of the guys in this field who might be you know 15th but they’re 15th playing easy course after easy course after easy course so the discrepancy between the two really tells the story 21st ver 100 43rd we want that sort of thing so let’s look at Ricky Fowler because I think he might be a really good option here if I recall correctly 59th in bogie avoidance what and 154th in birdie BR percentage so he’s made a lot of Bogies but just because he hasn’t been very good at all um now he did he did play a lot better last week finishing 20th of The Travelers he did not drive the ball well though he just made a lot more putts his round the green wasn’t very good his round the green was terrible at the US Open drove the ball terribly at the memorial puted terribly at the memorial hit his iron terribly at the memorial man he’s he seems like a really really solid one I kind of wish that fer had you can see some of these guys are 1.1x and honestly cam young wouldn’t be a bad idea to go 1.1x based on that bogey avoidance number but I really like his birdie so I don’t I don’t want to do that on him let’s see let’s see who else we got again I wish Fowler was 1.1x if he was 1.1x that would be a pretty easy one I don’t want pendrith hubber Rogers Griffin let’s see where those guys rank here so 66th and bogy avoidance 33rd and better birdie or better percentage so now we’re getting somewhere a little bit so here’s here this becomes an interesting question right so hubard 66th Fowler like 145th or something would I really prefer hubard just for the discrepancy I don’t know it’s a tough one it’s definitely a tough one so let’s let’s see uh if either of these other guys oh my goodness stand out as better plays maybe one of these guys will just be like the automatic oh that’s very clearly the right way to go hopefully we can find one of those it’s 80th and 88th for Patrick Rogers so that’s not the ideal answer Ben Griffin again this is a very solid course for Ben Griffin but his ball striking is so bad that he still might make a handful of Bogies and it’s just that he could make more birdies this week because of his putting something like that so let’s see where he’s at oh wow 12th in bogy avoidant so he’s just he’s just such a damn good Scrambler all the time that he doesn’t make a ton of bogie so Ben Griffin definitely not the way to go in fact you could even go with a lower than on Ben Griffin I don’t want to do that with the birdie picks because now we’ we’d get 4.67 instead of 6X certainly not what we want to do but that that in and of itself probably a solid play as well you can maybe maybe you do you know um One play that’s higher on two birdie picks lower or higher on one Bogey and then you could do two that are higher on two or lower on two bogey picks sorry for the confusion lower on two bogie picks and lower on one birdie pick for one of those guys at five and a half who’s not as good so like that could be um let’s see that could be lower on Ben Griffin it could be lower on minw Lee just like minw Lee drives the ball so well he’s such a good Scrambler it’s gonna be hard for him to make a lot of Bogies here I think and then you could go let’s get rid of I hate how small this gets let me zoom out just for my on purposes here I’m going to get rid of Tom Kim and cam young and I’ll bring this larger again for you guys to see then we go to birdies I might like this more honestly than trying to find somebody who’s gonna make that many bogeys so amongst the five and a half guys McIntyre Alex norren Chris Kirk Aaron Ry Stephen joerger I think batia has a good chance of making six birdies pendrith man one of these guys one of these guys has to be has to be has to be our answer remember Hustler oh wait he’s 5.0 not five and a half see I wonder where McIntyre is let’s look at I know Chris Kirk is a birning machine McIntyre and Alex norn might be our Best Bets here so let me let me take a look oh I I haven’t even been showing you this this is rookie mistake on my part sorry guys so what I’m now looking at here as you can see Ben Griffin lower than one and a half Bogies minu Lee lower than one and a half Bogies and now I’m trying to find one of these five and a half birdie guys to also go lower on so that we get the exact same 6.43 X payout I I suddenly like this play a little bit more than the higher on birdies higher on Bogies just because I didn’t really like anyone’s higher than one and a half Bogies the way that I think I’m going to be able to like one of these lower than five and a half birdie numbers because remember we talk aled about the same reason why we like Tom Kim and cam young so much at five and a half because they are just better did I click some I should enough know these guys are better at making birdies than the other guys at five and a half so zalot torus Chris Kirk Robert McIntyre Alex norin Aaron Ry got a lot of guys here that we can choose from Steph joerger so uh let’s look through I know I’m not gonna want Patia if Fowler wasn’t um 1.1x and 0.9x to go lower I think he’d be the answer but because he is that point n next to go lower um guys I’m going to look at I don’t think I want pendrith because he’s got distance and putting that that’s a recipe for birdies I think where I want to start is Jager and then I’ll look at Ry norin McIntyre and I might even want to start with norin because I feel like he might be a bogey avoidance Superstar so let’s search Alex noren to begin here share this tab again with you guys you can go through this exact same process you can see exactly what I’m doing so that you can build your own Underdog plays the same way that I am so I’m just going to search bogy avoidance here third in bogy avoidance 95th in bird or better percentage how about that talk about knowing your players right so he seems like a really strong candidate to get fewer than five and a half birdies I’m going to look around for at just a few other guys I want to look at McIntyre I also want to look at zalot Taurus because zalot Taurus there’s a chance that zalot Taurus is a really good option just because his putter is not very good the ball striking hasn’t been great this season historically he is a guy who can be pretty explosive but let’s start there let’s start there so again what we want to see is that discrepancy we want to see better bogy avoidance than birdie or better rates but we also want to see just really bad birdie or better rates 97 in bogie ofo it’s 147th in birdie or better percentage for zot Torres now that includes a lot of the year that he just wasn’t playing well obviously playing better of late just finished I mean it’s not like he played great at The Travelers 42nd missed the cut at the US Open 41st at the memorial 43rd at the PGA Championship 60th at the Wells Fargo the approach play has not been good in fact he’s lost Strokes with the with his irons in three straight events putter has not been there you know what I think we found our guy I think zalot Tores is the one that I want to bet against here we’re gonna do that it feels bad right like zotor such a good player such a great guy such an easy guy to root for but I think we’re gonna go lower on zotor in fact I’m probably GNA do this twice I’m gonna go once with zalot torus lower on Bogies lower on birdies and then I’m gonna do the same thing oh crap I’m in Florida I forgot about that so you guys can do this I can’t do it but um so once for uh once with zalot Taurus and then once with Alex noren is the way that I would do this so there you go we’ve got two three pick plays now with that I wasn’t sharing that was I rookie mistake again okay back to the right tab so here it is Ben Griffin lower than one and a half Bogies are worse minw Le lower one and a half bis or Worse Wills alatus lower five and a half birdies or better now we get that six point 43x payout instead of the standard six because we are inversely correlating in a way I don’t really view it as inverse correlation because we’re going here not because we think these numbers are off but because this is just the skill set of these players so I don’t view it as inverse correlation Underdog does that’s why we get that really nice payout and then I would run the exact same thing with Alex norin lower than five and a half birdies instead of zotor so there you go two three pick plays with that we will see you next week Justin will be back we will talk John Deere and Open Championship Futures so see you then thanks for tuning in catch you next time
