The John Deere Classic has been known to produce some longshot winners on the PGA TOUR, and the 2024 season has been know as the longshot year. Does that mean you should stay away picking the favorites? What to do about Sungjae Im, Sepp Straka, Jordan Spieth and Denny McCarthy; we break it all down on Chalk Talk.
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[Music] so you’re thinking about betting on the favorites this week at the John Deere classic well how about the favorite what to do with sjm and how great he’s been playing and SE staka the guy no one’s been talking about recently he’s been playing great chalk do time Benny B and what do you think about sep straka the fact that he clearly is playing great is it too great though I’m serious well the problem is that only one guy has repeated at the John de classic and he did it three years in a row in Steve Stricker now we have to see if sep ster can get it done uh he did it as an outlier last year starting off with an overpow round the only player to win the John Deere classic with an overow overpow round on the books that is not going to happen this week as we spoke yesterday in Round Table you need to go low every single day with a bit of a wet wet track out there so look he’s in form he loves The Joint he showed three astonishing rounds he he could have shot 59 in the last round if not for a late mistake uh I think he’s sort of sneaking up on there look he was at 20 to1 to start the week down to 16 he’s a sneaky chance he’s a sneaky chance this week he’s got some reasonable numbers you see there ball striking 25th on tour he’s just going to have to go low four rounds not three this year and what’s your looking at is our key stats by the way of what we picked as the most important Trends from past John Deere Classics what the winners did well of course it’s a week if you’re going to shoot 25 under par you got to be lights out with the putter that’s where straa is okay if you’re right around middle of the pack you’re going to do okay it’s ball striking clearly has been pretty good are you concerned though about you mentioned being the first person ever at Deer Run to shoot over par and then win my question about sub straa is okay yeah the guy has what four top 10 in his last eight events straa has proven albeit being a younger guy that he gets hot and then he kind of just Falls away and you don’t see for a while he’s been hot for a while the question is did we already miss it with SE sea and if he was going to win would it have already happened by now it’s a good point you raised there Chris like he’s he’s good in patches right and last year the patch happened to be around here he played well and obviously won this he went and played well at the open afterwards as well uh he seems to have had that Purple Patch the couple of fifth places recently this season uh and you see there as I said the the part that I just slightly concerned about is the rounds in the 60 scenario there he can go low we know that but he generally doesn’t do it for four straight rounds generally he does it for sort of two or three which is concerning here yes and see where it where it falls but this year with as we said a bit of bit of rain and and a wet soft course there is not going to be the chance to shoot 73 and and win this golf tournament I mean short of you know astronomical 61 62 61 or something the next 3 days uh and everyone else sort of falling away I really do think you’re going to have to be shooting sort of 66 and under every day if you want to have a chance this week at the John de classic and if you’re talking about that with straa it’s really the exact same thing with the betting favorite in Sun JM because if we go back to Sun jm’s you know resume here four top 10 in his last six starts and look I I know you can continue to play well but do you realize that in is a lot like sep straka they’re both young guys they both have won before they both are playing really well right now but again just like staka Ben Sun JM does the same thing he plays really well and then he falls off the face of the Earth and you wonder where has he been the last 6 months so it’s the same question do you wonder if he’s got so many top 10 in the last two months was it already going to happen is his time over I think that’s the stuff we got to be concerned about with these two guys cuz they could they could miss the cut this week for all we know if their streaks over he I mean he should win he’s the best player in the field right if you go to Talent level and whatnot at the current time uh the way that they are playing in the trending scenario he’s in but I I have doubts how he plays as the favorite I know that shouldn’t be something necessarily that should bother people but it does certain players when they have the expectation of winning treat it differently they don’t mean to it but it’s a subconscious thing and and sjm is one of those guys that that I worry that you know with all this sort of quote unquote pressure around the fact that he should win this tournament I could sense some frustration coming in and when you’re in a birdie Fest if you have a little bit of frustration that can be the difference between winning and not winning uh we saw it last week with Cam Young when the frustration got into his game he fell away he got he was he was lapped and beaten so sunj is going to have to be really patient he’s going to have to keep getting M racking up birdies and and if they’re not happening he’s going to have to stay you know mentally strong which hasn’t always been a great strength of his in when when things aren’t going well they can sort of spiral for him so it’s a huge first round for sunm and that’s why we talk about what like we’re here to talk about how to bet the favorites for me at just 1200 now it’s not a play to begin with it’s a wait and see it’s see how he goes in the first round uh you know decide whether or not you think he’s got it you know you’re going to you might you might lose a little bit of value but you’re going to have a better understanding if he’s going to close this thing out and you can still jump on board uh and and maybe collect some cash that way I’d say same thing with staka too just wait and see regardless of the short OD on either of these guys I just don’t see them right off the bat playing well maybe wait till Saturday yeah the numbers probably going to go down a little bit but the reality of them winning on Saturday when they’re in contention is a better bet and a safer play I would say wouldn’t you agree 100% oh I don’t I don’t really think and we talked about this again yesterday and my column this week is more about this is a long shot week right pre- time tournament if you’re going to put something on pre- tournament you sprinkle on the the the the the sweet spot I call it between 50 and 100 to1 you go nine players in there that you can make an argument for that might have a chance to win and obviously if they start well those odds are going to be slashed and then you might have missed that opportunity these favorites that we’re looking at the the the top of the board I I feel like you can almost wait and see for all of them right you can wait and see how they play yes you’re going to drop from 16 or 18 to 10 12 8 7 one by then but you’re still going to have a better understanding on how they’re going and still have an opportunity to cat something decent you’re not going to have that opportunity if you’re 90 to1 shot goes out and shoots 60 to1 61 on the first day you’re not going to see that anywhere close to that number again so yeah I feel like it’s one of those weeks as you know I like Denny McCarthy this week he’s your pick I’m looking at that that ball striking number and and starting to starting to waver a little bit because if you look at strier Roy and spe there for instance they’ve all got decent Ball stri numbers not great putting numbers but it’s average putting and they just need to have a good week putting that can happen for anyone we now on tour anyone can get hot for four days with the putter that’s possibility for them I need McCarthy to hit it above average for four days and still make all his putts yes he can do it uh which is tougher to do though getting a hot putter is easier than figuring out your ball striking for 4 days if it’s an issue for you correct correct and and look I’m not saying it’s an issue for him I’m just saying he is is not as good as the rest of the the tour obviously when you get in that 159 160 range that’s a little bit too far down below the average tour level that you know you need him to have a good week right if he just has his regular week like this if he if he is 100 100th 110th this week in balling he won’t win no no matter how well he putts right so he’s going to need to to lift his game in that regard another player who you know if I was throwing down the cash I would probably wait definitely the guy next to him too SP that’s a white and safe show yeah you want to you want to get into spe here just give me one more second on Denny McCarthy because no matter who we’re talking about spe McCarthy any of these guys I think the important thing to stress on these stats we can tend to get overthinking on stats but you brought up a perfect example like that range like some of these guys being 100th 90th they’re about average on tour it’s not that big of a deal when you start to get farther down the list of some of these concerns you’re 160th 17 that’s when you start to have issues with these players you want to pick and McCarthy I agree the way he hits the ball I think he’s a little bit below where he should be if he’s going to contend every week you don’t need to have great numbers every week your stats don’t need to be popping on basically anything they just need to be good enough and like you said I’m not sure McCarthy’s ball striking and many other stats with his irons his driver whatever you want to call it is good enough to seriously take him at 22 to1 now you’re talking about Jordan spe okay his numbers have been fine they’ve been average uh you could say rounds in the 60s he’s been pretty good he’s doing that more and more often but here’s the thing with speed Benny okay zero top 10 in his last nine starts his only two top 10 in 2024 were at the very beginning of the year yep he’s just not the same guy as he he’s just not the guy that we used to and as much as I want to see him go well he’s a two time winner here and and you know he’s always popular and and it’s essentially reputation that has his odds at 22 to1 mind you he has gone completely the other way we had we’ve had players come in on the odds because we had some big you know we had Klay withdraw earlier in the week that brought odds down spe despite all this has just been going up up up the odds sport he was like 16 I believe on Monday correct he was 16 he’s up to now 22 to1 uh and look he’s still still the second most bet on player in this field but just they’re not getting the juice they thought they might get they know that normally SP fans love to jump on board love to throw the cash in gam the magic but the reality is they haven’t bit they haven’t really bit this week that’s why the odds are going up uh I would still be waiting I would still just sit back and go look if he wins at 22 to1 and we sit back next week and go how do we miss it he’d won there twice he’s such a superstar I’m not going to be that concerned about it I don’t feel like I’ve missed the boat too much because at 22 to1 we spoke about this before we can we can handle the 50 to1 range with Jordan we can say he’ll win every 50 times he plays you know and maybe then it’s worth a unit every every time to get that 50th time 22 n not winning every 22 times he’s just not well he hasn’t he used to and clearly he’s not that player anymore and I’m not even talking about 2015 even 3 four years ago he was winning maybe once every 22 times I would stay away from all Place markets on speed because once you get to what Top 40 you’re in minus money what’s the point I think what you should be focused on with spe find birdie markets find find over under on his score for a random day if you think he’s going to bounce back from a four round or vice versa uh find the birdie markets you know the guy’s going to make birdies but guess what he’s going to make Bogies too but it doesn’t matter yeah I I love that I love that idea if you can get you know obviously tournaments like this do you get first round and second round specials if you get an over under on birdies absolutely that’s the place to look for Speed and ride the wave and have some fun that way you can also look at him in head to heads cuz sometimes he’ll be the underdog and you might just have some fun you know you know like it’s fun to watch him and ride it with him uh but you’ll probably you know you might end up losing on the last t bogy or something when he’s in a he’ll end up in a in the The Gutter of the the clubhouse or something ridiculous and you’ll be riding it with him but it does allow you to have some fun and again I’m going to heart back to my own column this week where this is a week for you to have less money out there it don’t go all in do not go big on this week you can have one chalk player which is when I say chalk I’m talking even up towards 40 to1 pick one of those guys ride them and but then sprinkle small unit size even a dollar on the outright market for guys that are in that 50 to 100 range because I honestly feel like I I I I brought it down to I think eight guys in my column in that range that I think that legit have chance I think I could have made it 16 guys in that range yeah I mean you probably could have made even more than that yes and well so you’re talking about it’s a long shot week and for different reasons we’re fading a lot of these chalk players IM and sha we say that again we’re fading them at the start of the at the start yeah that’s that’s the way to preface it fade them at the start of the week then see what happens maybe on the weekend the one we haven’t talked about yet is Aaron Ry but he seems such a massive wild card and I don’t want to I don’t want this to sound like it’s a knock on Aon Ry who in the right mind would have thought Aaron Ry would be the third betting favorite on a PGA Tour event this year yeah it shows the it shows the form he’s in at the moment right he’s he’s a Perennial Place getter if that makes sense he’s a guy that when he does contend you can be pretty comfortable if you’ve got a top five or top 10 on him and he’s up there you can feel like okay you know I I think he can hold on for that scenario hopefully he’s going to make it there um and you used to be able to get some good odds but now because he’s done it last week he was top five yeah I did throw that one out there Benny in the bets said Aaron Ry was your lock for top five last week at 5 to one so that was the one thing I did hit on last week uh but I’m scared this week like he’s it it strikes me as like Tom Kim from the week before to the last week right playing well playing well playing well but it eventually is going to drop uh he he’s either he’s got to make you know 203 25 26 27 birdies again this week it’s hard to do back to back when you’ve been in that furnace of of competition when you’ve been up there and about I mean just this is such a small thing but look at ba is finish he finally sort of got to him at the end with those nerves you know he’d been flying for two weeks and then the adrenaline dump just came when he didn’t need it and and fell off the fell off the radar there and finished second I I I I would love Aaron Ry this week if he was 30 to1 I don’t like him at 18 to1 so before we go uh I want to actually Rev visit I’m trying to pull it up here right now I want to revisit our conversation from Monday okay about the guys who won here recently you see him straa Poston and Lucas Glover I think the more we talk about this throughout the week Ben uh I really think there’s something to playing good enough in the last handful of months before this week not needing to play great I still think it’s more it’s more relevant than ever which brings in your 16 long shots correct I I think when you when you go there you’re looking at guys who have sort of been trending towards you know that the old Trope in in golf I’m so close it’s right there Etc but I think that that’s the case I think if you you will find a very similar form line when we eventually get a winner on Sunday we’ll go back and look at what they’ve done in the last month two months and you will get a very similar line to what you see on these three players you’ll get maybe the odd the odd top 10 a couple of top 25s or whatever is you know a couple of a Mis cut there but mostly made Cuts I I absolutely think that somebody is going to pop out of that out of that uh bracket I mentioned and you’re still going to go oh I should have I should have got that or I should have known but yet it’s still hard to do so it’s uh it’s it’s very interesting this time of year you’ve got so much on the line right you’ve got so much uh you got FedEx Cup uh playoff predictions and where else they’re going to fall you got other guys thinking about the Scottish and and the Open Championship that they’ve got to worry about some players even have got the Olympics on their radar that that’s coming up uh but a lot of guys need to you know strike while the iron’s hot they have to they have to go well now if they want to have any idea of getting in the playoffs they need to play well in the summer these events I think there’s only like six or seven events left right before we hit playoffs and then other guys who were 125 140 145th on the FedEx they need to get into the 125 so that when they go to the FedEx Cup fall they’re not way behind the eight ball that plays more into your whole you know Mantra this week of don’t fade the favorites just wait wait wait on the favorites wait on the favorites enjoy yourself sprink a little bit on the guys that are out there in the big numbers and just enjoy the golf it’s summer it’s July 4 weekend happy 4th everyone uh let’s have a good time [Music] n [Music]
