2022 Valero Texas Open Betting & DFS Preview
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Okay, welcome in Inside Golf Podcast. My name is Andy Lack. We're recording this on Saturday evening. I'll drop this early on Sunday morning. I know tomorrow can get a little slow with the match play if you don't have a dog in it. Plus, I'm playing golf, so I want to get this out a little bit early. Before we get into Valero, we are presented, of course, by RickRungGood.com. Coupon code Andy. You can get all the tools there.

and information that I will talk about on the rest of this podcast there. You can also get all of my written content, my course breakdown, my full DFS breakdown. Strong week for the DFS final thoughts article. I mean, I have really nothing to brag about from this tournament. I thought Mark Wieschman was going to win. And I also shit all over Kevin Kisner. So I'm not on any high horse this week. In fact, I was lucky today

to skate out with some profit only because I won a couple of group bets. I did have a ton of Corey Connors and some DJ in DFS. And if Connors especially can somehow go the distance and take down the one man wrecking crew, that is Kevin Kisner.

We will be in good shape. But who knows? I think the world will be on Kisner tomorrow. And I would, for better or worse, probably still pick Connors. But I've been wrong on Kisner all week. He's somebody I just never bet. So it's definitely in play that he's just a massive blind spot for me. But fun tournament so far. I think my prediction that there was going to be a massive...

overreaction to what we saw this week in terms of the direction that people go for the Masters, we've started to see it. I think Brooks is the guy that everyone seems to have glommed onto already for the Masters, which yeah, I mean, sure. Brooks is awesome. We love Brooks on this podcast.

But I always am amazed at how everyone's cock gets so hard for him so quickly. I think my problem is...

I'll just bet him whenever. I don't really care how he's playing. But I don't know what everyone else was watching. I thought Rahm totally outplayed him in their round of 16 matchup. And I watched that one closely. I mean, Rahm had an uphill eight-footer to win, and he burned the edge. And to be honest with you, neither of them really played that well. And the same thing with Brooks and DJ, too. Both of those guys...

We're really struggling to get anything going. And I know it's a lot of golf. They're probably tired, 36 holes a day. But I kind of walked away with like, wow, I'm kind of way more psyched about DJ than I would be about Brooks. I'm surprised that Brooks is the guy that everyone's going nuts over. My takeaway has been more like, fuck, maybe I just continue to underrate Scotty Scheffler. I was on him in Phoenix. But last week, I listed my top five players in the world and

And I had him just outside. And that was probably a mistake. I think you'd probably be a fool to not put him in there. I don't know what else he's got to do to earn that spot. I still have a weird feeling DJ is going to win tomorrow. Although I'm rooting for Sheffler big time to overtake Rahm as world number one. I've been making the Sheffler always kicks Rahm's ass joke for months, which is kind of a bit weird.

but there's also some truth to it, obviously. So that would be incredible for me. Speaking of our current world number one, obviously I was high on him entering the week. I've been pretty high on him the past three weeks, honestly.

I thought he looked pretty good, to be honest with you. I don't think it was anything close to his best ball-striking performance, but it did look like he was picking up more confidence on the greens. I think he was still disappointing to many. People were tweeting about that shank that he hit today and, oh, Rob sucks. He shouldn't be world number one. It's like, well...

He still played just well enough that he's going to be like 14-1 at the Masters. And I don't think anyone should feel super psyched about running to the window to bet that number with him. My hope was that he either looked terrible and the he sucks narrative would really get going and maybe we'd catch some drift at the Masters or

Or, completely on the contrary, he would look awesome and win, and I'd cash my bet, and I wouldn't fucking have to worry about him at the Masters because he'd be 8-1 to get. He kind of split it down the middle, where I still think people are coming to the conclusion where it's like, yeah, maybe he's not that guy, but at the same time, he never really...

slumps hard enough where you're going to get the drift in the betting market that I would have wanted to capitalize on. I'll tell you who might get that drift is Xander, who was horrendous. And I'm not going to overreact to a poor performance at this tournament, just like I'm not going to overreact to whatever people seem to be seeing with Brooks right now.

But, you know, I always laugh when people try and talk shit to me about Xander as if I'm some delusional fan and I'm not right-minded about this guy. The people that I talk off with know I am very tough on Xander. And I guess, you know, if you wanted a situation where everyone was going to pile on him heading into the Masters, right?

You got it. I think you got your wish. I saw him become the community bet of the week, which I understand, by the way, because his draw did look so easy, and it was so easy. That is actually how it played out. I mean, Herbert and Kanaya were terrible. Him losing to Herbert was one of the worst I've seen him play in a long time, which again, I'm not going to overreact, but

Trust me, I get it. I think 97% of the criticism that Xander gets is warranted. I think a lot of it's fair. The only thing that I defend him on is that I think the Olympic win was underrated. That's the only thing that I really go to bat to him for him for. And I think the fact that he's finished top five in half the US Opens he's played is impressive. But everything else, you know, I

I think is pretty fair. I got to see where the wind blows. But it seems like the Brooks bandwagon is picking up some serious steam, which I don't hate. I'm not anti-Brooks at the Masters by any means, but I just, I want to see where it goes. I still think I'm going to rock with JT and probably one other guy in that 25 to 35 range. I do like the way, I do kind of like the way this is setting up for Cantlay. I'll say that.

And I think I want to see how Rory plays next week. And I think you're a Looney Tunes to bet Spieth at that number. You're not watching the golf if that's what you're thinking about. And he's the one guy too, where it doesn't really matter how disgusting he looks. They'll keep him high at Augusta. And I think his stock can actually only go up because I actually think he will still find a way to,

to play well at the Valero this week because it's one of his courses. But just like Pebble Beach...

I think we have to realize a little bit with him. He's always going to be able to find a way to play well with his courses, but it's a little bit of a paper tiger, right? Like how he performs at Pebble and Valero and shit fields. We've learned maybe that's not always super indicative of how his game actually stacks up against the best players in the world. Look at how he's done this year, everywhere outside of Pebble. And yeah,

Austin Country Club, by the way, ostensibly should be a course that Spieth is looking his chops for. And he sucked. So I'm still optimistic he's going to figure it out by Brookline. I still really like him at that course. Same with Patrick Reed. I like both of those guys a lot at Brookline. But anyway, I'm super excited. We are in the homestretch. I've already got all the podcast stuff ready.

I'm going to do wind up for master's week, including what most likely will be a four hour podcast with Twitter list, Steve and Boston capper and Nagels on, on their feed. Um, but I'm also launching something that it's not really my thing to completely announce. I can tease it. Uh, but I'm co-launching something master's week.

with a lot of really talented people, a lot of great people, friends of the program, some would say. So definitely people you know that I think is going to be very, very cool and I'm really excited for. So more on that later. Monitor the space. One more thing. Earlier this week, I did 90 minutes with Scott Holdridge on John Mayer. And let me just say, might be the best piece of content I've ever done.

I mean, I'm generally pretty tough on myself. I think a lot of the stuff I do, I always don't like it. This is a banger though. I am proud of this one. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. It was supposed to be a 20-minute segment recapping both of our thoughts from going to his concert that I was just going to put at the end of the Valero pod. And it turned into...

so much more. It can't go at the end of Valero. It's a pretty jarring lesson. I'm not going to make the Valero a two and a half hour podcast. It takes forever to upload, and I'm just not going to do that. So if you are one of the seven people

that want to hear this absolute banger of a podcast. I mean, we get into everything. I even tell the story about how John Mayer hit on my mom at a Grammy's party in the early 2000s. It's a wild ride of a podcast. Just 90 minutes of me and Scott throwing 97 mile per hour fastballs at each other. Again, I don't know who this is for. I'm perfectly okay with it not being for anyone. It was pretty cathartic for me. And I know me and Scott had fun.

But if you are one of the seven individuals that actually want this, and seven may be high, tweet at me or remind me, release the mayor pod, and I will either send it to you individually because it might be too much to put out into the universe. We will see. But I'm sitting on it against my better judgment. We'll see what I do. Watch this space going forward for that one. Okay.

Now, another word from our partners at Juicereal, who definitively hope I never drop the mayor pod. All right. Juicereal is an app that essentially keeps track of all of your betting information, essentially anywhere you bet, whether it's DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars, Barstool, whatever, even offshore, you can sync to, which I have been doing. All of your bets are

and your bet history automatically load into this app in seconds. You can sync all of your bets in one place, keep track of everything, including historical profits and losses, which is really cool. I treated out a screenshot of it this week where you can see how you've done on straight bets versus parlays and teasers. Even like you can see what your worst teams are and your best teams are. So if you want to find out how much money you've lost on,

betting on a certain team, you can do that. If you want to find out if doing parlays has actually been profitable for you, or if you would have just been better off betting the game straight up, you can do that as well. I found Juicereal to be incredibly valuable and incredibly aligned with a lot of the stuff I talk about on this podcast. Juicereal also crowdsources insights. It syncs with all the other users. So for like an NFL game, for example, you can see

what side the best performing users are on. And you could see what side the worst performing users are on. So it actually takes like the public betting charts, even a step further where you actually get to see like, okay, this is the side that the right people are on. This is the side that the wrong people are on. And it's also a great place to line shop. So juice real also shows you how lines vary across different books. There's arbitrage opportunities. And then I think the coolest thing about it is the live value tracker where you

once you place a bet and the game is underway, you can actually watch the value of your bet fluctuate with every play. It is literally that real-time stock portfolio X feature that you can't get anywhere else. And it is incredibly useful for figuring out when it is the right time to hedge. The whole app...

is basically just designed to give you a million different tools to help you as a better and make you more informed and smarter. It's really cool. I'm really proud to partner with them, and it's completely and entirely 100% free. So check out Juicereal on the App Store and boom, all these insights into your betting habits and how to become a better bettor. Okay, let's get back to the show. All right, Valero Texas Open.

This tournament has been around since 1922. Since 2017, it has been managed by Wasserman Media Group, former intern at Wasserman Media Group. This guy, they are a sports agency in Los Angeles, and they represent a bunch of guys. Taught me very quickly that I did not want to be a sports agent. But if you're wondering why Finau and Fowler are in the field, there's your answer. Yeah.

This is a tournament that has always been played in San Antonio. It's the sixth oldest professional golf tournament ever, the third longest on the PGA Tour, and the longest tournament held in the same city. Shout out, San Antonio.

It did pop around a bunch of different courses, but since 2008, we have been going to the Oaks course at TBC San Antonio. It has also moved around a bunch on the schedule, which I think is important and we'll touch on a little bit later. It used to be part of the fall series and from 2011 to 2013, it was the week after the Masters. In 2013, it

It moved to the week before the Masters, and then it moved around a little bit more in April, and then in 2019 back to the week before the Masters. And a Masters invite is also rewarded for any non-qualified winner this week.

Former winners. So last year, Jordan Spieth over Charlie Hoffman, 18 under. 2019, Corey Connors, 20 under. 2018, Andrew Landry, 17 under. 2017, Kevin Chappell, 12 under. 2016, Charlie Hoffman, 12 under. 2015, Jimmy Walker, 11 under.

2014, Steven Bowditch, eight under. 2013, Martin Laird, 14 under. 2012, Ben Curtis, nine under. 2011, Brendan Steele, eight under. So a ton of long shots here. Six of the last 10 years, our winner has been triple digits. Is there a reason for that? I don't know. I think this is usually either the week before the Masters slash it

doesn't generally have a field with a ton of elite players. Even the guys that have won here at 30-1 are like Kevin Chappell and Charlie Hoffman. So I just think that has more to do with field strength and scheduling than it does with this tournament just being a totally random putting contest. I would say there's a little bit of

uh, more T to green skill involved here than say the Amex, but I'm probably going to look more towards players that aren't in the masters next week. That's not to say that Rory can't win or speed can't win speed. Just one last year before the masters. But historically this tournament is generally one a little bit farther down the board. 2019, uh,

Connors won the week before the Masters. Connors wasn't qualified. 2018, Ian Poulter won the week before the Masters. Ian Poulter wasn't qualified. 2017, Henley won the week before the Masters, wasn't qualified. 2016, Jim Herman wasn't qualified. 2014, Matt Jones wasn't qualified. 2013, Martin Laird wasn't qualified. The list goes on. So

Spieth, who was an elite player, playing the week before the Masters in the Masters, winning the week before the Masters is actually more of an anomaly. Seven of the past nine winners of the Masters warm-up event weren't already in the Masters field.

might be something to pay attention to. This is like the dictionary definition of a look ahead spot or a tune up for some players. So I think that might be something to pay attention to. And you'll see this week, I have, I like a lot of long shots. It's probably going to be a week where I just bet like eight or nine guys close to a hundred to one plus. But we'll get to that a little bit later. All right, let's talk about the golf course.

Oak's course at TPC San Antonio. San Antonio, TPC San Antonio was designed in 2009 by none other than our boy from Live Under Par, Third Leg Greg. If you're looking for designer links, he's also designed El Camaleon, where they have the Myakoba, and also the Earth Course, where they have the DP World Tour Championship. Greg Norman as a designer,

I mean, no need to, to disperse Greg's honor. Um, surely we are jesting here, but there is, there's a reason why his work never really took off. I wouldn't spend too much time looking at my Coba. That is a much different course than this one. Kind of the way that,

Jack Nicklaus courses tend to favor faders of the golf ball. Norman doesn't really have an overhanging design philosophy that I think is worth looking into, but this course is a par 72. It measures almost 7,500 yards on the scorecard. It features a,

Those same Bermuda greens with the overseed Poetrivialis that we have seen so much recently with TPC Scottsdale and PGA West and TPC Sawgrass and Innisbrook and Austin Country Club. So once again, it is a week where I will be looking at those who have been the best putters on that specific surface. The greens measure 6,400 square feet on average. So medium sized greens here and again,

They run 11 on the stimp, so they aren't crazy fast or anything, but there is some undulation to them. The fairways are Bermuda grass with rye and fescue that measure 33 yards wide on average, which is right around tour average in terms of width. Water comes to play on only two holes, and this course is pretty difficult for the most part. It is by no means a birdie fest or a putting contest, although...

It has played a lot easier the past couple of years. So between 2011 and 2017, the winning score has been between eight and 14 under, but the last three years it has been between 17 and 20 under. I think the reason for that is a, it just hasn't been as windy the past couple of years. Like most courses in Texas, wind is relevant here. And B it's,

This is one of those courses where they water the greens a lot. And a lot of guys are just going to getting big, better and longer. So unless we get a ton of wins, which I'll talk about in other shows and articles later on this week, once we get a more accurate weather report, I think we should expect to see that trend continue with the winning score falling somewhere between, I don't know, say 15 and 20 under. And I think that's,

One of the reasons why you've seen shorter players like Jordan Spieth and Corey Connors and Andrew Landry be able to play well here is because it's a course where they, you know, they seem to water the greens, but not really the fairways as much. So as, although this course is relatively long at over 7,400 yards, they're,

It does not play as long. Driving distance here is above tour average, but it's a pretty visually intimidating course off the tee. No, there's not a lot of water or anything, but there are a lot of ways that you can get yourself into trouble. Remember, this is a course that...

Kevin Na made a 16 because he just kept refusing to take a drop in that kind of rocks and forest area. So there you got to keep the ball in play. All right, let's run through what I think you want to be looking at here off the tee.

Right. So I already alluded to this. So driving accuracy here, it's a little bit lower than tour average, right? It's pretty difficult to hit these fairways here. They're pretty narrow. It has ranked above average, but nothing crazy in terms of strokes gain difficulty off the tee. And the reason for that is, you know, the rough here, the rough is not the problem.

TPC San Antonio is ranked towards the easiest on tour in terms of missed fairway penalty each of the last five years. It ranked 34th out of 40 courses in the average difference of scores between fairway drives and non fairway drives. In fact, six of the last seven winners have ranked outside the top 25 in driving accuracy.

And in terms of difference in average score, just from the rough versus the fairway, it ranked 39th out of 40 courses last year. And it's always been in the top five in smallest dispersion across the last five years, but

That's all to say, I don't think you need to hit the fairway here. I don't think this rough is menacing at all. Here's a quote from Jimmy Walker. Driving the ball in the rough isn't going to be a big deal this week, just because it's not very long. You can get some pretty nice lies in the rough. But I think the thing that you want to highlight here off the tee is,

The main thing to consider here is that this course did rank 11th in terms of difference of average score from non-rough location drives to fairway drives, which basically means if you are in the rocks or the forest, you're in deep shit. But if you're just off the fairway, you're fine. So where I think you should net out on this is...

You don't need to be deadly accurate here. You just, you can't be off the planet. You got to worry about the guys that are pretty wayward. So once again, I think this is a really good week to look at good drives game, which can kind of help me identify the players that just keep the ball and play off the tee and put themselves in a position to hit the green regulation. My initial thought was that distance matters here because I think the par fives are so important that,

And the par fives are all really long. So I think if you have the ability to reach some of these par fives in two, you have a real advantage. But the past couple of years, Landry, Spieth, Connors, none of those guys are long off the tee, but-

Spieth is first in par five scoring. He was first in par five scoring last year. Connors was 10th. So they still found a way to take advantage of the par fives without necessarily being able to reach them in two. And I think that's actually because even some of the longest players can't reach them in two. So if you've got everyone kind of laying up to the same spots, it's just going to turn into who is the best guy from 125 yards and in like Connors.

The year that Landry won, Vaughn Taylor was number one that week in par five scoring. He's not fucking reaching any of those in two. So I'm not really looking at driving distance or power off the tee. I think this course plays shorter than the yardage suggests. And despite the heavy emphasis on par five scoring, I don't really think you can overpower these par fives too much either. Like, let's look at some of the leaderboards the last three years. You've got a lot of speed.

some Lucas Glover, some Honor Bond, some Chris Kirk, some Brant Snedeker, some Tringale, some Hoagie, some Matt Kuchar, some Corey Connors, a lot of Ryan Moore, a lot of Brian Stewart, a lot of Kevin Strillman, Scott Brown, Gray McDowell, more Kuchar, more Tringale, Andrew Landry,

More Ryan Moore, Chris Kirk again, Andrew Putnam, Billy Horschel, Vaughn Taylor, more Snedeker. Like all those guys have finished top 15 just the last three years. And none of them are long off the tee, but all of them keep the ball in play and are really good wedge players. So ultimately, ultimately where I land is pretty average on off the tee with more of an emphasis on good drives gain. Of course,

Every single player in the top 17 last year gained in that statistic outside of Jordan Spieth. So Spieth is going to do that sometimes and find a way. Iron play. Yeah, it's important as usual. 30, 34% of strokes gain have come on approach, which is right around tour average.

Greens in regulation percentage here, only 58% compared to the tour average of 66. So it's pretty hard to hit the greens here. This course consistently ranks above average in terms of strokes gain difficulty on approaches. It is ranked top 10 each of the past five years in difficulty of strokes gain approach from 150 yards and out. And I think that's because a lot of these tier, these greens have, uh,

multiple tiers, it can be difficult to get the ball close. And I definitely...

found a strong correlation between greens and regulation gained and success here. So iron play is really important. I know shocker the approach distribution, the approach shot distribution here is pretty spread out. I will probably call this like if I had to say is probably a mid iron course. And I'll probably say that one 50 to 200 yards is, is pretty,

is probably the most important range you want to look at with about 40% of approach shots coming from that bucket, but it's pretty evenly distributed across the board. I think you're better suited looking at, you know, over general overall iron play because you got a lot of medium length par fours here that,

Nine of the 10 par fours measure somewhere between 400 and 480. And the 17th hole is drivable. The par threes are pretty long. They all measure between 183 and 241. And three of them,

are over 200 yards, but these par fives are long too. And none of them, a lot of them, you know, depending on the wind may not be reachable. So you're going to have some wedges too. You're going to have some, you know, you're going to have a little bit of everything, some wedges, some mid irons, going to have some long irons is pretty evenly spread out around the green. So 70, almost 18% of strokes gain have come around the green here, which is definitely above average, but

The last few years, the importance of around the green has gone a little bit downhill as the greens and regulation percentage has increased a little bit and the scoring has gotten a little bit easier the last three years. And outside of Spieth, who is just a statistical anomaly in every sense, who ranked third in around the green last year, each of the last five winners have ranked outside the top 30 in strokes gained around the green.

I still believe that you will have to rely on your short game here because even the last couple of years, like the greens and regulation percentage has still been kind of low, but I don't actually think that the degree of difficulty around the greens is anything crazy. Like the last two years, TPC San Antonio has ranked 30th and 21st out of 40 courses and strokes gain around the green difficulty. It ranked second,

31st out of 40 courses last year in difficulty of getting up and down from the fairway. 38th out of 40 courses in terms of getting up and down from the rough. There's that easy rough again. But 7th in terms of difficulty of getting up and down from the bunkers. So...

Doing a deeper dive on this, there are a lot of bunkers on this course. Each of the last five years, it has ranked inside the top 10 in difficulty of up and down percentage from the bunkers. So I really think the around the green metric that you want to be looking at is sand saves. That's the one. I think bunker play is super, super important here.

And then putting, like I mentioned, these greens are there. There's some undulation to them. They feature multiple tiers, but each of the last five years, this course has ranked right around the middle of the pack in terms of strokes, game putting difficulty. There's,

nothing too crazy here. It's basically average difficulty and all the putting metrics that I'm looking at. You definitely do need to putt here, but I've basically just got kind of an average weight on putting on all of these overseeded Bermuda services that we've been talking about the past couple of weeks. Scoring stats, par five scoring is super important here. Super, super important here. Par five scoring is something that,

I'm going to look at already anytime we're on a par 72, but I would definitely say it's particularly important here this week. Laird in 2013, Walker, 2015 Hoffman, 2016 speed last year, all those guys, number one in the field and par five scoring and top 10 finishers on average have gained a

Far more strokes to the field on par fives relative to what they have on the par threes and par fours. So look at par five scoring and par five birdie or better percentage this week. I think it's important. Course history. I don't think course history matters here a ton. Obviously, you've got your Charlie Hoffman's and Connors, I guess, to a lesser extent, and Spieth and Zach Johnson, who...

deserve a boost and seem to play well here every year. But I don't think there's a ton of nuance involved with this course. It's pretty much all out in front of you. Not really any hidden tricks to it. This is Greg Norman we're talking about, not CB McDonald. So first timers can win here. Zach Johnson won back

back-to-back in 2008 and 2009 in his first two appearances here. Brendan Steele won on his first appearance here. Pat Perez almost won on his first appearance. Same with Furyk. So if you've played well here, great, but I'm not really docking first-timers here either. In terms of comp courses...

TPC Summerlin, I guess. Martin Laird has won at both places. There's definitely some crossover on those leaderboards. Ryan Moore, Kevin Strillman, Matt Kuchar have all been good at both of those courses. And both Summerlin and San Antonio, it's kind of all about keeping the ball in play off the tee, moderate scoring conditions depending on the wind, and

That's a pretty good one, I would say, is TPC Summerlin. And then TPC Scottsdale isn't bad either. That one, we've got the same agronomy. It's the same thing, right? Like kind of moderate scoring conditions. Only real way to get yourself in trouble is to drive it in the cactus or the rocks. There's definitely some crossover with those leaderboards as well. Hoffman, Laird, JB Holmes, Snedeker, all those guys have been really good at both.

But that's about it. And just to give more evidence about what I was saying earlier with the Greg Norman stuff. So the least correlated course with TPC San Antonio on data golf. And I think that tool is flawed by the way. I think people rely on that tool too much sometimes because it's a whole, whole other podcast, but it's, it's not a perfect measurement, but I just wouldn't live and die with it. But yeah,

The least correlated course to TPC San Antonio is the only other Greg Norman course in the database, literally on opposite ends of the spectrum, El Camaleon. So I don't think there's anything there, to be honest with you, as far as the Greg Norman stuff. All right, that's it. We're getting better at this. Speed and through this, speed and through this. To recap TPC San Antonio, keep the ball in play off the tee.

Good overall iron player. Great out of the sand. Great on par fives. Those are like the four boxes I'm looking for you to check this week. And even if you're checking three out of the four, I'm playing those guys, right? So I want you to keep the ball and play off the tee. Good overall iron player.

Good bunker player, great on par fives. Those are the four main things I'm looking at closely this week. And I'm betting a bunch of longer odds guys. So I'm basically just looking at probably flawed longer odds guys that are good at...

one or not one, two or three, or probably not four of those four things. So anyway, I threw all this together in a model, all the putting stuff on all these different courses, course history at here and Scottsdale and Summerlin and all the other stats that I just talked about. If you want to get the full model inputs, you can check them out at rickrungood.com. But here's who it shot out. It's a little weird this week. It's not the best field.

Adam Hadwin, number one in the model this week. Hideki Matsuyama, number two. That's a little more normal. Rory McIlroy, number three. Luke Less, number four. Mito Pereira, number five. Inescapable. Corey Connors, number six. Martin Laird, number seven. My guy. Number eight, Jonathan Vegas. Number nine, Russell Knox. Number 10, Matthew Neesmith. 11, Chris Kirk.

12 JJ spawn 13 patent Kazir 14, Pat Perez, 15, Aaron Rye, 16, Tony Finau, 17, Gary Woodland, 18, Bryson, 19, Abraham answer 20, Andrew Putnam. So there are a lot of guys that are going to, are probably going to pop as big time value for me based on how high I have them. So, uh,

I'll talk about a couple of the guys that I'm looking at. There are a couple of guys that I played at Valspar the other week that I'm going to stick with. Martin Laird being one of them. I'm going to stick with Martin Laird here. I don't know if I'll end up betting him outright, but...

He missed a cut at the Valspar, still gained almost two strokes on approach. He's one of the most accurate drivers of the ball in this field. His irons have been awesome. He pounds greens in regulation at an elite rate. He's one of the best middle iron players in the field. He does a good enough job on par fives.

And he's proven that he can putt great on these surfaces before. And he's won here. And not to mention the fact he's also won at TBC Summerlin. And he's also at TBC Scottsdale. He's done 5th, 7th, 9th, and 14th. And he actually can win. So Laird I'm going right back to.

Uh, Danny Lee, I'm going to keep playing. I think the upside is there. Um, I'm probably going to keep playing some Luke Donald who continues to gain over six strokes on approach is, has been the number one iron player, not weighted. Of course. Um, he's generally not getting the best fields out there, but those guys that I play, Oh, and Mito, I'm going to play Mito again. I just, uh,

I think this shines off him enough at this point, and the stats are still good. He continues to rate out as a top 20 play every single week, and I trust him off the tee. He's one of the most accurate drivers of the ball. We're done with that 30-1, 50-1 crap. I think he'll be 100-plus again in this field or somewhere around that. I do. He's never played this course before, and he was 27th at the Valspar.

Right. And you could get him 160 in that field. I mean, this field is that much worse than the Valspar field. You still got Rory and Bryson and such. And he's just one of the better midiron players that you're going to find this week. Yeah.

He there's, you know, he doesn't do the best job out of the bunkers and he's not, he's not the best at taking advantage of par fives, but you know, I look at what he did at the Valspar last week, 2.5 off the tee, 4.2 on approach. He just lost three around the green and even the putter started to come back a little bit. So the, the off the tee got better, the approach got better and, and the putter is, is trending better.

in the right direction as well. So he kind of got off to this slow start to the season where I think everyone had him penciled in as the rookie. I had him for rookie of the year in December and he kind of started out slow, but now he's kind of turning into that guy again, where it looks like he's going back to consistently gaining around two off the tee and four on approach. And it seems like the putting has improved a little bit as well. So, you know, I think for the second week in a row, Mito and, uh,

uh, Mita will be firmly on my radar and he will be a bat. Um, and then, you know, Laird, uh, Donald and Lee are probably more DraftKings plays. I'll tell you the two other guys that I really like.

Actually, first, I think Fowler's sneaky this week. I'm going to play Fowler. I may bet Ricky Fowler. But the two other guys that I really like, I hope they don't get too buzzy because one of these guys already is buzzy, and I've never played this guy before. My guy Ryan Baroff always plays this guy and tries to talk me into him, and I've never played this guy before, but...

I'm going to roll the dice with Pendrith this week. Again, he's not somebody I normally play. I think he's a good spot for him. I think he's a sharp play this week. But...

We know he's great off the tee. He's pretty accurate for how long he is, too. He keeps the ball in play. And the irons have been a weak spot for him, but they seem to be getting better. And he actually does pound a lot of greens in regulation. And the short game is actually pretty good, too. He's a really solid bunker player. And he's actually had some nice success so far putting on these overseeded greens.

And I think first timers like Mito and Pendrith, these guys that aren't in the Masters, right? I think these guys are going to play well that are just they're talented. Right. And, you know, Pendrith was 13th at the players. He wasn't on TV ever, but, you know, he gained 3.8 off the tee, 0.5 on approach, 0.7 around the green, 2.5 putting, but.

The off the tee got better. The approach got better. He gained strokes in all four major categories for the first time in his PGA tour career. Just a gut feeling. I mean, I shouldn't say gut feeling cause the stats are really good, but I just, I think he's a good play this week and I I'm going to bet him. Um, and then the last guy who I, again, I haven't played JJ spawn for some reason. He's driving the ball really well right now. His irons have been really solid. Um,

He's a really good par five player. He's not the best. He's not the best success putting on these types of greens, but he, you know, he's been fine. Fourth at Phoenix in 2007, 10th and 15th at the Shriners. And he's finished, you know, miscut, miscut 49 to 26 here, but he's coming off a 27th at the Valspar where he's,

He gained 2.8 off the tee, 5.9 on approach, lost 1.5 around the green and lost 3.2 putting. Actually the best ball striking week of his entire career. And I'm not so sure that it was just a ridiculous anomaly because he's actually been playing pretty well all year. It didn't feel like, oh, this was a crazy random JJ spawn week. It actually felt like he was kind of

trending towards this and you know 25th at the amex plus 1.2 ball striking 34th at the farmers plus 1.8 ball striking 16th at pebble plus 1.2 ball striking 30th at honda plus 5.6 ball striking um miscut at the players but 3.1 ball striking and then 27th at the ballast bar plus 8.7 ball striking so he's kind of he's kind of just got it right now

And yeah, I worry about the upside. He hasn't done a ton of contending before in his PGA Tour career, but he's hitting the ball so damn well right now. So he's a must play, in my opinion. Who else? I like Patton Kazire a lot. Kevin Streelman, I like a lot. Those are two guys I'm eyeing to bet. Notice all these guys, all of them are probably going to be above 50-1.

And all of them are not qualified for the masters. The one guy I'll give you one guy that I think is going to be below 50 to one that has my interest. Probably Woodland, right? We, he, he was really popular at the Valspar and he was fine. Going to be really interested to see if Woodland people go back to Woodland this week. I think this is a good spot for him.

And he was good. He's pretty good at the Valspar, right? He remained solid. He hit the ball well. And then the only other guy that... The only guy that is qualified for the Masters that I could see myself maybe betting is Siwoo Kim. Because I just...

I think you'll get a decent number on him despite the fact that he was awesome at the match play. He was 2-1. He kicked Bazaydenhout's ass, and he got beat on the final hole by Hatton, who was 3-0. And a lot of guys that were 2-1 advanced, and man, if Siwu was in Xander's group, he would have gone 3-0.

Um, I'm telling you. So Siwoo played really well at the match play. I tracked him closely. He's in the masters, but he's played really well at this course before he's finished fourth, uh, two years ago here the week before the masters and 23rd last year here the week before the masters. So I like Siwoo Kim. Um, that's about it. Hadwin was number one, but, um,

I'm interested to see. I think you're buying him at an absolute high point. I think it's a good buy low spot for Carlos Ortiz. Brendan Steele is a guy that hit the ball really, really well at the players and has won here before. He might be overpriced. He also might be good shock. We'll see. But that's about it. Pendrith and Spahn, I love. Mito, I love.

Fowler. I like a lot. See, woo. I like a lot. Streelman. I like a lot. Cause I, or I like a lot Woodland. I like a lot. Um, and then for DFS guys like Doug, Kim, Luke Donald, Danny, we Lucas Glover, Chris Kirk. I like those guys too. I give you a lot of guys. Cause I'm going to be pretty, uh, I named like, it's basically my pool of my DFS pool outside of the top. Um,

I gave you guys a lot of goods there. So, you know, I don't think I'll be playing the top. I think I'm going to spread it out down here with a lot of these guys. All right, that's it. I'm just, we're getting close to name and names territory. That will do it for me. Best of luck with your bets tomorrow. Go Scotty Scheffler. Go Duke. By the way, like the Duke, it's a bit. I get it. I get that.

People that went to Duke obviously are going to be like, you know, have this us against the world mentality. So I fucking get why Duke is unlikable, right? It's a bit that I'm leaning into right now. Okay. You don't need to quote tweet like me saying, go Duke. The bros, you know, I get it. I'm, I'm, I think at least that I'm in on the joke on that one.

But go Duke, go Alex Smalley, go Scotty Scheffler. And you can find me on this podcast feed later this week with Boston Capper to talk some more Valero in depth.

scramble Tuesdays and Fridays, odds checker articles, Tuesdays and Saturday mornings. And a course breakdown on rickrungood.com will be posted on Monday. Final DFS thoughts on Wednesday, coupon code Andy to get all that stuff at rickrungood.com. Please sign up. Final stretch, right? I'm really hoping that we can grow the show and share the show a lot

uh, for master's week and, and maybe, maybe help some new people discover it. Like I said, I'm, I'm launching this, this pretty big thing that I'm a, I'm a co collaborator on, on master's week that I'm really excited about. So in this final stretch, uh,

If you have the five minutes to, I don't know why I said five minutes, it's five seconds. If you have the five seconds to retweet the show on Twitter, to rate and review on Apple Podcasts, to tell a friend in this week heading up to the Masters, maybe we'll do a giveaway next week or something like that, but that would be greatly appreciated. And if not,

that's fine too. That's why I've got 90 minute John Mayer pods. We're niche content over here too as well. So anyway, that will do it. Thanks a lot. Have a great rest of your weekend. Best of luck with your bets and we'll see you on this feed 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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