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Reaching out in that Discord to the winner of the giveaway that I did. But it's been another incredible week. I'm recording this on Saturday evening. So don't want to jinx it. But turns out I still got it at the Sony Open. The Hatton, Cam Davis, Keegan, Rose, Kidiyama slams that we talked about all week in the Discord and in my articles. All through the weekend. A lot of them played very well on...
on Saturday. So let's hope for a really good Sunday tomorrow as well. We do it all at Run Pure Sports. We've been hammering that matchup market looking like seven and one in the eight matchups that we talked about in the articles and discord this week. So it's not just for DFS players. We have an extremely thriving and strong betting discourse going on in there as well. I post all of my outright bets as soon as I make them and
So you can act before those lines move because that's generally what happens. It's just like the NFL. It's in golf. It's a lot about when you bet. And like I mentioned, we've really been honing in on those matchup markets using sharp line movement in the matchup markets to identify also who we should be looking at for DFS. A ton of showdown stuff we've been firing on and working on as well. And,
A big new move potentially as well that I think is going to change the game in terms of ownership for us. Something Wiley and I may have cooking. So as I mentioned, I pour my heart and soul into this thing. I couldn't be more proud of the community that we've already built that was already in place well before I got there. But hopefully I can continue to play a hand in growing every day.
So join us. You can sign up for the golf-only option. We have that available now. I'd strongly recommend Allsports because that's been helping me a lot lately with NBA and NFL. But if you're a golf-only guy, I'd imagine that's probably the case if you're listening to as in-depth of a podcast as this. You can use promo code ANDY when you sign up for 15% off. That is the crucial part. You've got to get that discount. And we would love to have you as part of the community.
Okay, we're back. Second week in a row. The Sunday pod last week was a big hit. So I'm glad that's still helpful to people. People still like checking that out because I did not do a very good job of doing it last year. But I'm completely recommitted to it this year. As I mentioned, I've never worked harder in these first two weeks of January on these golf tournaments. I think it's not I think. I know it's certainly...
the move to run pure sports has kind of lit up a little fire under my belly in terms of just reinvigorated my love and passion for what I do in terms of this, in terms of breaking down golf courses and daily fantasy and betting the PGA tour. And, you know, that can get a little stale at times, especially, uh,
With the PGA tour venues that we hit week to week, there's 45 of them and a lot of them tend to blend together as I'm sure you know by listening to this podcast and
I'll talk about as it pertains to this course because, or these three courses, because this week is no different. But something about this year, I've been grinding a lot harder and it's been working out really well for me early over a very limited sample size over these first two weeks. So,
Absolutely recommitted to putting my all into these Sunday podcasts. I'm really happy that it seemed to help a lot of people last week, and I hope it can continue to do that as well. Because the main point of this is,
This is just a look inside what I do. This is just a look inside my research, how I prepare for a golf tournament. There are a lot of ways to get to the same result. I would never preach that the way that I break things down is the best way. It just works for me. I've had a lot of success doing this. I know a lot of other people have had a lot of success doing
doing this. But like I mentioned, there are a million different ways to do this and I've tried to get better at listening to content every week. So especially with, especially this year specifically in terms of getting myself dialed in on ownerships and narratives and you know, I've realized they're
Certainly a lot of different ways to do it. So this is just mine. This is, again, what has worked solely for me. And the goal of this is to help you get a head start on your research for the upcoming tournament week. Maybe you've got a bad week going in DFS or betting and you want to get a head start on Sunday morning. We're not going to be able to have pricing yet, but I generally can give some pretty good insights into what I think the pricing will be
Obviously, ownership is going to play a major role on the final decisions that I make. That's why you want to tune into my later in the week content, but I can still give a fairly good sense of the guy's...
that I would expect to be fairly popular because, again, you could see a lot of people are going to listen to this podcast. A lot of people are going to listen to other podcasts. And group thick is typically going to develop. I saw that Corey Connors thing. And he actually, to be fair, Corey Connors really didn't turn out to be some sort. He was certainly popular in the betting markets, right? But he didn't turn out to be some sort of overwhelming group thing. I think...
I think a lot of people had penciled him in earlier in the week, including myself, as overwhelming chalk. And I guess for the context of the Sony, there wasn't really anything super disgusting. And Connors was still one of the most – ended up being one of the most popular players on the slate. Yeah.
My opinion obviously will change throughout the week based on ownership, which is a still a major, major part of the pie. But this is just hopefully to give you some early leans of players that I'm looking at. And like I said, give you a peek inside my research and the things I'm looking for. So let's dive in to the American Express, because this is about as excited as I've been for this tournament in as long as I can remember, right?
um this is the first stop in the west coast swing and uh it's probably the most unique stop on the west coast swing in this in the sense of the climate and and the scoring you'll see where once we get to tory pines the following week and then pebble beach and riviera it's it's a pretty far departure from what you are going to see this week which is
Going to look a lot more similar to what we saw week one at Kapalua, right? And this event has a very laid back, low key atmosphere. It was previously five rounds of competition and a pro am hosted by Bob Hope back in the day. But the event in 2012 changed to a traditional 72 hole format over three different courses with a 54 hole cut.
So it's not all that dissimilar to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. And it's been hosted on a number of different courses in the Palm Springs area over the years before settling in on the stadium course at PGA West designed by Pete Dye. Nicholas Tournament course, which was originally designed for the 1991 Ryder Cup. You can probably imagine who designed that one. It was Mr. Nicholas. And
La Quinta La Quinta Country Club. So this three course rotation has been in existence since 2016. So I wouldn't spend a ton of time deliberating over tournament results prior to that year. And while in previous years, the star power has kind of waned significantly at this event over the years.
This year, we're going to see our strongest American express field that I can remember. Scotty, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Shoffley, Jason Day, Sam Burns, Justin Thomas, Will Zalatouris, Sung Jae Im, Tom Kim, Wyndham Clark, Ricky Fowler, amongst others. We'll all be making the trip to the desert. Of that group, I should also mention Thomas is the only player making his 2024 debut in
And I dug into this because I was curious. So every single one of the last eight champions, basically since we moved to this three-course rotation, had either played the Sony Open or the Century. So we haven't had any player making their season debut win this tournament yet.
In at least the last eight years that we've had these three golf courses. Now, on the other hand, and this is kind of what I talked about a little bit last week at the Sony in terms of, I don't really care how you played. I just wanted to see you shake the rust off. Success at one of those two events has not necessarily been a prerequisite, right? So only 50% of those winners recorded a top 10.
During the first two events of the season. Right. So again, similar to evaluate our evaluation at Sony, you kind of want to be aware of those making their first start of the year. And at the top of the board that the, probably the only guy with the warning signs is JT, but I would not be overly critical of how they played in the first two weeks. I would just be more weary of if they're making their first start. Right. And again,
These three golf courses, PGA West, stadium course, this is Pete Dye. This is the main course that we are going to see in terms of you're going to get double the love at this golf course. And generally in terms of the statistics that I'm going to throw out, the modeling that I'm going to do will be more primarily focused on the PGA West stadium course because the
All the players are going to rotate across the first three courses during rounds one through three. And those who make the cut will play their final round at the Pete Dye Stadium course. So the stadium course is going to see double the attention of the Nicholas Tournament course and La Quinta Country Club. And luckily for us,
These three courses are extremely similar in terms of the questions that they are posing. And like I said, for the purposes of this breakdown, I will be focusing primarily on the PGA West stadium course, as it is receiving double the play of the other two courses, including the final round and this stadium course designed by Pete Dye, as I mentioned, kind of as the West coast companion to the acclaimed TPC sawgrass. Now,
the similarities are hard to ignore. The stadium course, the Palm Springs version, even features its own island 17th green. And it is probably low bar here, but the most interesting thing
notable and challenging of the three American Express host venues. The Nicholas tournament course typically plays as the second easiest course and La Quinta historically provides the least pushback. But both the Nicholas tournament and La Quinta do not have shot like data, which is
is example 800 million of the PGA Tour's laziness. I don't understand this at all. These are California courses that we've been coming to for nearly a decade, and you still don't have Shotlink on those two courses. You're going to spend $150,000 on this odd PGA Tour orientation in Hawaii, but you can't
You can't set up shot link on two regular Palm Springs courses that we've been going to for a decade and that we're probably going to continue to go to. Doesn't make sense to me. So the data I'll be using pulls primarily from the stadium course. It is still worth noting that particularly last year, this is something that I wanted to talk about because I
The three-course rotation is going to bring a lot of showdown questions into play, first-round leader questions into play in terms of what golf course do you want to start on? What golf course is the easiest? What golf course do you want your players to be playing first versus last? Now, I dug into this a little bit. So last year, the Nicklaus tournament course played nearly a stroke easier than La Quinta last year.
So it is not some foregone conclusion that La Quinta is the easiest and PGA West is the hardest. Like last year, La Quinta featured a scoring average of 69.58 and
The stadium course came in at 69.26. And the Nicholas tournament course followed at 68.72. So last year, and probably I guess has to do a little bit with wind on these three days, but the point I'm trying to hammer home here is
These courses are incredibly similar and conditions are going to change a little bit every single day. So it is not some foregone conclusion that just because in the past La Quinta has been the easiest, that it's necessarily going to play the easiest on that specific day. Like I mentioned, Nicholas tournament course last year, this is probably because La
Maybe on some of the days that, I mean, it, it just, they're so similar that wins, win can make a huge difference here. Right? So Nicholas tournament course played almost a stroke, a full stroke easier than Laquita. And that was the first time that that had ever happened in the last five years.
Right. Over the last five years, it's been in descending order nearly every single year. Stadium course, Nicholas tournament course, La Quinta country club. And then last year it gets flipped on its head where Nicholas tournament course is by far the easiest. And then La Quinta and stadium course are pretty damn even.
Right. So main point with that, just be sure to monitor the wind before you pencil in La Quinta as the easiest golf course, because these golf courses are all very similar. They're all right in front of you and they're all very easy. Okay. And we can talk about a little bit about which golfers have preferred, which courses, if you want to get super, super in the weeds in terms of showdown stuff, that'll,
That's more unnecessary for this podcast that I could get into specific questions in the Discord later. But for this podcast, I just primarily want to hammer home the point that it's not some foregone conclusion that it's going to be La Quinta easiest, then Nicholas, then stadium course. We saw that kind of get flipped on its head last year. And last year, even being the hardest, the stadium course still played as the 10th easiest course on the PGA Tour.
And each of the last three years, it has ranked inside the top 10 in easiest courses. So do not get it twisted. Like there's trouble at every turn at the stadium course. It is designed by Pete Dye to wreak havoc. Very similar in the way that TPC Sawgrass was designed. These are the types of golf courses TPC Sawgrass has.
This West Coast version of the stadium course, a lot of Pete Dye courses. I played a lot of Pete Dye courses where for amateurs, they're a total pain in the ass. Probably if an amateur played this golf course, PGA West, they would find it one of the harder golf courses that they've ever played. And I have a number of friends in Palm Springs that have played it.
They can corroborate that. I've never played there before. I've heard interesting things. P-Tie is definitely not my favorite. There are a lot of other Palm Springs options that I would choose over it. But this is a golf course that is probably a nightmare for an amateur, right? There's a ton of water, hazards everywhere, right? But for pros...
This falls in line similar to other golf courses that have water everywhere. I outlined this a little bit as well because I was curious about this. The stadium course is one of the rare occurrences of a golf course where...
It features a ton of penalty strokes and water balls, and yet it still is really easy. Okay, and I'll explain a little bit about what I mean by that. So last year, Stadium Course ranked second out of 45 courses in penalty strokes per round. And the prior year, it ranked first.
And yet still, it ranked as one of the easiest courses on tour. So this is what we would call a high variance golf course, right? Where birdies are available, but there are also bogeys at every turn as well. And the birdies on this golf course usually end up trumping the bogeys. But there are very few golf courses like that because...
It's very few. They're kind of inversely related, right? If you have a golf course with a lot of penalty strikes per round, you're probably going to have a high scoring average, right? But there are a couple rare exceptions of, excuse me, golf courses, PGA stadium course being PGA West stadium course being the most glaring example that.
feature over 0.5 penalty strokes per round and a scoring average of at least a stroke under par. So there are only five courses on the PGA tour that do this.
PGA West Stadium course, Albany Golf Club, which is where we had the Hero World Challenge. TPC Twin Cities, which I think is an incredibly strong comp for this week as well. Austin Country Club, another Pete Dye course, another incredibly strong comp in my opinion. And Vidanta Vallarta, which is the host of the Mexico Open. So the main point that I want to get at here is that
You really want to be looking for players that are going to make a ton of birdies and play aggressively right here because –
This is a golf course where you can make birdie on nearly every single hole if you're playing well, and there's going to be some variance on the back end of that as well, right? If you're not playing well, you're going to see some guys find themselves in the water. I would not freak out if a player gets in the water. You can still shoot 65 on this golf course with two water balls, right? All of these golf courses, part of the problem is
And I'll talk about this a little bit because I'm going to keep my breakdown of the Nicholas tournament course in La Quinta brief because there's really nothing there. But all of these golf courses are par 72s measuring under 7,200 yards. So again, while I'm mainly writing about and modeling and talking about the stadium, about the stadium course, the big thing that all of these golf courses have in common is
As par 72s, they're just too short for modern PGA Tour play, right? And you can't have a golf course on the PGA Tour these days that's under 7,200 yards and is a par 72 unless you have it tricked up to the max with super firm and fast conditions, right?
A heritage is kind of the closest that we can get to that where it's super narrow, super small greens. TPC sawgrass is probably the best example of this where it doesn't
totally wreck the architectural integrity of the golf course, right? And you can still have a golf course that's really short, that still challenges players because of the visual deception and the hazards. Problem is Palm Springs, it's like playing golf in a dome. These golf courses never get super firm and fast. There is some wind, but it never gets crazy, crazy windy here. And you basically have
ideal scoring conditions every day, ideal weather, the ball travels farther in the heat and these golf courses, they're just not, they're just not long enough, right? You'll see when I talk about the par fives and I talk about, uh, you know, the proximity buckets and stuff, all these par fives are, are reachable generally to all of these golf courses. And, uh, the Nicholas tournament and La Quinta country club, uh,
Not a single par four on those golf courses measures over 470 yards. And both of those courses feature for reachable par fives, right? So point being, uh,
You want to look for guys, especially on the stadium course, where, yes, there's hazards in play, but the fact that there are hazards in play and there are still that many birdie opportunities, and then you combine that with the other two golf courses, which don't feature as much water, don't feature as much trouble, you're going to want to place a massive, massive emphasis on scoring statistics this week, right? Yeah.
Birdies are better gained. Easy scoring conditions. Really identifying those players that thrive in track meets, that raise their baseline in easy scoring conditions. Opportunities gained, right? What are the players that are generating the most opportunities for themselves per round, the most birdie and eagle looks per round, right? And
Trying to account for finding guys that play their best golf in extremely benign, straightforward, scorable, you know, desert conditions. A lot of those guys in Arizona and Vegas, you might want to give a bump to those guys. They're going to be really familiar in desert conditions. We'll get to the comp courses soon. But, you know, TPC Scottsdale, TPC Summerlin, Summit Club, like a lot of those guys.
desert golf courses just aesthetically you're gonna are gonna fit certain players eyes other more so than others and in terms of the other two golf courses nicholas tournament and la quinta before we really get into stadium they're i mean the the biggest challenge of both of them is they both have pretty tough par threes right like all the eight par threes at la quinta and nicholas tournament respectively rank in the top eight toughest at each course but
As I mentioned, these just need to be par 70s. They're simply too short for the modern player. And the name of the game at both of these tracks is wedge play and putting inside 15 feet. They are about as generic and lazy as it gets.
For tournament play, even by PGA Tour standards. So let's dive into the stats. Before that, let's take a quick break and then we'll get into the model a little bit.
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Last year, the stadium course ranked 22nd out of 45 courses in off the tee difficulty, which has typically been the toughest skill at the stadium course because there's so much trouble in play. In fact, between 2017 and 2020, it ranked in the top 10 courses in off the tee difficulty. And despite all of the water in play,
It's still only ranked 36 out of 45 courses in missed fairway penalty. The prior two years, it featured the second lowest missed fairway penalty on the PGA tour. So,
And with that being said, in terms of overall missed fairway penalty, it's pretty easy. But then you extrapolate that to non-rough penalty, and it ranks eighth, which speaks to the amount of water, but still only middle of the pack in terms of drives that result in a penalty struck. So translation, you do not need to possess—
elite accuracy to stay out of trouble at the stadium course. But the really wild drives are going to be penalized, right? And driving is still the most challenging aspect of the stadium course. Like I would say how this golf course may be different from something like Kapalua, which is very similarly high greens and regulation birdie fast putting contest versus
is that the stadium course probably rewards, not probably, certainly rewards elite driving a little bit more than a golf course like Kapaloo where it's completely devalued. But it's still such a remarkably easy course that everything is relative, right? And that brings me to looking at something like good drive percentage, right? Which measures the percentage of drives that a player hits that allows them to reach their green in regulation, right?
So there's no real correlation at the stadium course for elite accuracy or elite distance, but it's absolutely essential that players avoid penalty strokes off the tee, right? So you kind of off the tee is definitely going to help you for a birdie fest far more so than a golf course like Kapalua where it's completely devalued, but
The main crucial key point here is you just want to stay out of the water and you don't need to be particularly super elite in terms of accuracy to do that. You just need to keep the ball on the planet, which is kind of the story at a lot of desert golf courses, right? And then in terms of approach, the approach difficulty here is
It's definitely easier than the off-the-tee difficulty. The greens and regulation at this golf course is 72.3%. All of the golf courses, all three of the golf courses, feature a greens and regulation percentage north of 70%, which is 8.2% higher than the tour average. And last year, the stadium course featured the ninth easiest greens to hit on the PGA Tour. And
It was the easiest wedge course on the entire PGA Tour inside 150 yards, but a lot more challenging from 150 yards plus. And that's pretty easy to explain. Dispersion patterns wider and with longer irons and wider dispersion patterns on this golf course equals more water, right? But the stadium course still ranked only 41st out of 45 courses in approach difficulty, which is...
Typically a lot easier than it has been in the past. It generally ranks tougher than average in approach difficulty because you're still going to have some water on the approach shots. But driving is still a tougher skill at PGA West. There's more trouble off the tee at the stadium course than there is on approach. And all three of these golf courses are wedge fests in terms of the proximity buckets.
125 and in. And I would also say that long iron play is going to be a lot more important on this golf course than people talk about because the
It's also important to recognize that because of the longer par threes and the four reachable par fives, like the stadium course, for example, and this is the case with the other two courses as well, because they both have a few longer par threes and par fives that are generally reachable by all players. But suddenly you have...
two par threes that measure close to 200 yards and then four par fives where you're hitting a long iron in and that's 33% of your shots are with a long iron. And that's why you have to be careful sometimes with the proximity buckets, because when you're hitting your second shot on a par five with a long iron, you're
That's a skill you want. That is approach. That is what you want approaching the green. Right. And so birdie fests are rarely thought of as long iron tests, but I think it's a very underrated factor on courses with very easy reachable par five. So not a ton of like middle iron play here. It's a lot of really short wedges, um,
and long irons on the longer par threes and reachable par fives. And there, there are a couple of golf courses where we talk about that, right? Wedges and long irons like a Zozo. I remember is a lot like that. VDON to Viarta is a, is a golf course like that. So you really want to hone in on those guys that are great inside one 25 and also 200 yards plus in terms of short game here.
Probably one of the easiest golf courses in terms of the green side surrounds here and around the greens ranked 33rd out of 45 courses in around the green difficulty. And it typically ranks as one of the easiest, if not easiest around the green courses on the PGA tour. It is ranked as the easiest every year between 2019 and 2021 and
37th out of 45 courses in around the green difficulty from the fairway, 38th out of 45 courses in around the green difficulty from the rough, but fifth out of 45 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers. So each of the last five years, the stadium course has been one of the easiest golf courses to get up and down from, from the rough or the fairway, but featured, uh,
Some of the top five most difficult bunkers on tour. So with such a high greens and regulation percentage, I would never advocate for looking at short game, but elite bunker play definitely helps. I mean, again, more so of a luxury than a necessity there, but these are some pretty tough and deep bunkers. So that's kind of an ancillary skill that I would take a peek at if you're kind of having a difficult time getting
making a decision between two guys on the margins. Because if you're an elite bunker player at this course, I think it's an ancillary skill that's actually going to help you out a lot. And then in terms of putting, where's my putting stuff? Okay, here we go. So again, pretty easy, pretty standard stuff. These greens, Pete Dye has never been known for
creating super undulating and interesting green complexes. He does a decent job of that at some of his courses. So I don't want to place a blanket statement on that, but in terms of this golf course that we're looking at this week, 44th out of 45 courses in putting difficulty. And each of the last two years, it is ranked as the second easiest putting course on the PGA tour. Last year, it ranked 36th out of 45 courses in putting difficulty inside five feet and
42nd out of 45 courses in putting difficulty from five to 15 feet and the easiest lag putting course on tour each of the last two years. So these are truly some of the most low degree of difficulty, but nine greens on the entire PGA tour. And now putting on any of these courses is still extremely important because of the sheer volume of
And the fact that this is just such a high greens and regulation percentage, players are going to have so many putts inside 15 feet, right? This is one of the lowest proximity to the hole on the PGA tour with all of the wedge shots. But in terms of the greens want to highlight this real quick, because a lot of people are going to get this wrong. It's, it's more difficult to define the type of Bermuda that we see this time of year in Palm Springs. It's an overseeded grass area.
That is meant more so to withstand high heat and dry conditions. But it's a lot because of the overseed. It's a lot smoother of a surface than a lot of the grainy Bermuda that we see in Florida, even some of the grainy Bermuda that we saw at Kapalua and at Waiwai.
But it's not – it's like a carpeted Bermuda, but it's not a smooth bank grass either. And we see this type of overseeded Bermuda everywhere.
At TPC Scottsdale, primarily a couple of Florida golf courses earlier in the year will do an overseed, but it's not quite the same because a lot of the grain's still in there, and this will have a lot of Poa trivialis mixed here as well, but don't get it twisted. These greens play nothing like West Coast Poa. But point being, a big factor of Bermuda is grain, okay? And because of the overseed,
These golf courses, it takes a lot of the grain out of it, right? It's like putting on carpet, right? That's why part of the reason putting at this golf course is so easy is not just because of the lack of undulation in the greens. It's also because of the overseed makes these greens so pure and so smooth, right? So I would be very careful here.
with looking too deeply at, you know, Bermuda putting splits, right? This is an overseeded Bermuda. It's not quite like bank grass. It's certainly nothing like West coast polo, just, just because there's poet trivialis mixed in, in as well. Don't get caught up thinking that this is a West coast polo golf course as well. So, you know, the main other putting courses that feature that overseed,
TPC Scottsdale has very, very similar greens to this. They oversee their greens this time of year too, but with a lack of reliable data on these green types, I really think that we should focus more on players that have putted well here.
As well as just in general, identifying the guys that dominate inside 15 feet, right? That's the most reliable putting metric. And birdie opportunities on this golf course are a dime a dozen. So just like we need to identify the players that give themselves the most chances per round, capitalizing is also crucial. And so you want to hone in on those guys first.
that are really, really great long-term inside 15 feet, 5 to 15 feet. And tread lightly with some of the Grainer Bermuda stuff. I promise you I play a lot of golf in Palm Springs and I play a lot of golf in Florida. It's just not the same. And then in terms of scoring stats, which is probably the most important, the highest weight in my model this week,
So opportunities gained. We've talked about a lot. You want to identify the guys that are generating the most opportunities for themselves inside 15 feet this week, right? Birdies just in general, like putting is a crucial part of that equation as well. And this is kind of an old school track meet. So yeah,
You want to get as much weight down as you can on finding these guys that score in easy conditions, right? And make a ton of birdies in easy conditions and raise their baseline when the name of the game here is just wedges and putting, right? And again, if I was distilling this down to, we talked about last week and this served us really well at the Sony Open where it's like, okay, we can hone in on
short to middle iron play and course history. Right. And, and that helped us a lot and identifying a very strong core heading into the weekend. And same thing with Kapalua as well as like, how can we dumb this down and just bring this to a couple boxes that we want our players to check. And if they are checking these boxes, then we're going to play them. And if they're not checking them, then we're probably out. And,
It's not incredibly dissimilar from what we saw at Kapalua, but this week I am really focusing in on scoring. Like who plays the best golf in easy scoring conditions? I think we could be looking at, you know, 25 to 30 under this week easily, but
Wedge play like short to middle iron play more so with the wedges, the proximity buckets are going to be a little bit closer this week than we saw at Wiley. Um, and putting inside 15 feet because you're just going to have so many opportunities on this course. Uh, and then if I was to give another one too, because this can transition us into our final category and talk about the golf courses similar to this. Um,
But there are a couple of golf courses that I think are like really solid reference points here, right? We obviously there's the stadium course, right? TPC sawgrass, which is, was this golf course was completely modeled off TPC sawgrass. So I would be remiss not to at least mention the connection between both of those Pete die tracks. You know, sawgrass is much more narrow, strategically nuanced and a challenging course, but yeah,
There's so many examples of players that have found their fair share of success at both, right? Siwoo Kim, Webb Simpson, Adam Hadwin, John Rahm, Brian Harmon, Scotty Scheffler, obviously, Ricky Fowler. And then TPC Twin Cities I mentioned is that other queer example of a golf course where –
It's still pretty easy, but there's a ton of water. So just in terms of a visual aesthetic, that's another golf course where you're going to get a lot of birdies, but there's also a lot of trouble. And I think it's very helpful to identify players that, you know, have played well on golf courses where visually there's a lot of water, but you still have to play aggressively. And
TPC Twin Cities is kind of the perfect example of that. It's kind of a very rare breed of golf courses. I mentioned at the top of these high variance golf courses where there's a lot of water, but it's still really easy. Right. And Scottsdale again,
aesthetically very similar to, if you want to take the desert angle. Um, I don't have any major disagreements with that one either. Again, a lot of correlation here between those guys. You're,
Scotty Scheffler's and Ricky Fowler's and Adam Hadwin's. They're all playing well at Scottsdale and TPC Sawgrass and here, right? Tony Finau to another one. If you want to extrapolate with the, with the TPC Twin Cities, right? Aggressive play is rewarded. Par five scoring is essential. The greens feature very little undulation, um,
and color. Um, and both golf courses are, all these golf courses are really flat with just water being their defining feature. Right. And,
The main objective is just keep the ball out of harm's way off the tee and you will have short irons in your hands and you will be able to score. Right. So there are a couple ancillary ones, a TPC Summerlin, right? Even though that a little bit different agronomically and the summit club, if you want to go down the desert angle there, there are a couple others, but yeah,
Those are the big ones that I think actually can be really useful guide points in terms of
finding players that maybe they necessarily haven't played this golf course well yet, or they haven't popped here yet, or it's their first time playing here. But maybe if you saw them play well at Scottsdale or the players or TPC Twin Cities, that could be a pretty strong indicator that they're going to like this golf course as well. In terms of course history here, it's probably some of the lowest correlation in terms of course history and success. And that's why I've mentioned you really want to highlight and focus on
Other golf courses like this, easy scoring conditions, how do players score? Because these golf courses are so straightforward. They're so un-nuanced. They're so all out in front of you that, yes, you're going to have a couple examples of guys who,
like Cantlay, like Hadwin that have just been so good here over the years, but I would not knock a new timer, right? If they're, if they're making their first appearance here, I would not put it past a first, a first timer being able to figure out these golf courses pretty quickly. Especially if they've had some success on other easy golf courses on some of the golf courses that I've mentioned, like,
This is pure driving range point and shoot golf. There is not a breath of nuance to any of these courses. And like I said, I would not penalize any player for lack of experience of any of these tracks. Does it help if they've seen the courses before? Of course. But completely opposite to what we saw last week at YLAI, where there's this strong correlation of prior success.
I'd simply select the guys that are the best putters inside 15 feet, the most trustable
short iron players inside 125 yards and guys that have proven on similar golf courses in easy scoring conditions that they can get out and run. Right. So they provide these golf courses provide very little advantage to any specific skill set other than wedge play, the ability to keep the ball on the planet off the tee, a little bit of bunker play. And like I said, the rest is all putting inside 15 feet.
Okay, so the model. I threw all this together in the model the first two of the year. A lot of success already. So I'm feeling pretty good about this week as well. And like I mentioned earlier at the top, we've got a great field. So a couple non-shockers at the top and a couple surprises as we get farther down. And then one player that I really want to highlight. So here we go. Top 20 of the model. Patrick Cantlay, Xander Shoffley, number one and two.
Not sure if I want to play this game again with these guys, but for the same reason that
They made a ton of sense at Kapalua to me. They make a ton of sense at this golf course as well, right? This is a golf course where putting remains an incredibly important part of the equation. And Patrick Cantlay and Xander Shoffley are still far more trustable putters at this point than Scotty Sheffler, right?
Who's number three in the model because the ball striking is just still so elite for Scotty and he's been good at this golf course and he's been good at TPC. I think he, him and Ricky might be the only players in this field who have won at both TPC Scottsdale and TPC Sawgrass, but Scotty is near the bottom of the field in putting from five to 15 feet. And so, uh,
And the way that he's priced, you're going to need him to win. And so, yeah, Scotty, probably a walking top seven at this golf course, even if he doesn't putt 100% still, but on a golf course where putting is still a crucial part of the equation, uh,
he's not going to win. Um, if he doesn't at least putt decently well, right. You kind of have to have the ROM model, ROM model, at least where ROM was like, and this is the case with Scotty every single week. Right. But ROM hit the ball so well here last year that even as a neutral putter, he was able to win. And if Scotty can get you to a neutral putter,
This week, he's probably our champion. But what we've been seeing out of him a lot is not being able to get to a neutral putter, right? And Cantlay and Zander are still phenomenal, phenomenal ball strikers that are just much better putters than Scottie Scheffler. So I think that's going to be another really interesting decision at the top where we're
Once we get to the Bay Hills and the Torrey Pines and the Rivieras and even the Phoenixes, if Scottie's still hitting the ball this way, like he is just such a slam because his ball striking has elevated above any other player on the PGA tour to historic levels. But when you get to these golf courses where putting is such a strong part of the equation, you're,
You have a question that you need to ask yourself with Scottie because he's still going to be priced like he would be at a golf course where putting is devalued, but he is at a golf course where putting matters a whole lot. And sometimes on these golf courses where putting matters a whole lot, Scottie finishes like fifth instead of first because he just can't make a lot of putts. And like I said, at the price you're going to get with Scottie,
maybe a top five ends up being okay. You know, um, it kind of, it kind of feels like the safest bet too, but because of his lack of putting skill on these golf courses, there still is a, a question that you need to ask yourself with Scotty every single week until we start getting to these harder T to green golf courses that devalue putting, um, number four, Wyndham Clark, who I love this week. Um,
Wyndham Clark is my early lean winner as we sit here on Sunday morning subject to change. So I'll talk about him in a second. But Eric Cole, great golf course for Eric Cole. I think he made the cut on the number. He's I think this is another good spot for him. Ricky Fowler, number six. Ricky Fowler loves golf courses like this, and he's played well here in the past. Like I mentioned, he's won at the players. He's won at Scottsdale.
He's looked pretty terrible, both at the hero in December, and then he looked really terrible at Kapaloo as well. But this could be a really good bounce back, shake the rust off for Fowler. I think this is a really good spot for Fowler. Number seven, JT Poston. Another good spot for my guy JT.
who we bet this week and was a little disappointing. He's not going to win, but I think this is another good spot for him. Number eight, Sam Ryder, who I think is an excellent sleeper this week. I could talk about a little bit later on in the week as well. Sungjae M, number nine. Sungjae's been phenomenal at this golf course. I think this is another good,
Pretty ideal spot for Sungjae to be able to get off the schneid in terms of securing his first win in what feels like forever. Tony Finau, 10, who's also been good here. Doug Gim, interesting one. Was not surprised to see Doug Gim, but that's a good sleeper for you this week. My guy Cameron Davis, who I bet this week looked like he was going pretty steady. I don't think he's going to be the last man standing this week at Sony, but still looks like he's going to have a solid week.
Christian Bizzaydenhout, Mark Hubbard, Ryan Moore, Tom Kim, Shane Lowry making his tournament debut. I think he'll be very low-owned, and I always play Shane Lowry. Denny McCarthy, Andrew Putnam checks out. Those two guys, elite, elite putters, elite in easy scoring conditions, so they're probably going to have a lot of success at this golf course as well. And Stefan Jaeger rounding out the top 20 as well. So,
As it stands now, I'm going to be thinking a lot about Xander and Cantlay as we get later on in the week and over the next 24 hours. I bet the disgusting brothers at Kapalua, and they both played really well. Both looked like at times they had chances to win, but again, they did what they do, and they didn't win. It's pretty darn gross to bet...
Guys like Xander and can't lay, or even just one of the two this week and back to back weeks and their first two starts of the season. And then have total egg on your face when they predictably finish T seven. Right. But I think on these golf courses where putting is still a major, major part of the equation, there's a reason why I have more interest in them here than
And I'm kind of waiting to go balls to the wall on Scottie a little bit later. So I don't know if I'm going to bet either of those guys. But certainly for DFS, I'm going to be looking pretty closely at Xander and Cantlay again. Both have—Xander finished third here last year. Cantlay's been even better over the course of the past couple of years. And the guy that stuck out to me the most, that I was most surprised about in terms of statistically being—
Because there's, you know, in talent, you think of the drop-off after Scheffler, Cantlay, Zander. But statistically for me, Wyndham Clark's case at this golf course was nearly just as bulletproof as those guys. He's had success here in the past. He's played here five times already, made four cuts. He was T18 last year, two top 20s already at this golf course. His ball striking has been very good here.
He's a good driver of the ball. We know that Wyndham's a great driver of the ball, so he can kind of take the ROM playbook from last year. He's long, but also does a decent job of keeping the ball in play off the tee. He's an elite bunker player, which again is a luxury more so than a necessity, but I have him as the third best long-term bunker player in this field. Great overall iron player. Great inside 125. Great from 200 yards plus.
And he's also one of the best putters in this field from 5 to 15 feet. So I think there's a really decent chance that Wyndham Clark could potentially join the long list of the two-man list of U.S. Open, California, U.S. Open guys who have also played well at the American Express. You look at his...
Wyndham just scores, right? And I know his two victories on the PGA Tour have been on harder golf courses. I don't think that's the best harbinger for the fact that he wouldn't be able to eat in easy scoring conditions as well. He's ninth in birdies or better gain, eighth in par-5 scoring. He's going to have a ton of par-5s with the long irons, and even if he misses them, greenside in the bunkers. This just sets up really, really well for his skill set. Yeah.
And he's already had, he finished 27th at the players this year. He's already got a fifth at the three M open. So we know visually he can play well and play aggressively on these types of golf courses where there's water and play, but you still need to score. And then a 10th in Scottsdale last year as well in, in, um, at the Phoenix open, um,
And he worked, you know, fine at the century. Middle of the pack, gained four strokes off the tee, gave a couple back putting. So, you know, the combination of great driver, elite bunker player, great overall iron player, great wedge player, great long iron player, shook the rust off at Capitol Hill. One of the best putters in this field inside 15 feet. He scores. He's been good here in the past. He's been great at all the comp courses I'm looking at. I think we're looking at a Wyndham Clark.
Wyndham Clark ticket for me early on Monday morning. It's a good case. It's a good case. I laid out a good case for Clark. I'm telling you, I think this is a pretty perfect setup for him based on everything that I'm seeing in the numbers. So that will do it for me. Best of luck with your bets tomorrow. Your DFS lineups at the Sony open. Enjoy the football as well. Best of luck with your bets on the football and I,
If you want more of my content, if you want more of a deep dive, a written component to this where I get a lot deeper into the specific players and the specific numbers, I
Rump your sports.com. We would love to have you. It's a wonderful community. The discord is like nothing I've ever seen before all week. I'm in there 24 seven committed answering questions. That is my job now. Uh, so we would love to have you.
as part of the community over there, rump your sports.com code Andy. And we were back on this podcast feed. We're dropping another one. We'll do a little bit of a tournament preview with my buddy, Joe Edoni of the preferred lines podcast, which you should also check out as well. I think he does that Monday night. So he's going to hop on my podcast after on, after he does his preferred lines on Monday evening. And we'll have that out for you Tuesday morning. And,
When I have a much better sense of the DFS pricing, the betting numbers, I'm sure there'll be some Sony stuff for us to talk about in terms of what's going on in the golf world at large. But until then, enjoy the rest of the weekend.
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