2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational Betting & DFS Preview
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All right. Welcome in inside golf podcast. My name is Andy Lack, Arnold Palmer, invitational betting and DFS preview. I'm recording this Saturday evening. Going to go play some golf tomorrow morning. Not invested one bit in the Honda classic. I have Chris Kirk.

That was definitely a good pick at 90 to one. But that ain't happening. I don't see it, at least. Neither with Lowry, unfortunately, who I wrote up Friday night on Odds Checker and having one and done. I just think Berger's too good. It's boring golf, but he plays smart and he doesn't make a lot of mistakes. He's had two bogeys all week on PGA National. That's insane.

Not really kicking myself, though, for not considering betting him an 18 to one or whatever he was. I was just never going to go there. I definitely considered him in DraftKings. Went with a lower owned Neiman instead. That was a mistake. But I was surprised with how many people played him. I don't think anyone really bet him, but he was like 20%.

And I was gearing up to play him at low ownership because I love a good injury speculation narrative that deflates ownership. But that didn't really happen with him. So I stupidly pivoted to Neiman. And that's that. Oh, well, the carnage was the carnage was definitely real this week. Unfortunately, like.

Chalk Billy Horschel and Chalk Mitchell somehow did make it through. And I played Neiman, Louie, Fleetwood, Lowry, and Norn at the top. Those are my five guys above nine. And you just needed to have Berger. There's a chance I break even with some four of sixes because I played so much Lowry, Kirk, and Svensson, and Hubbard.

But Neiman and Tommy fell for that one again. Oh, and Patrick Reed. I played Patrick Reed. I don't know what happened there. Reed drove the ball great on Thursday. He actually gained like a stroke off the tee through two rounds. He also lost six strokes on approach and shot 79 on Friday. The darkest part of it is he's in the field this week for Arnold Palmer.

If he's like 7.4 and sub five again, which he probably will be, I will probably consider him again. But that's all I got for the Honda.

Don't really want to talk about that tournament too much anymore. We survived METO week, though. I'll say that. Shout out to everyone that did not bet METO. The resistance was strong this week. And you guys are the real MVPs. Actually, I take that back. Bet365 were the real MVPs with that odds boost.

Absolute stroke of genius. Stroke of genius. That was not even remotely predictable. Not even a little bit. Okay, let's get to the API though. Arnold Palmer Invitational. This event was founded in 1979 as the successor to something called the Florida Citrus Open.

And since 1979, it has been played at Bay Hill Club and Lodge, a public golf facility just outside of Orlando, Florida. It is one of only five tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule that has an invitational status, which basically just means that

the field gets cut to between 120 and 132 instead of 144 or 156. So mathematically it should be a little easier to get guys through the, through the cut here. Um,

And because this is Arnold Palmer's tournament, just like the Memorial with Jack, we get a solid field. Now, it probably gets hurt a little bit because it's a week before the players. But we've still got Jon Rahm playing here for the first time. Bryson is back despite some injury concerns to defend his title.

Rory, who's been incredible at this course, is playing. Victor Hovland, Sam Burns, Sungjae Im, Scotty Scheffler, Hideki Matsuyama, Tyrell Atten, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris, Paul Casey, Mark Leishman, Justin Rose, Jason Day, Billy Horschel, Patrick Reed, Max Homa, Sergio, many others, many others. So it's a great field.

On not what I would call a great golf course, but I really like the way that this golf course gets set up and the conditions that we get with this tournament, which we will get to very soon. All right. Former winners here. Last year, Bryson won at 11 under. He was 12 to one over Lee Westwood.

2020 Tyrell Hatton, four under. He was 55 to one over Mark Leishman. 2019 Francesco Molinari, 12 under. He was 33 to one over Matt Fitzpatrick. 2018 Rory McIlroy, 18 under. He was 20 to one over Bryson.

2017, Mark Leishman, 100-1 over Charlie Hoffman and Kevin Kisner. 2016, Jason Day, 17-under. He was 14-1. 2015, we have back-to-back Matt Everies.

Uh, Matt, everyone at 19 under and 13 under at 300 to one and 66 to one in 2014 and 2015. And then 2013 and 2012, we had tiger when at 13 under both years, he was three to one and eight to one. I imagine he was in pretty bad form for tiger to be eight to one that year, but that's what we got. So five of the last 10 years, we've had one of the betting favorites win. Um,

Now, two of those years were Tiger, so I don't know how much stock you want to put into that, but Bryson won at 12-1, Rory won at 20-1, Jason Day won at 14-1, even Molinari was in the low 30s. We did have this Matt, weird Matt Everything, as I mentioned, who won back-to-back at 366 points.

Um, and Leishman for some reason was a hundred to one, I guess he was in really bad form, but scanning through the leaderboards and such, I do think this is a hitters only spot. Um, I do think it is the type of course where better players or better ball strikers, I guess, um, do possess a legitimate advantage right out of the gates. Uh, so let's talk about the course Bay Hill club and lodge, uh,

in Windermere, Florida. It was designed by Dick Wilson and Joe Lee in 1961 with an Arnold Palmer redesign in 2009. It's a par 72 measuring 7,454 yards on the scorecard. So decently long, although we do have four par fives. There are nine holes with water hazards. So not as much water as the Honda, but there's still a lot of trouble on this course.

Bermuda fairways, three inch Bermuda rough. And the three inches is crucial, right? They really let the rough grow out here. And we've already started to see some pictures surface of how thick the rough is. This is the longest rough that these guys have seen all year so far. Um, it's a longer than the rough at Torrey. It's longer than the rough at Riviera. Um,

It's longer than the rough at Honda. It's not quite US Open rough, but the rough is a big issue here. More on that later. 7,500 square foot Bermuda greens on average that run 12 on the stem. So medium sized greens that are really firm and fast, even firmer and faster than what we saw last week at Honda.

Um, in theory, this is a harder golf course than Honda. Even, uh, it plays faster. It plays firmer, the roughest sticker. Um, it's, but it's a par 72. And when you give pros for par fives, like par 72 is on average on tour, just play so much easier than par seventies because those two extra par fives really, really matter. But this has got to be, um, the hardest par 72 on the schedule. It's up there.

It annually ranks as one of the hardest courses just on its own on the PGA Tour. And in 2020, it was the hardest course we saw all season, including majors. Now, that was a bit of an anomaly. That was when Terrell Hatton went at four under par when it was incredibly windy and the greens were like rock hard that year. I don't expect it to play that difficult again. Last year, the winning score was 11 under par.

that feels much more like the likely outcome. So it's still very difficult. It's definitely not a birdie fest and this is important. So in 2019, Bay Hill hired a new superintendent, Chris Flynn. And since Chris Flynn has taken over as a superintendent,

It has played a lot harder the past three years. The winning score has been minus 12, minus 4, minus 11. So be careful looking at Rory McIlroy winning at 18 under in 2018 or Matt Avery winning at 19 under in 2015. It's a different golf course now. And basically the reason it got harder, they actually widened the fairways a bit.

Bay Hill is pretty standard 33-yard wide fairways.

But the reason why that actually made the course harder is they removed a lot of the rough around the hazards and the bunkers. So it just makes it easier now to hit it into the water and the bunkers because those areas are just shaved off now when the rough used to kind of act as a backstop. But now there's a much higher chance of the ball just rolling into the hazards. Plus the rough that they do have,

They made a lot longer. So that's why this course has played a lot harder the last three years. Longer rough hazards are more prominently in play. And we can probably continue to see this trend of the winning score be closer to 11 under over the last three years, as opposed to 17 or 18.

in years past. So as long as Chris Flynn is in charge, um, by the way, shout out Chris Flynn. We need more guys like this in positions of power that are just willing to rock the boat and make the best players just a little bit uncomfortable. Um, because you're still going to have to come here and play. I mean, it's Arnold Palmer's tournament. It's an invitational, um,

There just aren't many courses that you're going to find outside of U.S. Open venues that feature three inch rough and greens that run 12 on the stamp. So personally, I cannot wait for this week. And I wish that more courses were set up this way before we get into the stats.

A couple other things to note. So I've talked about the removal of trees and the widening of fairways. What's interesting, and I think a question that is going to come up a lot this week, especially considering the player that won this tournament last year and how he won it, is can you overpower this course off the tee? And I've gone back and forth. I think it depends. One thing I talk about a lot in my previews is

Is this a driver course, right? Like let's first identify before we make any claims about the importance of off the tee. Are players actually hitting driver here? The answer is often no more than you would think. And do you actually possess an advantage for being a really long and straight driver of the ball? And with Bay Hill,

You look at the distance of drives on average, it's well below tour average, despite some really firm and fast conditions. Now this course does play at sea level. So that plays a role, but distance of drives here has been a lot lower than you would expect, which tells me for whatever reason, guys are still laying back a little bit off the tee. And I do think that's because, uh,

With the shaved runoff areas, it's just really easy to hit the ball in the fairway bunkers and hazards here. But the reason why I do actually think that distance off the tee does matter this week, it's not essential. Like Tyrell Hatton's not long. Molinari's not long. Those guys are far from dominant off the tee. But Bryson was, of course, first in driving distance the year he won. Rory was first in driving distance the year he won. Jason Day was top 10 in driving distance the year he won.

Tiger, Martin Laird, actually sneaky long Martin Laird. We'll talk about Martin Laird. Maybe not on this podcast, but at some point, um, Martin Laird was actually top five in driving distance that year too. And you look at the average over the last 10 years, winners have rated out 25th in driving distance and 33rd in accuracy. Um,

So I don't really know if overpower is the right word, but I do think that distance matters here. Mainly that is because you have four par fives that are reachable by some, but not all depending on the wind. And you really, you really have to score on those par fives. I cannot emphasize enough how important the par fives are this week. I am really heavy on par five scoring this week.

All of the par fives have over a 32% birdie rate. 16 has a 5% Eagle rate. And you look at how top 10 finishers have performed on the par fives. They've really excelled. They gain far more strokes relative to the field to the par threes and fours. So I do think longer players...

that have the ability to overpower and take advantage of these par fives have a big advantage on what are really the four most important holes on the course. The par fours and par threes, you're in survivor mode, but you really have to take advantage of those par fives. And I do think that longer players that will be able to have shorter irons in on those holes will have a big leg up.

But that's really only one piece of the puzzle. I do think this is, I think it's a little bit less of a brute force course than, say, Torrey Pines. Like even just looking at the leaderboard from last year.

You've got some absolute bombers like Bryson and Kokrak and Rory. You've also got some absolute elite iron players like Corey Connors, Keegan Bradley, Paul Casey, Will Zaltoris. And then you've also got some just elite short game guys and grinders like Spieth and Fleetwood and Fitzpatrick and Bazadenhout and Matt Wallace. And the year before that, it was very similar. Like we got some decent drivers like Bryson and

some dominant drivers like Bryson, sorry, Keith Mitchell, Rory, Scotty Sheffler, all those guys like dominant drivers. And then some great iron players too, like Morikawa, Hatton, Hoagie and Gooch. And some really, some really great short game grinder type players as well, like Fitzpatrick, Bazaydenhout and Patrick Reed. So there are a lot of ways that you can get it done here. I think this is a week where,

where you really want to be pretty balanced between looking for dominant off the tee guys, really good iron players and short game guys. And in my opinion, you absolutely have to be elite at one of those things. Like in 2020, Morikawa finished top 10. He gained 10.6 on approach, 10.6 on approach, and he lost 5.9 short game in putting. Hatton,

Did it all with the irons. Bryson gained seven off the tee and was just okay everywhere else. Kokrak and Mitchell gained a ton off the tee. And then you have Spieth, who finished fourth last year, losing strokes off the tee, but awesome irons, awesome short game. Putnam, Andrew Putnam, finished fourth, losing strokes off the tee, gained a ton short game in putting. Bazadenhout lost 1.4 strokes, ball striking.

Gained 10.6 short game in putting. So I think the important thing you want to try and identify here, especially when you're trying to find lower price guys in DFS, like do they have a weapon that can set them apart this week? And we talked about this with Hoagie before, right? When Hoagie was...

Coming into Pebble Beach and Hoagie was like a 7K golfer and 65 to 1, 100 to 1. Yeah, Hoagie's a flawed player, right? He has flaws in his game. But there's one thing about Tom Hoagie that is incredibly elite. He is like the best middle iron player, like a top five middle iron player in the world, right? And that's...

You know, that's what helped him win at Pebble Beach, right? There's this large plurality of short to middle irons. And what do you know? Hoagie takes his one very elite skill set. He's able to mask some of the other things and boom. So like that's kind of the question that I'm asking this week. Are they an elite driver of the ball like Keith Mitchell or Kokrak where they can just overpower these par fives?

Are they an elite iron player like Keegan or Corey Connors, where they can separate themselves by hitting a bunch of these rock hard greens? Or are they an elite scrambler like Fitzpatrick or Wallace or Bazayden? How where if the conditions get tougher and suddenly everyone is missing greens, they suddenly have a huge advantage. Like in my opinion, you need to be really, really good at at least one of those things at Bay Hill.

And I think you should probably let the weather dictate which one you favor the most. If it's super windy, you probably want to give the tiebreaker to the short game guys. If it's a little bit less windy, probably want to give the tiebreaker to the dominant off the tee or really great iron players.

I think you could take any of these three routes and be okay. So I'm probably going to try and find a middle ground and weigh all of them pretty equally. But if you aren't really good at one of those things, it's a cross off for me this week. By the way, over a large samples, the stats back this up too. It's really balanced here in terms of what the winners have done between the

proximity of the hole, scrambling and driving distance. And every single year, the winner is elite at one of those things. They're either at the top of the field in driving distance and par five scoring, proximity of the hole or scrambling. So you can take any of those routes, but you have to be absolutely elite at one of them to win here. Let's do some quotes real quick before we get to the stats. Hatton,

Talked about how firm the greens are and how they get firmer throughout the week, plus how the wind swirls and changes direction often. He also talks about how if you miss the fairway here, you are really punished because it's hard to run the ball up onto these rock hard greens. And if you're trying to pitch a ball on the greens out of the rough, they aren't stopping.

So we can talk about how much driving accuracy matters here a little bit later, but that basically just leads me down the path of, okay, maybe look at long courses with thick, rough and firm greens that are susceptible to the wind. Now that's pretty specific. What courses fit that? Um, Torrey pines, kinda Memorial park where they have the Houston open, uh,

Doesn't really have the rough, but it does really have a firm and fast Bermuda greens. And now that Bay Hill is more shaved off. There's some similarities there. Kiowa islands doesn't really have the rough, but it has those really firm greens and really susceptible to the wind. Doral is honestly a pretty good comp, even though we haven't been there in a couple of years. There's a ton of crossover from those leaderboards.

Muirfield Village has really firm greens and pretty thick rough, usually a little bit less wind. And obviously that's a bent grass course. You know, the one I was actually thinking of that really came to mind was Olympia Fields, where Rom won over DJ that year at the BMW. That might be the best one. I know it's not Bermuda.

But that course has really thick, rough, really firm greens. And it was windy that week, too. I don't think there's a like a perfect comp for Bay Hill that checks all those boxes. But that actually might be the closest, in my opinion. And you look at the top 10 that week from Olympia Fields, Hideki, Kokrak, Fitzpatrick, Adam Scott, Rory Hatton, Paul Casey,

Like what are those guys all have in common? They're all also really good at Bay Hill. So I really like that Olympia Fields-Bay Hill connection because of the thick rough and the wind and the rock hard greens. A couple other guys, just for your guys' information, that were good at Olympia Fields that are in the field this week. Munoz.

Brendan Todd, Lanto Griffin, Matthew Wolf, Scotty Scheffler, Russell Henley, Carlos Ortiz, Kevin Kisner, all finished top 25 at Olympia Fields. So keep that in mind. Could be nothing. Could be something. Rory McIlroy and Jason Day both talked about how you need to be really aggressive on the par fives and take advantage of those. There you go. The par fives are going to be a theme here. Leishman,

Talked about how firm these greens are. You got to be approaching from the fairway because the rough is thick and it will be very hard to stop it on these greens. We'll expand on that a little bit more soon. Stenson also basically talked about

what I mentioned earlier where he said, there have been years where my iron play has been the reason why I've had success. I've also had years where my irons weren't as solid, but I've been able to make up for it because I was a magician around the greens. So again, you got to have at least one of those things really firing Stenson was like, yeah, one of those things, right? I've done it different ways in different years, right?

where one year I was hitting my irons really well. The other years I was getting up and down from everywhere. Laird talks about the bunkers, how you're going to get a lot of plug lies.

bryson was actually complaining about the bunkers last year as well if you remember and how tough they are and there are a ton of bunkers on this course like most florida courses so i will absolutely be looking at bunker play too grant mcdowell said it was u.s open ask off the t and augusta ask around the greens i thought that was interesting um

Again, whether it's short game or driving or iron play, this course is really going to test all aspects of your game. Okay, let's run through some stats that I think you want to be looking at, and then we'll get to the early leans. Okay, so off the tee, so I mentioned that I do think longer players have a bit of an advantage here, particularly on the par fives, top 10 finishers on average.

have gained 0.43 strokes off the C, almost 50% what they gained on approach, which is actually a lot compared to other PGA Tour courses. So I've kind of gone back and forth in terms of how much accuracy really matters. I think where I net out is I'd definitely rather have you be long than accurate here. And despite the fact that some players will say you need to be in the fairways here, I

That's true, but the fairways are also pretty wide. So I don't actually think that the super accurate fairway finder guys have that much of an advantage here. I couldn't find much of a strong correlation between fairways gained or driving accuracy and success. I just kept running into...

Just too many examples of guys like Bizayden Howard and Richie Wierenski and Spieth and even Hatton and Leishman that just didn't drive the ball well here at all and still finish towards the top of the leaderboard. So I think where a net out is,

I've got a moderate weight on off the tee with a larger emphasis on distance and accuracy. You do have to be somewhat accurate because there's still some water on the tee shots and thick rough. But I do think the fairways are wide enough here that I'm not really going to look at any accuracy stats outside of just regular strokes gained off the tee, which I have a fair amount of weight on. Approach.

Top 10 finishers on average have gained 0.9 strokes on approach. That's just slightly lower from what we're used to seeing on like some of those positional golf courses. And the reason for that is only because there's a little more emphasis on off the tee and short game here, but greens and regulation percentage way lower than tour average. It's only 60% compared to tour average of 66%.

I definitely found a large correlation between greens and regulation gained in success. These greens are really firm, and I do think that really good mid to long iron players with a high ball flight definitely possess an advantage here. They aren't small greens, but they are really firm, and as we'll get to in a second, they

Um, a lot of the time you're going to be approaching them with a long iron. So 29% of approach shots come from over 200 yards here. Just for context, we talk about how Torrey Pines is a long iron course. Um,

Bay Hill, even more than Torrey Pines. Um, Torrey Pines is only 26%. Bay Hill is almost 30. So I have a really big emphasis this week on long iron play. Two thirds of all approach shots here come from over 150 yards and almost one third of them come from over 200 yards. And the reason for this is the par fives are reachable. Uh,

But you will be approaching them with long irons. You've got a ton of long par fours. There's five par fours that measure over 450. And all of the par threes are really long as well. The par threes here all measure between 200 and 231 yards. So I've got a pretty big weight on long iron proximity this week. Even bigger...

than I would at a course like Torrey Pines. And since these greens are even firmer than the ones at Torrey Pines, you even have more of an advantage if you can hit the ball high with your long irons, which is why we've seen Bryson

Rory, Jason day. Like those are all guys with a really high ball flight that hit their long irons really well. Even, um, Teal Hatton, who I think has more of a reputation as like a grinder type, like Hatton's best skillset by far is his iron play specifically as long iron plays really good. So I've got a moderate weight on approach this week. And a lot of that is weighted very heavily towards proximity from 150 plus specifically 200 plus. Um,

Just for reference, here are the top long iron players in the field over the past year or so. So these are the guys that are the best from 200 yards plus. Bryson, Wolf, Rahm, Paul Casey, Victor Hovland, Tyrell Hatton, Wills Alatorre, Sung JM, Cameron Champ, Maverick McNeely, Sebastian Munoz. There's Munoz again. Gary Woodland.

Um, okay. Short game. So top 10 finishers have gained on average 0.35 strokes around the green, uh, which is a little bit lower than what they've gained off the tee, but still greater than what you see at most courses at most birdie fast at the very least. Um, I feel similar about short game here as I feel about off the tee. I think if you are

If you have an elite short game, you have a really big advantage on this course, especially if the wind gets going and we get a ton of carnage like the Hatton year. I think just reading some player quotes and looking at videos and visuals of the course and trying to go back and watch a little bit what this looked like. I noticed a lot of

you know, really provocative shots around the green here, like hard bunker shots. You're chipping out of like really thick, rough, or really like shaved off runoff areas to firm and bouncy greens. I talked about how there are a lot of bunkers. So I'm definitely going to look at sand saves and just scrambling in general. You're going to miss greens here. You're going to hit it in the hazard sometimes. So scrambling becomes really, really important.

Like it does on most Florida courses with a lot of water. Hatton was seventh in scrambling. Molinari was fifth in scrambling. Rory was first in scrambling. So I went a little above average around the greens. I'm pretty much both a little above average on off the tee and short game.

Again, I can't emphasize it enough. I just think that being really good at one of these things, whether it be around the green play, long iron play, or driving it long and straight, if you are elite at one of those things, I think it can really help you at Bay Hill. And then putting, the top 10 finishers have gained on average 0.7 strokes putting, which is a little bit lower than what we're used to seeing, which basically just tells us

It's not a putting contest. It's a complete and total T to green test. I do think bad putters can win here and play well here. So because I'm, you know, at my average in iron play and above average on off the tee and short game, plus I've got a ton on par five scoring, um,

course history and difficult scoring conditions. I just went a little bit lower on putting this week. It kind of got squeezed for me. I just, I was able to find too many examples where other things were important. And of course there are some outlier performances, of course, but I did not see a lot of instances where someone just gains a million strokes putting and wins here. I don't really think you can do that. We have a much lower correlation of putting here with the success than we do a T degree. And so I,

I've got only a 10% weight on Bermuda putting. Usually I'm closer to somewhere between like 13 and 18. And then scoring stats. So I've alluded to the importance of the par fives. I really want strong par five players here. I'm a lot heavier on par five scoring than I usually am. Just for reference, here are the best players in par five scoring over the last year.

Bryson, Matthew Fitzpatrick, John Rahm, Max Homa, Keith Mitchell, Seamus Power, Matt McNeely popping up again, Pat Perez, Taylor Gooch, Gary Woodland popping up again. And then I'm going right back to difficult scoring conditions since we've had this new superintendent.

And they started really firming the course up and growing out the rough. It's just a really difficult golf course. And if we get a ton of wind, players have talked about how it plays like a major. And especially the year Hatton won, when the wind gets going, it's just a beast. So I want guys that have been good in difficult scoring conditions. I did have a very small weight on wind play again. I know it gets really windy here. And a lot of Euros have played really well here.

Like I talked about last week, I just don't like totally trust it as a useful statistic. But like I do think over a large sample size, it can help you identify some of the players that always pop up. So I put a very small weight on it. And then comps, you know, I talked about this a little bit at the top. If you want to look at other Arnold Palmer courses, I'll mention he has designed the Palmer course at PGA West and

Not a difficult golf course, which is used in the rotation for the American Express. TPC Boston, also not a very difficult golf course, which was used to host a FedExCup playoff event. TPC Twin Cities, a little bit harder. Still not a very difficult golf course. That's a host of the 3M Open. I'm not going to... Arnold Palmer doesn't have like a... How do I say? Like an overhanging design philosophy, similar to the way that...

I don't know, Pete Dye does where he likes to return to a lot of the same tracks over and over again. Um, I think the two courses that I like the best here are Olympia fields in Doral, which we both don't have a ton of data on, or we haven't been going there in a while in the case of Doral. Um, so I've got a, I've got a very small weight on those two courses. Um,

that's it. I mean, I think Mirafield village is fine too, because of the thicker rough and third firm greens. And,

you know, PGA national in some regards, although the rough at PGA national is, is less penal and par five scoring and long iron play aren't as close to as important as they are at Bay Hill. Um, obviously you still get the firm and fast, uh, Bermuda, uh, that is exposed to the wind with a lot of bunkers and short game matters and scrambling matters. So ultimately I went with very small weights on Doral and Olympia fields, but I also think maybe there's some merit in, uh,

um, your field village, especially when that course played really firm and fast that year and PGA national too. I just didn't have room for them. And then course history. Um, so one thing that I really look at with course history to really try and figure out how much it matters on a week to week to week to week basis is how players generally perform on their debut. Um, how often do we see players, uh,

play well on their first appearance. And it's definitely possible. Sung J finished third on his debut fleetwood top 10 on his debut hat and finished fourth on his debut. Mitchell finished six on his debut. Wallace finished six on his debut. Troy Merritt finished third on his debut. Um, I don't think there are like a ton of tricks to this course. It's kind of right all out there in front of you. It's just hard. Um,

And you do see a certain group of guys that pretty much always play well here. Rory Bryson, Sergio, Sungjae Fleetwood, Coke crack have all been just really consistently good. So I've gotten above average weight on course history this week. If you are playing here for the first time, not downgrading you a ton, especially in draft Kings. Although in terms of actually like winning the golf tournament, I think experience does help a little bit. So to recap,

The biggest things for me this week, long iron play and scrambling and par five scoring. Now, if you aren't great at one of those things, I would really hope you are at least a dominant driver of the golf ball and could take advantage of this course off the tee, which kind of goes hand in hand with the par five scoring. But to just completely dumb it down, if you want to go really simple.

I would identify the best long iron players, scramblers, and par five scorers in this field. So there's only three guys in this field that are top five in long iron play, par five scoring, and scrambling. Jon Rahm, Sung J.M., and Keith Mitchell.

And this is ROM's first appearance here, but that checks out, right? Sungjae and Mitchell have been awesome here. So that also checks out, right? Maybe we're onto something here. I don't think it's a coincidence. So some other players that are really good in all three of those things, Cameron Tringali, actually, Tyrell Hatton, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland, Tom Hoagie. What do you know? All those guys are,

Have been good here. Don't think it's a coincidence. So long iron play, scrambling, par five scoring at a secondary level off the tee with an emphasis on distance, Bermuda putting bunker play and scoring in difficult conditions. That's it. That's all you need. All right, let's get to the model. So off the tee weighted combination of strokes and off the tee with a more heavy emphasis on driving distance, 15%.

approach 32%. It's a weighted combination of strokes gain approach and proximity from 150 plus with more emphasis on 200 plus around the green 14%. That's a combo of around the green scrambling and sand saves Bermuda putting 10% and then scoring stats 18%, which is a weighted combination of

windy conditions difficult scoring conditions and par five scoring and par five scoring so i lumped that in as almost 20 of my model i think that's really important and then course comps uh 11 total seven percent pay hill two percent olympia fields two percent dural so who did that spit out who did that spit out um john rom is who it's like what are we doing here john rom was number one um

Number two is Scotty Scheffler. I think he's a great course for Scotty Scheffler. Three was Rory. No surprise there. Tyrell Hatton was four, which I think is a good thing. I usually hope that the guys with really good course history here also are high in the model that I made. So I'm at least doing something right. And that is very much the case this week. So Hatton four,

Zalator is five. That makes sense. I like Zalator's a lot on difficult golf courses. Paul Casey six. He's been good here. Hideki Matsuyama seven. He's been good here. Bryson eight. He's been really good here. Luke less nine. He's been really good here. Taylor Gooch 10. He's been really good here.

Adam Scott, 11. He's been really good here. 12, Mark Leishman. He's been really good here. You'd think I have course history weighted at like 20%. I don't at all. I have it at 7%. Sung Jae-in, 13. He's been really good here. And then we've got Sam Burns, Victor Hovland, Christian Bezadenhout, Russell Henley, Cameron Tringali, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Gary Woodlett to round it out.

Um, the only guys in that top 20 that haven't really done it much here, Burns, Hovland, Henley, Tringali has been fine, I guess. Um, he always makes a cut, but not like no top tens. Um, so not a lot of surprises. I guess the biggest one, like Scheffler, like right behind Rom, kind of a surprise and Hatton, like all the way up there too. Um,

But let's get to early leans. Okay, so here's the thing. My guy Matthew Fitzpatrick withdrew at Riviera, and I was convinced that he was going to win Riviera. Now, I was probably a little high on my own supply. I had hit two outrights in a row, and I was maybe a little overconfident in Fitzpatrick there. Now, the predicament that we run into with Fitzpatrick here is...

It's actually a better golf course for him than Riviera. He's gone second, ninth, tenth. He's really good off the tee. He's picked up distance. He keeps the ball in play. The irons have really started to improve this season. You don't worry about the short game at all. He's one of the best bunker players in the field. Actually, number one Bermuda putter in the entire field. He's been so much better on Bermuda than any other surface, at least in the States.

And one thing that really surprised me about Fitzpatrick, which I think is part of the reason that he's been so good at this course, he's really good on par fives, like over a large, over short term, longterm, whatever you look at really good on par fives. And no one outside of Bryson and ROM in this field have been better on par fives and Matthew Fitzpatrick, um, great and difficult scoring conditions when it's firm and fast, um,

Fitzpatrick was sixth at Olympia fields. Okay. We like that. I think about that firm and fast Memorial year that ROM one Fitzpatrick was third Valderrama hard golf course, thick, rough. He won Fitzpatrick one couple months ago. And then obviously he's been great at this course too. So it's a, it's a pretty good case for Fitzpatrick. Now I will say this about my guy Fitzpatrick, um,

I remember this time last year was one of my first weeks on Twitter. I mean, when I say on Twitter, like I had 20 followers, I was just, you know, a fly on the wall. I was observing. Fitzpatrick was like a bajillion percent owned. He would like everyone bet Fitzpatrick and Burns that week. I remember that clearly as the first time.

of like looking at golf Twitter and I could not believe how much Fitzpatrick and Burns it was. Now, do we see that again this week? Maybe it's definitely in play. Now he did withdraw from Riviera with a non COVID stomach, but will people could be concerned about that? I don't know. The fact that burger just fucking one with injury concerns is,

Doesn't help at all with that hope. I mean, and I don't give a shit about that stuff. If anything, I think it makes him more hungry because he's got to know how good he's hitting it right now. I mean, Fitzpatrick's really literally hitting it better than he ever has. Like Phoenix was his third best tee to green week of his entire career on the PGA Tour. Only two times he was better for a tee to green. Any guesses?

Bay Hill, U.S. Open, right? Fourth best TD Green Week, Bay Hill again. Like this is it. This is it right now for Fitzpatrick. This is his best chance. I mean, I like him at the players too, but it's a damn good spot for him. And I thought he was going to win Riviera if he didn't withdraw. I felt really strongly about that. So am I going to hop off

at an even better golf course for him. Well, I don't know. We'll see how certain people think it would be tough. Um, I, I think it makes too much sense. Um, it's probably a situation to be honest with you, like Keith Mitchell, where I talk about this guy on Sunday morning, I bet this guy first thing on Monday morning, and then it's a complete fade in draft Kings.

Like that's probably the route that I see already with Fitzpatrick and the next guy that I'm going to talk about this week, um, which is another player that I just like, I'm not, I'm not hopping off. And that's Sal Torres who rates out amazing here. He's great off the tee. He's, he's gained distance too. He's longer now, a lead iron player, one of the best in the world from 175 plus, um,

So these are the courses that you want to play. Will's Al Torosan, like these ones relative to the field. He is so much of a better long iron player than he is a wedge player. Um, he possesses his biggest advantage on courses where you have to hit a bunch of long irons. That's why he's been so good at Torrey Pines. And there's even a greater emphasis on long iron proximity here than there was at Torrey Pines. Short game's been fine. Um,

But I do worry about him out of the bunkers. I will say that. That's a fair concern. He's definitely better on Poe than Bermuda. But oddly enough, the last three times that Will Z has had a good putting week, Memphis, Wyndham, Sanderson Farms, all Bermuda. So at least right now, this is the surface that he seems the most comfortable on. I love him in difficult scoring conditions. I just think...

Torrey Pines, Bay Hill, Riviera. Like this is where you play Zalator's every year. I don't like him on birdie fests. I like him on long iron courses. So I think I think I got to keep riding him. He was great at the Genesis. Great. Great is an overstatement. He hit the ball great at the Genesis. Four point six on approach.

The ball striking, of course, got a little bit worse from that ceiling performance at the Farmers. But, I mean, it remained awesome. And he's just at a bit of a different level right now than most players in terms of the ball striking outside of everyone in this field except Rom, who's actually on a little bit of a different level than him. And it's not like...

It's not like Wills Altaurus is hemorrhaging strokes putting. Like Wills Altaurus is a really, he's a really good lag putter. In each week, he's losing 1.5, 1.3, 1.7. Like that's not broken. It's just the short ones that you get worried about, but he's a really, he has really good distance control and he's good at reading greens. So Wills,

If he can get to like plus one or plus two with the putter, he's going to win. Like that's how good the ball, if Rom doesn't win, he would win. That's how good the, you could say the same thing about Rom. If Rom gets to plus one or plus two putting, he's probably going to win. And Zalatorz is the next likeliest candidate for that in this field. That's how good the ball striking is right now. And getting from minus 1.5 putting to plus 1.5 putting, like I don't think that's a bridge too far.

Plus, maybe he's got the added motivation seeing his college teammate Cameron Young suddenly get some of the fanfare. Like it's it's time for Zalatouris to win. He's really not that young. And we get Scheffler and Neiman. Like, it's just it's time. And this is probably the best course fit ever.

That you are going to get him on for the next couple of weeks outside of, I guess, the Masters. And I think he's far more likely to win an event like this instead of the Masters. So I'm going to continue to ride him for better or worse. So I'm recording this late on Saturday night. I'm going to probably early on Monday morning bet Fitzpatrick and Salators. And I don't know if I'll... I'm getting better at...

As time goes on at predicting these things, I imagine some people, I think my cases for those guys are pretty good. And I think even if I didn't make cases for those guys, um, people would still find their way to them. But I think those cases for them, they're pretty good. Um, so we'll see could be trouble in draft Kings. The last guy that I want to talk about, um,

I don't think he's going to be as popular as the other two guys. And I think I'm going to bet Paul Casey this week. And I...

I bet Paul Casey at every major last year, he finished top seven at three out of the four majors, top 15 at all of them. Haven't bet him since. But, you know, I liked what I saw with him. He, he rated out six here for me. And in eight appearances, he's got three top fifteens, including a 10th last year. He rated out. Well, he rated out really well. He saw it off the tee above average distance. Yeah.

absolutely elite long iron player, which is what really drew me in. He's one of the best in this field from one 50 plus specifically, even better from 200 plus. The reason I don't like him as much as I like Fitzpatrick and Zalator's is

Short game's more of a concern with him. It's definitely a weakness of his game. He is not good out of bunkers over a large sample size. He's been fine on Bermuda, though. He's won the Valspar twice, dominates par fives, great in difficult scoring conditions, great in the wind, solid at Doral, solid at Olympia Fields, fourth at Kiowa Island, seventh at the U.S. Open, fifth at the Players. So I like him on harder golf courses than

And I understand the short game might be a concern, but when you are, when you're betting on Paul Casey, you're betting that he's going to gain over four strokes on approach, which he's done seven out of the last 10 starts, which is absolutely insane. It's been over a year since he's lost strokes on approach, similar to burger after Morikawa. We talk a lot about JT as the next best iron player, like statistically Casey's right there. So, um,

I'm kind of doing a little bit what I said with those three things that I thought were really important, right? Like you elite long iron player. I'm getting there with Casey. I mean, Zalatoris is elite too, but Zalatoris elite driver. I'm getting there with Casey.

Zala Taurus and kind of Casey actually underratedly Casey's long Casey's really like sneaky long, uh, for how old he is too. And then if the conditions get really, really, really difficult, I've got Fitzpatrick there too, the short game. Um, and so case like he's coming off a 15th at the Genesis where he gained six off the tee 5.6 on approach. He just lost strokes putting, um,

So I like those three guys a lot. I mean, I've gotten worse at projecting the odds. I continue to be surprised, but I would imagine I could fit those three guys. I would expect. Casey, I would imagine, will be in the 40s, right? He was 75 at Riviera. I mean, I know he finished...

And this is a little bit of a weaker field, but I don't know, 40, 50 to one on Paul Casey. He doesn't win. He never wins anyway. So what's the, what's the big deal. But he really started to heat up this time last year, like eighth at the Amex fifth at pebble 10th at API fifth at the players. And then he finished top seven at both the PGA and us open while losing strokes putting. So I really, I love this spot for him.

So those are the three guys that I'm most likely betting unless their numbers are absurd. A couple of DraftKings guys I like. Well, I should say at the top, I'm playing John Rahm and you'll probably have to make a decision at the top between Rahm, Rory and Bryson. I mean, I'm not going to, I'm going to fade two of those guys.

I'm going to choose John Rahm. But, you know, you can make a great case for Rory. You can make a great case for Bryson too. And I, at the top, I'm going to ride with like Rahm and I'm going to play Hatton. I think Hatton, despite winning Hatton will go under owned. I'm hesitant to say Fitzpatrick and Zalator's because I'm worried about their ownership.

And I'm going to play Sung J.M. here too, coming off a miscut. I hope people took it very personally how he let them down last week. And then some of the mid-tier guys that I really like. I actually like Tringali this week, and I don't think he'll be highly owned. I like Leishman. He might be a little more highly owned.

Um, there's a lot to like with Leishman. I like Sergio a lot here. Sergio has been really good here. I like Max Homa. I generally don't like Max Homa too often. I like Max Homa this week. He may be highly owned though. And then some of the guys at the bottom Munoz. I love, I may bet Munoz too. Um, Martin Laird, of course, always Martin Laird or tease EVR and Keegan.

We're some of the lower guys I was looking at. But we'll see. TBD. That will do it. That is it for me. I will be back tomorrow. So we're going to do something a little bit different on the podcast tomorrow. Of course, we got the great Tom Jacobs doing API with me. But then...

At the very end of the episode, and don't worry, I'll give a warning. So if you're just there for the golf, you can easily turn it off. Euphoria season finale with a special guest, my friend Carlos, who is...

Like one of on the design team at Apple, he is just an absolute genius, really smart guy, one of the smartest and most impressive guys I know, and also has some really interesting thoughts about euphoria. So last 15 or 20 minutes of the episode, what everyone has been asking for two people,

we will discuss the finale of euphoria. And if you don't care, that's great. Perfect. I don't care either. That is, that's fine. That's why it's at the end. You don't have to listen to it. Um,

But very excited for that. So that'll be out Tuesday morning. Scramble with Rick Gabin, Tuesdays and Friday mornings. Rick, shout out Rick, broke his missed cut streak in one and done, in our two-man one and done. He had missed six cuts in a row. Billy Horschel, Billy Horschel, of all people, made it through for Rick. And then odds checker articles, Tuesdays and Fridays. And we've got some...

some other stuff is brewing over the next couple of weeks but uh that'll do it for me i hope everyone has a great sunday um good luck with uh if you're sweating anything on sunday and i'll talk to you guys soon cheers drinking and driving is a decision that could change your whole world things will never be the same if you ever get a dui because legal fees and time in court are

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