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All right, welcome in Inside Golf Podcast. My name is Andy Lack, Wells Fargo Championship, betting and DFS preview. As always, we're brought to you by rickrungood.com. All of the tools, stats, and data that I will be referencing, you can find over at rickrungood.com. Use promo code Andy and join a great community over there. All right, I'm recording this on Saturday evening.
Jon Rahm is leading the Mexico championship by two strokes. Looks like he's going to close the deal. Got to give it to him. Strong performance. I think you can probably pencil him in for at worst a 68 tomorrow. He shot 68 today and it felt like he didn't play well at all. So I think you're going to have to get to 1800 par to have a chance. It's going to be tough.
I think Champ has got to shoot minimum 500 tomorrow to win. And the guys at 12 probably need to be sitting there thinking 65 or lower. So it's possible. Unlikely, though. I will say this, and you all know I'm not a huge admirer of Greg Norman's work as a designer.
I've actually found this tournament extremely watchable. I think they did a pretty good job of setting up this golf course. And while I do prefer watching courses where there's a penalty off the tee for an accuracy, there's some
Some of the tee shots are a little bit more thought-provoking. And most of all, I like watching pros lose a little bit of control over their golf ball when the ball hits the ground, which you get from firmer and faster conditions, which is why I've never been a huge fan of Pass Palm. But there's a pretty nice blend of holes here. And I think having the wind...
kind of be a little bit more of a factor certainly helps with that. I like golf courses where you can go out and shoot 64 and you can also go out and shoot 74 if you don't have it, which I think that's here at this golf course. I think you kind of get that. I think you get that variability. And while this course lacks somewhat in true strategic shot values,
because of the conditions and the way it is off the tee, it's still a good test. It's a big boy test, and it's kind of cool seeing players have three woods in on par fours. I don't think that just adding length to a golf course is a way to make golf courses better. But I think if you add it in the right spots...
which I think they did this week. So hats off to the tournament organizers and create a situation where there are clear birdie holes. Like I thought the seventh, the drivable par four seventh was, was good. That was fun. There wasn't the, the biggest penalty for hitting a poor drive, but I still thought it was a good hole. And then there were some really hard holes too.
which you combine them together. And that's what creates a very fun golf course to watch because there ends up being a lot of movement on the leaderboard and variability. So obviously I'd hope for a better field, but this is a tournament that I would be like, ah, it's Mexico week. Like, all right, this golf course is kind of sneaky fun. I'm a little more excited than I think most people would be. And I think it played the way that
a lot of us thought it was going to play, right? The bomber narrative got kind of out of control by the end of the week, 30% Wyndham Clark, but
It wasn't wrong. I mean, you listen, you listen to the, the player quotes, particularly Rom did a good job talking about this. They're all like, yeah, length really matters here. And you didn't have to listen to them speak to see that if you watched it at all. I mean, these guys are hitting three woods into par fours. Long arm play really matters. Who is the star of this podcast last week?
Cameron Champ. Did I end up betting Cameron Chap or playing him in DraftKings? I did not. And he ended up coming in at way lower ownership than I thought as well, by the way. But the crucial mistake that I, and I guess like 55%
percent of the field did was not choosing Rob. And I talked all week on multiple podcasts about how I thought it was a tough decision. I think a lot of people and hats off to them thought it was a very easy decision. Um, I thought there was a pretty good argument on both sides. I thought it was a pretty tough call that I kind of went back and forth on all week. Um,
And you know, my guy, Cody, who's won literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in DraftKings the past month, we were both like, you know what? I'm going to take a chance and not do it and not play him at all. And you got to be comfortable sometimes when you take a stand and it's incorrect. You got to be able to own it and be okay with it. If you're not, you're probably risking way too much money. My argument is,
All week was never about whether or not Rom was a good play. I thought he was super, super underpriced for what he should be or whether or not Rom was going to have a good week. My whole thing was, okay, what's the opportunity cost of playing him and what could possibly happen on the off chance that he doesn't play well? And listen, it's not like my Finau, Reed, Rye, Smalley lineups are doing poorly because
But you had to play him to really win big. So congratulations to all the ROM backers. I don't think anyone was thinking like, yeah, I'm going to bet this guy at three to one. But if you played him in DraftKings and got some of the lower tiered guys right, you probably had a nice week. And I'm looking forward to this one next year. I think it'd be cool if we went back here every year. I'd be okay with it.
I do think the field will get better next year because listening to the guys talk after their rounds, I think they were all very complimentary of the golf course, very complimentary of the resort. So hopefully through word of mouth, that brings out some more good players next year. All right, Wells Fargo Championship. So this tournament is normally played at Quail Hollow.
But since Quail Hall is hosting the President's Cup this year, we are headed to TPC Potomac at Avenal Farm, a controversial golf course from what I've heard. The good thing is we do have some stats on this course because it hosted the Quicken Loans National both in 2018 and 2017. So let's run through that.
All the times that we've seen TBC Potomac before. So the 2018 Quicken Loads National was won by Francesco Molinari at 21 under par. He beat Ryan Armour by eight strokes. It was one of the more, honestly, from a strokes gain standpoint, one of the more dominating performances of the last decade. 2017, Kyle Stanley, seven under par, beat Charles Howell in a playoff.
You'll notice the scores were a lot lower than in 2017. 2018, they got a ton of rain. 2017, it played as the hardest non-major on the PGA Tour. And then we've had a couple Corn Fairy Tour events here too. Michael Putnam, minus seven over Chesson Hadley. It played as the hardest course on what was the Web.com Tour that year.
And then in 2012, it hosted something called the neediest kids championship presented by Under Armour, which was won by David Langworth over Casey Wittenberg. Haven't heard that name in a while at eight under par. It played as the second hardest course on the web.com tour that year. So like I said, in 2018, because they got a lot more rain than I think the tournament organizers were hoping for, it played a lot easier there.
and Molinari was able to go out and shoot that crazy low score. But as you can see from the other occurrences and either the rest of the leaderboard on the Molinari year, it seems like a pretty difficult golf course, right? So let's dive in. It's a par 70 TBC Potomac measuring 7,107 yards. It was designed by Ed Alt, Tom Clark, and Ed Snead in 1986.
with a Steven Wensloff and Jim Hardy redesign in 2006. I'm pretty plugged into the architecture world in terms of the amount of time I spend reading about it. I've never heard of any of those guys, none of them. So-
do with that what you will. But I mean, we can talk about how I think they, they really screwed this one up on the first try. And then they figured some things out and got it right on the second try. But anyway, water comes into play on four holes. We're back to bank grass, which I love bank grass fairways. Um,
Kentucky bluegrass rough measuring 3.5 inches. So that's a pretty healthy rough. This is the first time in what feels like, I guess, since Bay Hill where rough is a thing. It matters this week. The greens are only 4,265 square feet on average with A1, A4 bentgrass running 13 on the step. So pretty small greens, fast, firm bentgrass greens.
So I want to start here. This course originally opened in 1986, as I mentioned, and it hosted a PGA Tour event from 1987 to 2006. Now, players hated this course. They openly criticized its poor design. There were also some drainage issues. It was plagued by flooding and drainage problems, and there were a bunch of turf issues that affected the greens. The greens used to be POA.
They got switched completely now to bat. Anyway, players hated it. They didn't want to come here anymore. And the event quickly became like the equivalent of today's, I don't know, John Deere. Just bad fields year after year because the players hated the course. So in 2007, they finally had enough. And they said, okay, we got to change this. Let's throw $32 million at the problem. So they basically tore up
Every single blade of grass and made a ton of changes. They made it longer. The six hole, which was, I think we could say now retrospectively, a failed copy of Augustus 13th. They tore it up completely. Now it's a straightaway long par four. They just blew it up. Par three ninth, which is,
Shout out Greg Norman again, getting a lot of run on this podcast. Once said should be blown up with dynamite. That was completely rebuilt with a new green on a hill. The old 10th and 11th got combined into a new 10th hole, a long par five, which is playing around a restored Creek. The old 12th is now the 11th and the old par five 13th, which players really hated the
was eliminated and replaced by a new uphill par 3 12th and a short par 4 13th. The 7th and 16 greens were renovated to flatten contours and provide a bunch of additional hole locations. There were new collection areas around 3, 4, and 18, and the 5th and 6th fairways were widened. The 13th green was flattened in the front and widened
I think that's about it. So they tore up everything. And I think the reviews in 2017, 2018 were far more positive. What else? So we know this golf course has played pretty difficult despite not being overly long on the scorecard. And there are a couple of reasons for that. The fairways are pretty narrow. And like I said, for the first time in what feels like a while, the
The rough is actually enough to make players really think here. Like you'll see in some of the quotes that I pulled, all the players talk about how you have to stay in the fairway because three and a half inch Kentucky bluegrass rough can, and that can be challenging to control your ball out of, especially when you are approaching small and firm greens. So you actually have to drive the ball really straight here.
That was the biggest thing that stood out to me. You can't bomb and gouge this course. Players have talked about that. There are too many weird angles and trees and rough and hazards you have to deal with. I wouldn't necessarily call it a club down course either because I think it actually plays a little bit longer than the scorecard suggests. Eight of the 12 par fours measure over 440 yards.
but none measure over 490. So you're going to have a ton of middle iron approach shots this week. But like on these 440 to 490 yard holes, you don't have to hit driver there, but you'll have a longer approach if you sacrifice length to find the fairway. So right off the bat, I'm looking for really accurate drivers of the ball and good mid iron players. The course only has two par fives.
And one of them is 619 yards. So it's not really reachable. Across 2017 and 2018, these two par fives ranked on average as the third hardest par fives on the PGA Tour. So you don't just have a ton of birdie holes. You've got a lot of medium length par fours, only one reachable par five and one drivable par four.
I don't think it will play as difficult as it did in 2017. I'm talking to Patrick McDonald, brand new CBS Sports golf writer, Patrick McDonald, by the way, on the podcast this week, who lives right down the road from the course. So I'll be asking him about how much rain they've gotten, stuff like that. But I think he's probably got a pretty good beat on what we should expect. And I think the big narrative is
That you will hear this week, which again, I don't always think the, I mean, the bomber one was correct. Right. But I think a lot of people are going to point to the fact that, Hey, any course that Kyle Stanley can win at, that's gotta mean it's all about T to green and putting doesn't matter at all.
And I would say that I agree with that for the most part. I mean, I think it's certainly a week where I'll be underweight in how much I weigh putting compared to how much I normally do. Once you get on the greens, they're pretty flat. And it's absolutely about ball striking. It's a pretty tough course.
from T to green, you could probably argue the easiest part of the course relative to other courses is once you actually get on the greens in 2017, in typical Kyle Stanley fashion, he wed the field in greens and regulation percentage and lost strokes putting. He was also first in strokes gained off the T. I think off the T is pretty, pretty damn important this week, which I'll get to in a second. But for Stanley, uh,
He was 29th in distance and third in accuracy. And he was also sixth in proximity of the hole and only 52nd in putting. So it was just an absolute ball-striking display, pretty much what you'd expect for how Kyle Stanley would win a PGA Tour event. Let's go through a few quotes real quick because I thought these were interesting. David Lingmuth, who won the Corn Fairy Tour event, said...
hitting fairways that's one of the big keys out here it's a course where the rough is very penalizing really gnarly as fast and as firm as these greens are you really need to stay in the fairway to have a chance of making birdie it's a course that is visually kind of straightforward it's easy to pick targets it's just a great golf course you don't necessarily have to be too aggressive here
Michael Putnam basically said the same thing. If you get aggressive on this golf course, it's really easy to make bogeys. There are penalties everywhere. I was aiming towards the middle of the greens, having 20 footers for birdies.
Hudson Swofford, you've got to be patient out here. You can get on the bogey train very quickly. You can't try to overpower it. It's like a US Open venue. The greens are getting firmer and faster and the roughs not getting shorter. So that really just makes me think it's kind of like a plotter's course where you kind of just have to stay patient and
and pound fairways and pound greens. And there isn't a massive advantage for being super long here. And accuracy is the name of the game over distance. And of course, mid-iron play. Unfortunately, our board, Corey Connors,
might be 18 to one. That will be a decision certainly. All right, let's run through some of the stats before I talk about some of the players. There's a lot of guys I actually really like this off the tee. So 20.8% of strokes gain in 2018 came from off the tee, which is well above the tour average of 15.2%. In 2017, 22.4% of strokes gain came from off the tee, which is dramatically above tour average.
So you hear a lot about second shot golf courses, right? Where, I mean, you could even make the argument about the place we just had in Mexico. Everybody's going to be able to hit the fairway, which really places an emphasis more on the second shot. I don't think TPC Potomac is like that at all. Not to say that the second shot isn't important. Of course it is.
But I think the first shot on this golf course is really important. Kyle Stanley called it very demanding off the tee. And I quote, if you get a little bit out of position, it just creates problems for yourself. So being in the fairway off the tee was something I knew was going to be big this week. And I'm going to run through a couple of stats from 2017 and 18 that kind of prove this theory of mine.
So TPC Potomac has ranked on average second out of 37 courses and missed fairway penalty. So there you go. TPC Potomac has ranked on average 11th out of 37 courses and average difference of score from the rough than the fairway. TPC Potomac has ranked second out of 37 courses and average difference score from non-rough locations than from the fairway.
And TPC Potomac has ranked six out of 37 courses in missed fairway percentage that result in a penalty stroke. So there you go. About a quarter of my whole model is targeted around identifying who are the best, most accurate drivers of the golf ball. Who are the best drivers on courses where there's a penalty off the tee and
Who do the best job of keeping the ball in play? Just looking through the holes. I don't think this is a golf course where you want to have that big left mess that we see with Cam Smith. Some of the time, I think you're kind of dead. If you're missing big on this course, there's, there's not a ton of water, but there's this, I don't know what you would call it. I guess a Berengka. It's a hazard that comes into play in a bunch of holes. And then if you're in the forest, you're,
I think you're just kind of dead in there. So accuracy off the tee, I think it's big this week. Approach.
34.4% of strokes gained in 2018 came on approach, which is right at tour average. In 2017, 36.6% of strokes gained came from approach, which is a little more healthily above tour average. So it has ranked on average 19th out of 37 courses in strokes gained difficulty on approach. It had the ninth hardest greens to hit on average last year and about 23%
of approach shots came from over 200 yards right around tour average 24 percent came from 175 to 200 which is well above tour average there's your middle irons and 21 percent 20.9 percent of approach shots came from between 150 to 175 that's right around tour average so two-thirds of all approach shots are coming from over 150 so this is definitely a
a middle to long iron course, not a ton of wedges here that you remember you got all those eight, um, kind of medium to long par force. And like I said, I think this is a, uh,
step one, step two course. What I mean by that is if you don't drive it in play, nothing else really matters. But if you do drive it in play, you're going to get a lot of mid irons on this course because like I said, you've got all those kind of medium length par fours. You've got the par threes are all between like 170 and 222. In terms of around the green,
13.7% of strokes gained in 2018 came from around the green, which is certainly below the tour average of 14.5%. And TPC Potomac has ranked on average 10th out of 37 courses in strokes gained around the green difficulty. So it's pretty challenging if you miss the greens here. But one thing that jumped out to me, 29th out of 37 in up and down percentage from the fairway.
But eighth out of 37 in up and down percentage from the rough and third in up and down percentage from the sand. So this course is going to have a lower greens and regulation percentage. You're going to have to scramble a bit, especially if you get yourself into trouble off the tee. It seems like the collection areas are pretty easy and these greens aren't all that undulating.
But the bunkers are pretty deep. These were the third hardest bunkers to get up and down from. So overall, I have a pretty standard weight on around the green with a more heavy emphasis on bunker play. And then putting, it ranked 26 out of 37 in strokes gained putting difficulty. 31.1% of strokes gained in 2018 came from putting, which is well below the tour average of 35.7%. And in 2017, the Kyle Stanley year,
Only 27% of strokes gain came from putting, which is one of the most significant differences I have seen in quite some time. So,
It ranked 23rd in putting inside five feet. It ranked 24th in putting inside or five to 15, 23rd from beyond 15 feet. So, you know, I think you just want to look for players that have had some success on Benkras before, but I don't think this is a week where you want to overdo it on putting.
Personally, I think that bentgrass is the easiest surface to putt on. But like I talked about last week with Pospalm, we can debate that one forever. I think it's really just about personal preference. So definitely want to be looking for players that have had some success on bentgrass.
And then the scoring stats, I'm not going to look at par five scoring here. There's only one reachable par five. Uh, the only, the other one's a true three shot hole. Um, and I think the only thing that I would make a case for is, you know, I think this is more of a bogey avoidance course than it is a birdies or better course. Um,
Not just from the stats, but kind of looking at how players have described it. It's not really the course where you want to be super aggressive. It's more about kind of mitigating disaster. It ranked 12th out of 37th in penalty strokes. The top 23 players in 2018 gained in bogey avoidance on the field. When Molinari won in 2018, he ranked first in bogey avoidance overall.
clearing the guy who ranked seven by a second, Abraham Mancer, who finished fourth by a pretty healthy margin. Eight of the top 10 in bogey avoidance finished in the top 20 of the tournament that year. And then in 2016, similar story, right? 15 of the top 16 in 2017 gained in bogey avoidance on the field. Kyle Stanley, who won, ranked second in bogey avoidance. Charles Howell,
who finished second, lost in the playoff. He ranked third in bogey avoidance. So there you go. And then for comp courses, I really struggled with this. I was thinking about Northeastern bent courses. And I just think TPC Boston is way too easy. And you can kind of spray it there. It's not like Winged Foot has these... Winged Foot has these giant undulating greens that
congressional is too long. I think the best I could do is, you know, think about what TPC river Highlands would look like if they tried to make TPC river Highlands a lot harder. And I don't think there's as much risk reward Pete die stuff going on here. So I know it's not perfect, but the agronomy is very similar. I think Highlands has a little POA in those greens, but it's still got that same Kentucky rough. Um,
And it's kind of Highlands is it's kind of a sneaky off the tee course. There's some there's some stuff there. Colonial isn't terrible either. You know, bent grass, positional driving accuracy, middle irons, same length off the tee. That's fine, I guess. But that's about it. You know, there's some other Bermuda courses like Sedgefield and Innisbrook.
that very much value driving accuracy and mid-iron approach play, but I don't really feel the need to look too heavily at those. I do think if you've played here in 2017 and 2018, that does matter because so many of the players talk about how it's a lot about patience and you can't be overly aggressive here. So I think if you've been here before and familiarize yourself with some of the tee shots and sight lines, you'll
That will be helpful. All right, let's run through the model, give some early leans, and then we'll get out of here. All right, so I threw all this together, and here's who it shot out. Number one, Rory McIlroy, which I would imagine he's the best player in this field. Number two, my guy, Martin Laird.
who I've been playing a lot of and will continue to play a lot of. Number two in the model this week. It's not a great field, but that was still like, whoa, all right, that's like a dominant number. It's a JJ Spahn number. It's higher than those. So we'll have our eye on Martin Laird this week. Number three, Paul Casey. Some injury concerns with that one, but I think he's a very intriguing DraftKings play. Mito is number four.
I like this course a lot for Mito. I really do. TBD, whether he's more of a bat or a Bermuda guy, but I think this accentuates a lot of the things that Mito does well. And then number five, of course, is Corey Connors. A little low, I guess you could say, from what I would expect. Doesn't have the best short game or bunker play, which is hurting him a little bit here.
Number six, Abraham Anser. I think this is a far better course for Abraham Anser than the one he is playing in Mexico this week. So he'll be somebody to monitor. Number seven, Ryan Armour, who finished second here to Molinari in 2018. That makes sense. He's another guy that'll probably be in the 6K range that hopefully doesn't get too chalky, but I think he makes a ton of sense here. Tony Finau, number eight, who Tony Finau's
Tony Finas hit the ball better than John Rahm in Mexico. Like he is, he is striping it right now. And the putter was terrible. Uh, the first two rounds, I mean, literally in on Friday, it was some of the worst putting I've seen by a pro ever.
But he kind of like found it a little bit on on Saturday and shot like eight under or shot five under. He's eight under for the tournament and like T-17 right now. So maybe if Finau, you know, he's someone to watch because he's got it right now with the ball striking. It's clicking.
Number nine, Luke Lest. Makes a lot of sense, right? Imagine this is a West golf course. Number 10, Sepp Straka, who's just been playing great right now. Number 11, Keith Mitchell, who I like a lot. I like Keith Mitchell a lot this week. Number 12, Matthew Fitzpatrick, who is a very good fit on this course because he's turned into... He's very good off the tee these days. 13 is Tyrell Hatton. 14 is Russell Henley, who...
You know, it's a, there's, you can make a lot of, it's one of those courses where I think Russell Henley could have a lot of success. Um, I thought he would be a little bit higher. 15 Mark Leishman who's played well here before, despite not being the most accurate off the tee, by the way, 16, my guy CT pan, who's very kind to me in Mexico this week, 17, Russell Knox, uh,
who I kind of like coming off back-to-back missed cuts. I think maybe he'll be priced more appropriately. Seamus Power is 18, who I also like. 19, Brian Harmer. Good course for Brian Harmon. And 20, Doug Gimm. Okay, so...
Early leans. I think there are a lot of, and I didn't really do a great job of kind of setting the stage with the field here. Rory's the best player in the field. After that, the guy who's number two on the odds board, you could make an argument for a couple of guys. It could be Corey Connors. Corey Connors could be 18 to one. If Tony Finau shoots 66 tomorrow,
Or, I mean, he doesn't even probably have to shoot 66. He's already T 17. If he kind of pops up on coverage, like, Oh, Tony Finau backdoor T seven, he could be 20 to one. Um, it could be Fitzpatrick. Although I think American markets tend to be a little bit cooler on him. Uh, answer. I don't think so. He didn't play well enough in, in Mexico Casey. There are too many injury concerns. Um, uh,
Henley, this will probably be a week where Henley will be 30-ish to one. And yeah, I think it's probably going to be Rory will be like eight, maybe. And then you're going to have this range of Finau, Fitzpatrick, Connors, Hatton, Woodland, Anser. Reid is going to be back down there. Reid's been playing great this week. Casey, I guess, right? So maybe Homa.
maybe Leishman because of the course history. Right. But it's going to be another week where you're going to Rory's far and beyond the best player in the field. It's nothing like the gap between Rahm and Mexico and Rory will definitely not be three to one. Maybe you'll even be 10, who knows, but you know, he's coming off a second at the masters where he was awesome. And that's still fresh in a lot of people's minds. So yeah,
Connors obviously is the one that I think makes the most sense on paper that I think could be 25% owned and most people are going to feel like they're priced out of this week. If Rory is the equivalent of Rahm last week, and I don't think it will be anything close to that in terms of the decision you have to make, I think
you know, Rory will, maybe he'll be the same price as Ron because Ron was so underpriced. Um, and then Connors will have maybe the Woodland role where he's 10 K and he's 25 ish percent. And Woodland didn't end up being that much. Actually, Woodland came in a lot lower than I think a lot of people thought, but I think Connors is going to be the obvious guy. And I, I,
As it stands on Saturday evening, I'm probably not in the business of betting Connors at 20 to one. Maybe not, probably not even 25 to one. So I thought about, okay, how can we find discount versions of Corey Connors in this field? And there are a lot. You know, I mentioned Mito.
I like Mito a lot here. I think, uh, he's not, he's not as accurate as Connors off the tee, but he's pretty damn close, right? Uh, he's a pretty damn good mid iron player too. He's second in bogey avoidance. Um,
Again, it's hard to tell what his preferred service is, but so far he's been fine on bat. And I think you want to play him on more difficult courses where driving accuracy really matters and you are rewarded for precise ball striking. And I think that is exactly what TBC Potomac does. I think it's a near perfect fit. Now he's coming off a WD at the team event and a lot of people were high on team Chile. So again,
Maybe that helps a little bit with ownership. If there's some injury concerns, I'll play him. I don't care, but I take risks like that all the time and it doesn't always pay off, but I'm comfortable with it. But I look at what he did at the heritage and he's the ball striking. He's kind of like getting close to what it was when he caught everyone's attention on the fall strike. He gained over three off the tee and on approach, um,
Off the tee got better. Approach got better. It's just starting to trend again after kind of a quiet-ish start to the season. This is the first time that he gained over three off the tee and on approach since the Shriners in the fall when he was hitting the cover off the ball. The other guy that I think is kind of a discounted Connors is Keegan, who finished fifth at this course in 2017.
In 2017, Keegan gained 12 strokes from Tita Green here at TBC Metobic. Lost 2.3 strokes putting. He could have easily won the tournament. He hit the ball just as good as Kyle Stanley that week and lost a little bit more putting than Stanley did. And then he didn't come back in 2018. But I think there's a lot to like about Keegan here. Really good driver of the ball. Awesome iron player.
Great with those middle irons, solid from 200 plus two. The one thing that the concern I have with him is that his bunker play has has been poor, but that's a little confusing because he still gains a ton. He's still really good around the green and he's won twice before on bank grass.
Uh, so, you know, he's coming off a fourth at the team event. And prior to that, he finished eighth at the Valero where he gained 4.1 on approach 5.8 around the green. There are a ton of bunkers there. So he seemed to be okay. Um,
But I think he's playing well. And he's, you know, eight starts this season. He's only missed one cut. And it came on the week where he was mega chalk at the Valspar, 12th at the Sony, 26 in Phoenix, 11th API, 5th at the Players, 8th at the Valero. And he does it all not putting well. And he can easily win this tournament losing strokes putting. And if you don't want to pay 18 or 20 to 1 for Connors, you
I think Keegan does a lot of the same stuff that Connors does. And he actually has a better short game than Connors. Yes, Connors is better, but I think you can get a nice discount on Keegan for what I would worry might be a pretty low price on Connors this week. I also like Seamus Power a lot. He's played here twice. He played here in 2017, 2018, made the cut both times. I like that he's got some experience. He's an above average driver of the ball.
And he does well on tighter courses, actually. Keeps the ball in play. He gains off the tee, and he's not long. So he does it mainly through accuracy. And he's won the Barbasol on bent grass, which has historically been his preferred surface. He's third in this field in bogey avoidance. He doesn't really make any big mistakes. He keeps the ball in play. 19th at the Travelers this year. That's another thing I should say about Keegan. He's got the Northeast thing.
going on, right? He plays really well in the Northeast. But Power, he went on that run during the fall swing, and then he missed three cuts in a row. And then he's quietly started to come back. He was good at the match play. He finished T27th in his debut at the Masters, gained 2.6 off the tee and 1.8 on approach. That's pretty impressive to me. 33rd at the players too.
And he, he, again, he went on this like incredible run where he went fourth, 15, third, 14th, ninth, and he was contending a lot. And then he misses three cuts. And now it's, it appears that his game's rounding into form. Again, the irons came back. Um, the off the T's been good. So I like the way power is trending. Um, and I don't know, 50 in this field seems pretty reasonable. I think he's a little out of sight, out of mind right now for most, um,
I always say these guys are out of sight, out of mind, and then I start talking about them, and I'm wrong, but this is how it feels recording this on Saturday night before the podcast comes out. And then Keith Mitchell is the other guy I was looking at a ton. He's the number one player off the tee in this field, and...
you know, that has a little bit more to do with distance and accuracy, but you can't rate that highly off the tee without being extremely straight as well. Um, and Keith Mitchell is a long and straight driver of the ball. He's the type of guy that's going to be able to step up to those 470 yard par fours hit driver and hit driver straight. Um,
And he's got an underrated short game. I think the biggest concern, still not a great middle iron player, right? But he's got a really good short game. And although I think most people think of him as a Bermuda guy, he's had a lot of nice success on bent grass as well. So I think you make a good, really good case for Mitchell. And he's played well this year. Like he missed cut at the team event, but prior to that,
He finished 13th at the players gained 4.3 off the tee there. Um, in seven stroke play events this season, he's made six cuts with five top 15 finishes. So he's, he remains dominant off the tee. He's got the potential to spike with the putter as well. It really just comes down to the iron play, which at least has been better this year. Um, so I like Keith Mitchell a lot. And then, um,
We'll run through a couple more of these guys. I think there are a lot of good options. I mentioned Laird. I'm contractually obligated to bet Laird. He'll probably be at least 100 to 1. But he's really accurate off the tee, which I felt mattered this week. He's first in good drive percentage.
He's such a good mid-iron player. He's eighth in proximity from 175 to 200, 11th from 200 plus, 31st, 150 to 175. You add it all together and you weight it. He's one of the best middle to long-iron players in this field. Trustable short game. And although Benkgrass hasn't been his best surface, he's had plenty of success on it over the years. 17th in bogey avoidance. He's had some nice success at the Travelers before Benkgrass.
And he continues to hit the ball. Great. He 29th at the Valero 3.7 off the tee point eight on approach neutral around the green, the author T got way better. Um, and it's just going to come down to the putter, right? The, uh, the putter is a little shaky for him. Obviously if, uh, if I was weighing putting a little bit heavier, he wouldn't be so highly for me, but I think he has a T degree game to really succeed on this course. Um,
A couple other guys that have my attention based on odds, some longer guys. I mentioned Armour and Glover. I didn't mention Glover, but I mentioned Armour. I think Ryan Armour and Lucas Glover are really good top 40 plays. I like Tyler Duncan a lot as a top 40 play. I'm going to go back to Dahman as a top 40 play. I like Russell Knox as a top 40 play. In terms of other guys I'm looking to bet, I like Sergio here.
I know he's maybe got some live stuff in his future, but I think it's a good course for Sergio if the motivation is there. We got the Kokrak WD earlier this week. Xander, by the way, pulled out as well. I think Xander is going to play Byron Nelson and not this. Interesting. Leishman, I think, will be a very popular bet this week. He's been good in his two appearances here. He kind of...
He's not super accurate off the tee, but he kind of does it in other ways. He's a great iron player. Good bank grass putter. He's won the travelers before. I think you kind of got to be enamored with Cameron Young right now, right? I mean, he is, I don't think anyone really expected him to pop at the heritage, which was a course that didn't do the best job of accentuating his skillset. That was a course that kind of takes driver out of his hands. I think he's still going to be able to hit driver here. And yeah,
He's really straight, too, for how long he is, right? I think more of his off-the-tee prowess comes from distance, but he's very straight, too, and keeps the ball in play. Another guy like that is Cameron Davis, who also popped at the Heritage, who I think is going to be interesting for me this week, and then Brian Harmon as well had my attention. He's super, super accurate off the tee. I like his short game. Both of his wins have come on back grass. So,
There's like eight guys I'm considering. Laird, Bradley, Mito, Seamus Power, Keith Mitchell, Sergio, Leishman, Cameron Young, Harmon. I'm probably going to have to cut that to six, but I think all of them will be above 40, I would imagine. Maybe Keith Mitchell catches a little steam. Maybe Sergio gets a little love or Leishman gets a little love, but I think Leishman will still be 35-40.
And then I think hopefully Mito, Power, Bradley, 450s, Cam Young maybe gets a little steam. Maybe he's in the 40s. But that's it. And then Laird, Armour, Glover, Duncan, Dahman for top 40 plays. But that's it. All right. That will do it for me. Once again, I've got Patrick McDonald coming on on the Tuesday podcast who will be going to this event.
who just got a great new job, who I'm excited to talk to about that. He's been on the podcast a couple of times before, but it's been, I think since the, we did the Ryder cup together or we did a Ryder cup recap together. He's been a buddy for a while since the very beginning. So that should be fun. Scramble Tuesdays and Fridays with Rick odds, check our articles Wednesdays and Saturdays. I do a more in-depth breakdown of this golf course and,
On rickrungood.com, which will be posted for subscribers on Monday. My Wednesday final thoughts article, DFS, where I talk a little bit more about weather and ownership. That will be out on Wednesday. And that will do it. You can find me on Twitter at ADPwaxsports. You can find this podcast on Twitter at InsideGolf underscore pod on Twitter. You can reach out at InsideGolfPod at gmail.com.
or hit me in the Rick Run Good Slack channel. And have a great Sunday.
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