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In the Discord, I was on grounds at Torrey all week sharing my insights. We had a guy win $50,000 in Showdown on Saturday. I did pretty well myself. Not quite $50,000 well, but it was still a good DraftKings week. We went 6-1 in the matchups again. All of them cashed before the weekend, bringing us to a whopping $1,000.
19 and four in matchups this year. Um, I work really hard on these. Um, I'm up over 39 units. There's a real edge that I not believe that I have the, the proof is in the pudding with that one, but over an 80% ROI since the start of the fall swing, it's all documented. It's all there every week on runpeersports.com.
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discount try it out for a week shoot me a message in there we'll chop it up and talk some golf okay just got back from tory pines this afternoon interesting tournament my thoughts on the golf course are well documented it's on a beautiful piece of land uh it challenges players in a very specific way and we absolutely got to see that challenge this week we saw shots of consequence uh
And all of that serves a purpose on the PGA Tour in terms of how the tournament shook out this week. We know what to do there by now, right? We know how to play this event. Pavone gained seven strokes putting, never played Torrey, no experience on Poe.
140 to one fourth, 140 plus winner in a row. Don't know what to tell you. It's going to happen. Sometimes no is going to happen four weeks in a row to start the PGA tour season. Especially I thought,
This week would be the breaking point or the turning point where things started to shift back to the top of the board, especially on a golf course that removes a lot of the variance that we saw the first three weeks of the season with golf courses was super high greens and regulation percentage, a lot of putting variance. But I mean, if you look at it,
Xander and Tony Finau led the tournament from tee to green. Both of them putted terribly. And if you just played the narrative of, I'm just going to pick the guys that hit the ball a long way. Well, Hoshgard, Knapp, by the way, Knapp's incredible in person. That kid can really play and he hits the ball a mile. Jaeger,
You, Fienel, Aberg, Pendrith, Rogers, Shoffley. That's nine of your top 12. Absolutely destroy the ball off the tee. And the other three guys, Pavone, Lashley, who we played, by the way, shout out Long Iron Play and Poe Putting, and Bo Hossler, all gained over five strokes putting through three rounds. So...
Tory is who we thought it was, right? Tory delivered on exactly what we expected to deliver on, which is a bunch of bombers and two or three guys that put the lights out, which you're going to get every week, even at a US Open or a Masters. But there was a lot of negative talk about the leaderboard. I don't know how much about, I don't know much about,
If that was the case on Twitter, it seemed like it was. I'm talking about like in the media center at Torrey Pines and on the grounds all week. All the local San Diego reporters were like, I don't know what the hell we're supposed to write about, which I get for the average guy reading the paper in San Diego trying to
sell your kid on, hey, let's go watch Pavone and Hochgard and Jaeger duke it out on Saturday. That's a pretty tough sell. But, you know, it wasn't that good of a field to begin with that when you have two guys, two of the biggest names not play well, like Cantlay and Morikawa, because Cantlay and Morikawa are
Ludwig, Homa, Zander, I guess Salatoris and Hideki were doing a lot of heavy lifting in that field to begin with. And don't get me started on Morikawa. I watched that guy hit. I watched nearly every shot that he hit on. Well, I guess it was Thursday, his second round.
I will maintain his decision to hit a three-wood off the tee on 17 when he couldn't carry the canyon with that club. Sitting on the cut line was one of the more inexplicable moments that I saw all week, and I watched a lot of golf this week. Morikawa was overcutting the ball all day, and when Morikawa is on...
Every shot is like a five yard fade starts a little bit left and it cuts right back into the middle of the green all day. He was battling like a 15 yard fade. He was borderline slicing it with his irons. I got to stand behind him on a lot of shots and he was battling this overcut all day and he was missing right all day and
And then he steps up to the tee on 17, standing on the cut line, the one hole where there's massive trouble down one side at Torrey Pines. And he does what every golfer has done a million times. He aims left, expecting to hit that same overcut that he's been hitting all day. And it goes dead straight into the canyon. Actually had a bit of a draw on it. And he misses the cut.
With that one golf shot. Mixed emotions on that one. I did the patented bet him outright, fade him in DFS. So his missing the cut, knocking out 25% of the field helped me immensely in DraftKings. But I can't sit here and tell you I didn't like Morikawa last week. Because I did. And that's why I bet him. And I could not believe what I was watching on Friday out of him.
But to circle back to the leaderboard, like I said, the best guys from tee to green at Torrey this week were Zander, Finau, Hideki, and Ludwig. And all those guys finished top 15 and none of them putted. Same with Homan and Zalatoris. So there were like seven big names in the field and five of them played really great. None of them putted well. But when you don't have a big name in there on Torrey,
I'm going to keep screwing this up and saying Sunday, but it was Saturday and the final round. It was just kind of low energy on grounds all week. And again, I didn't see much of today. I'm recording this on Saturday evening, so I didn't see much of the final round. I drove home this morning. So, you know, the three days, but I was out there on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for like eight hours a day. And the three days I went,
I guess they were traditional work days, so maybe everyone showed out on Saturday. But it was a weird week because the leaderboard, it wasn't all that unpredictable in my opinion. If you actually look at the leaderboard, we cleaned up at Rumpur, but it was that same, like, man, Pavone, that's the type of thing that back in the day,
You get a guy like that actually winning. You get a guy like that finishing T3 every week, but you get a guy like that actually winning a few times a year, two or three times a year. And every week this season, 150 plus. And...
Not to besmirch Pavone, I was certainly not on him. He did not fit the profile I was looking for, but he has played some really good golf on the DP World Tour. And there were a lot of guys in the Discord that were on him. So props if you had him, but it was just kind of another week where it's like, man, this guy actually won? Usually this guy that comes out of nowhere and wins
You know, he finishes T3 because on the final two holes, he's dying to give it away, which it seemed like he was. His putt on 17, four feet, did not touch the hole. And he looked really tight on 18. But then he hit that shot out of the rough on 18 and drained a
kind of a side hill, like not super easy nine footer to win the tournament. And he had to make that puck because Hojgaard ended up easily two putting there. And you had to assume Hojgaard was going to two putt. And there were JBC and a lot of guys that I, a lot of guys on Jaeger that I was around and a lot of guys on Hojgaard that I was around and some guys that Pavone benefited too. But this has just been the year that
You know, the guy finishing that guy, that Pavone finishing first, not third. I thought it was going to be Xander or Sahith or Spieth or Morikawa or Scheffler at Century. They all had good lucks at Century and their moments over the weekend. I thought it was going to be Keegan or Benny on at Sony.
I thought it was going to be Burns or JT at Amex. Today, I thought it was going to be Hojgaard or Jaeger. Both amazing players that are due for a win on the PGA Tour and will win on the PGA Tour. Hojgaard's a stud, and I've been talking up Jaeger for years. He was the guy when I wrote the three players primed for a breakout that kind of weren't the obvious guys like Ludwig. Jaeger was my first guy.
He hits the ball a sneaky, really long way, and he is an unbelievable long-arm player. He was in the single-entry lineup that we had that was leading for a while in this tournament until Michael Kim's Saturday. But Fienau, Zander, those guys hit the ball the best. And Hostgaard and Jaeger...
I really thought that one of them was going to eke it out on Saturday. So it's been a very, luckily it's still been profitable. Cause I, I don't, I don't base how I do in golf betting and golf DFS, obviously based on who wins the tournament, but very head scratching four weeks in a row. The less likely outcome it felt like has come to fruition with,
four straight weeks. Uh, but that is the beauty and, uh, I guess silliness of the sport that we love. So let's see if pebble can continue the trend. Uh, I doubt it, but I also said that last week, uh, but it is a great field this week because pebble is now a signature vet. Uh, so what does that mean? Uh,
Well, there are going to be 80 players in the field now, and I think this is a good thing. Normally, I love cut events, and this is not a cut event anymore, but you're still going to get rid of a lot of the bloat.
No more Monterey Peninsula Country Club. It's a lot tighter. Like I said, it's 80 guys in the field. Top 50 from last year's FedExCup standings. Top 10 available from the current FedExCup. The swing five, which I don't know why that always makes me laugh, but the five best players from the fall swing.
current year tournament winner. So Pavone is in Dunlap is in Grayson Murray's and top 30 in the OWGR, a couple sponsor exceptions. So it'll be very similar to the century TOC field, a little bit bigger. And we're going to see players rotate between pebble and spyglass Hill the first two days of the tournament. And then I believe even though there's no cut, uh,
Players will play both their weekend rounds at Pebble Beach with no amateurs, which is awesome. There's going to be way less amateurs this week in general because there's less players. Only a few notable amateurs Thursday and Friday, but all of that weekend coverage of Bill Murray, it's done.
I think from the emails I'm getting, that is what the format is going to be. So for golf fans, I think this is a good thing. Now you have the opportunity to see many of the best players in the world hit a lot of golf shots at Pebble Beach over the weekend. And we haven't seen this good of a field play Pebble Beach since the 2019 US Open, which I attended. Now,
I have my issues with Pebble Beach as a test of professional golf. It is a golf course that has been hurt greatly by distance. But who knows? Maybe this becoming a more serious tournament this year, less amateurs urges tournament officials to put a little bit more effort into making this a legitimate test because
I have a ton of issues with Torrey Pines and I still enjoyed Torrey Pines a hundred times more than I did the first couple of weeks because there were shots of consequence, right? You could kind of make double on a lot of holes at Torrey Pines, but there were still some birdie opportunities out there. So, you know, I'm not expecting us open conditions this week at Pebble beach. Um, but the fact that you don't have amateurs playing over the weekend anymore, um,
That opens it up for them to be able to throw some more dicey pin positions out there. So I would expect maybe Thursday and Friday to still be pretty easy because of the amateur play. But I hope they spice things up a little bit over the weekend because there's no excuse for having...
super accessible pins anymore when there's no amateurs that you have to worry about for pace of play concerns on Saturday and Sunday. And, you know, there's a decent chance to, I don't like to, I don't like to spend too much time on the weather until week of, but just to give you guys an earlier report, because I think it should play into how you assess this betting board on Monday morning.
Looks pretty rainy and windy. Mid-50s on Thursday, wind gusts up to 20 miles per hour and pretty consistent rain. Friday, wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour, more rain in the low 50s. Saturday, a little bit less wind, but high 40s, low 50s, still kind of windy. And then Sunday, it
It cleans up, but it's still kind of chilly. It's still like we're talking highs of 50 on Sunday, which is like the coldest golf weather that they're going to play in all year. You're not going to see PGA Tour players play golf in the 40s. So this is probably the coldest event that they're going to play all year. So let's talk about the golf course.
Pebble Beach, probably the most recognizable golf course on the planet outside of Augusta, I would say. Par 72, 69, 7,200 yards or 6,972 yards. It's one of the shortest course on tour. I think top three shortest course on tour. Jack Neville, Douglas Grant designed it in 1919. Kind of singular architects. They didn't really do much else. This is their masterwork.
Poa fairways measuring 33 yards wide on average. So despite being a lot shorter than Torrey, wider fairways at Pebble Beach, two inch ryegrass. So less rough, lower rough than what we saw at Torrey as well. And the greens are 3,500 square feet on average, smallest greens on tour running Poa, of course, and running 10 on the stem. And I mentioned you're going to get
One of the two Thursday, Friday rounds at pebble, both weekend rounds at pebble and one Thursday, Friday round at spyglass pebble and spyglass, you know, very similar in a lot of ways playing as they both play as par 72s. They're less than a hundred yards in total length apart, but
They both feature pretty generous landing areas and are definitely second-shot golf courses that play to small, tricky Poana greens. We saw it last week at Torrey Pines, but Poa is such a deviously tough surface to putt on that requires a great deal of patience and experience on it. The putting difficulty becomes apparent.
One of the greatest defenses on the course. Now, very differently to Torrey Pines, what you do off the tee at Pebble Beach is largely irrelevant. And there isn't a massive advantage for being a longer hitter either, because many of the holes at Pebble kind of force you to weigh up off the tee, which easily explains why
There's a large historic correlation between approach and putting and success, but very little correlation between driving accuracy, driving distance or strokes, getting off the tee and success. And at Pebble beach wedge play and pull a putting is the name of the game. Seven of the 10 par fours at Pebble fall between 370 and 450 yards. And in fact, you know, one of the par threes, the famous seventh hole is only a hundred yards. And again,
One of the par fives is notoriously unreachable in two shots and actually plays over par and is one of the hardest par fives on tour, which, again, that suddenly explains why there's such a large plurality of approach shots from under 150 yards. Now, in the absence of wind, Pebble is generally one of the 10 easiest courses on the PGA Tour.
But if the wind kicks up, like I expected to do this week and a little bit tougher pin positions course set up, I would imagine as well, because you don't have to worry about amateurs at least on the weekend. Yeah, Pebble can play pretty tough. It can play as one of the harder courses on tour, despite being the second shortest course on tour.
It can still pack a pretty big punch if you get the right weather based on obviously how close it is to the coastline. And, you know, I'll talk very briefly about Spyglass since you're only going to get one round there kind of the same way that we assess the north course at Torrey Pines. You could...
know the difference, but mainly for showdown purposes where this comes, it's generally as in terms of like the model that you, that I'm creating and the statistical breakdown, yeah. Skewing it very heavily towards pebble beach. There's going to be a few things I give a couple bumps to because of how spyglass is a little bit different. But the main thing that you want to pay attention to as it pertains to spyglass Hill is, um,
for showdown purposes, right? And Spyglass is harder than Pebble. It's got less wide fairways. It's a little bit longer. And, you know, like I said, similar to Tori, you're going to want to spend the majority of the time identifying who can excel at Pebble Beach. But if you wanted to get a little bit more into the weeds in terms of like the showdown lineups that I am creating at Spyglass,
It's a lot more of a driver heavy course than pebble. I will say that the, the opportunity to hit driver, the benefit for hitting driver, the benefit for being long off the tee is a, is a lot more at spyglass than it is at pebble. So my piece of advice would be hammer spyglass and showdown. And when you are playing those spyglass guys in showdown, you,
favor off the tee a lot more than you would at a course like pebble beach where i don't think you need to favor off the tee that much at all but you know it's not the type of difference between tory north and tory south especially if you get crazy weather this week then pebble being a little having more coastal holes maybe it plays harder than spyglass or at least close to spyglass but
In 2022, Spyglass played a stroke and a half harder. In 2021, it played 1.6 strokes harder. In 2020, it played 0.5 strokes harder. And last year it played 1.2 strokes harder. You know, so for showdown purposes, that is enough for me to say at minimum Spyglass is 0.5 strokes harder at maximum. It is 1.5 to 1.6 strokes harder. So just avoid Spyglass for showdown. Um,
The difference is not as big as it was last week between North and South and Torrey, but it's enough where I think the edge is playing guys in Pebble. And I realized right before that I said that playing guys showdown at Spyglass, you want to play guys at Pebble is what I meant to say. If you do happen to see some sort of weather issue,
crazy weather going on where you think the fact that pebble has more coastline is going to even out the scoring difference between pebble and spyglass and
you feel so obliged to play guys at Spyglass, then use that strategy of playing guys that hit the ball a longer way off the tee, favor off the tee more. But I would say, for all intents and purposes, a lot safer to just play guys at Pebble. Okay, let's talk a little bit more about the stats that we're going to look at and my model. But first, let's...
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Okay, we are back. So off the tee, last year, driving distance on average at Pebble Beach was 271 yards, which is 20 yards lower than tour average, which displays a couple things. First of all, Pebble Beach quintessential less than driver course, right? Due to the forced layups, the lack of length, the fact that you can hit,
Less than driver here and still have a ton of wedges. This is not a course where how good you are, particularly how long you are with the driver matters as much as it does remotely relative to other courses on tour. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. The shorter driver distance also matters.
A lot of that has to do with the cold, the cold air as well. So in fairness to Pebble, it does play longer than the yardage because the ball just isn't going to travel as far. Right. But it has the lowest driving distance on the PGA Tour, the third easiest fairways to hit on tour and the third widest fairways to hit on tour driving accuracy.
66.2%, which is 7.7% above the tour average. And this is mainly because, you know, so many guys are pulling less than driver. And it's also because the fairways are so wide, the fairways at Pebble are like 43 yards wide, which is nearly, you know, nine yards wider on average than tour average.
It ranked sixth out of 45 courses off the tee difficulty, and it generally ranks harder than tour average and off the tee difficulty, which is generally because it's so difficult to gain an advantage off the tee here. Right. And Pebble ranks 30th out of 45 courses in Miss Fairway penalty. Every single year it ranks as one of the lowest courses in Miss Fairway penalty ever.
38th out of 45 courses in rough penalty every single year ranks one of the easiest courses in rough penalty so no kikuyu at pebble we are back to ryegrass rough which is
Certainly less imposing than the Kikuyu that we saw last week at Torrey and 26 out of 45 courses in penalty strokes as well. So you can see why I'm so low on off the tee here. In 2022, four of the top 10 players lost in driving accuracy. Five of the top 10 players lost in driving distance. Last year, top four players lost to the field in driving distance. Four of the top 10 players lost in driving accuracy.
Rose won here, losing strokes off the tee. Malnati finished fourth, losing strokes off the tee, which is interesting because Malnati
I'm very curious how players like Rory and Sheffler perform at a course where their best skill is largely devalued. And it's even a little bit different than Kapalua, right? Because skill off the tee at Kapalua was devalued, but it was still a course where you hit driver, right? So if you had some length...
you had the ability to get ahead a little bit by your power. This is not even a course where it's super advantageous to hit driver all the time. I played pebble a number of times. I can think of multiple holes where it just doesn't even work on that hole. Like one, for example, it just doesn't really work on that hole three. It doesn't really work 15 and 16. It's not always necessary either. So it's just a course where you,
Driving skill, driving distance with that club is largely devalued. Now, in approach, when off the tee is largely devalued and a lot of players are going to be weighing up off the tee to the same spot, it's going to make the second shot largely, largely important. And these greens are really small.
And you're going to see a lot of shots inside 125 yards from just 100 to 125. You've got almost 19% of shots. That's 8% higher than tour average. And then similar to many short par 72s, Pebble Beach is a wedges and long irons course, right? Because you're hitting a wedge on close to say 60% of approach shots. You're going to get a few middle irons in there, but then you're
three and a half-ish par fives are reachable in two, and two of the par threes are in the 200 to 220-yard range, and suddenly you're looking at like...
five to six long iron approach shots, which is, you know, something we talked about at PGA West too, where the shorter par 72s with reachable par fives, but a couple long par threes, mainly wedges and some long irons, right? They tend to devalue middle iron play. And it, you know, it typically ranks really high up second last year in approach difficulty from greater than 200 yards because the,
The greens are so small. But the thing is, everyone is going to be approaching from the fairways on this course. So you're really going to want to hone in on that fairway proximity inside 125 and 200 yards plus. You know, we talked about the rough proximity from 150 yards plus last week at Torrey. And the top three guys in that were Bramlett, Jaeger and Zander.
So the top three guys in that stat that we identified last week for Torrey, this proximity from the rough, 150 yards plus, it produced all three guys in the top 25 with Jaeger with a real chance to win. This year, I think you're going to want to look a lot at fairway proximity, right? So if you look at the guys, the best wedge players from the fairway, number one, Colin Morikawa. Whew.
Two, Hideki. Three, Hosgaard. Hosgaard has a lot of game. He's not a one-trick pony in terms of his power off the tee. Hosgaard's a really good wedge player. He's a really good putter, too. Lucas Glover, number four. Rory McIlroy, number five. He has vastly improved his wedge play. I have been pushing back on the narrative of Rory not being a good wedge player for a really long time. It seems like he's not a good wedge player, but...
in like down the stretch at major championships, but in terms of like his Thursday and Friday stats and just the large, the larger sample size of how Rory hits wedges, he's like really good. Eric Cole, number six, great flop lag opportunity on Eric Cole. I absolutely love him this week. And then you got Chris Kirk, Benny on Adam Hadwin, Tony Fino. And then in terms of around the green, you know, you're going to hear a lot this week about, um,
these are the smallest greens on tour short game really matters. Not really. I mean, it's still a 66% greens and regulation percentage right around tour average and greens and regulation. And just because the greens are really small, if you have a lot of wedges coming in, you're still not going to miss a lot of greens. And the actual degree of difficulty around the greens is, is really low. Like these greens, part of my issue in terms of
Like why I don't love Pebble as a golf course to play. I love it as a walk, but in terms of the intrigue that it provides in terms of shot values, it has...
Pretty small, flat greens with not a ton of undulation. Right. And I typically tend to love big, large, fast greens with a lot of undulation and character. And that actually makes short game kind of easy at Pebble. It ranks 43rd out of 45 courses and around the green difficulty from the fairway. 39th out of 45 courses and around the green difficulty from the rough.
But 13th out of 45 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunker. So the one thing with pebble is it is very well bunkered. And the toughest aspect of pebble around the green are the bunkers. So it's a very around, it's a very easy around the green course, but I think the, the only reason that you'd want to look at around the green and, and particularly bunker play, right. Is pebble.
is going to matter at Pebble. You're going to be in a lot of bunkers at Pebble, and I think it's worth trying to identify as an ancillary skill, like who some of the best bunker players are in this field. And then in terms of putting, very similar to what we saw last week in Torrey Pines in terms of putting difficulty. It's the same deal, right? Six out of 45 courses in putting difficulty, and just like Torrey,
Just because of the bumpiness and the inconsistency of the POA greens and the way that they get trampled on later in the day, you don't need to have much undulation on POA at all for this to be a really difficult putting course, particularly inside five feet, right? Last year, pebble ninth out of 45 inside five feet, third out of 45 and putting five to 15 feet and 18th out of 45 and putting greater than 15 feet. So again,
Just like Torrey, again, any POA course, you're going to see a lot of players miss short putts, and you really want to hone in on players that are elite inside 15 feet and then have experience on those POA greens. We talked about it last week with Ludwig, and actually, I like Ludwig a lot this week, although just at a macro level, this course doesn't accentuate what he does best at the way that Torrey does.
Uh, you know, he still won at sea Island and now he has some experience on those Poe greens. And we saw it last week with Ludwig Ludwig missed like a ton of short putts. Um, he had the ability to win the tournament, uh, and he missed a ton of short. He's still put like, he's still, I was still like pretty impressed, uh,
by his putting overall. But Poe does have the ability to trip you up if you're not super used to it. So I do think you want to hone in on the guys that have been the best on Poe historically. And some of those guys are Homa, Maverick McNeely, Jason Day. Those three guys, top three in Poe putting.
Peter Malnati, Sung J.M. has been good on POA. Adam Scott has been really good on POA. Harris English has been good on POA. Xander's been good on POA. Taylor Montgomery, Sam Ryder, Sepp Straka, Mackenzie Hughes. Those are some of the guys that have been super, super good on POA over the years. And I think it's very well worth identifying those players. Now, in terms of scoring stats, a couple things I looked at here that I'll run through very quickly.
I want guys on these less than driver wedge courses, right? I want guys on pebble and Port Royal and sea Island. These courses where you don't have to really hit driver. I didn't pebble. It's not like Harbor town, right? Pebble is not like Harbor town or Sedgefield where driving accuracy really matters. Um,
Pebble just devalues what you do off the tee completely, but it's a very short course as well. So I wanted to look at these guys where gaining strokes off the tee wasn't that hard, what you do off the tee is not that important, but it's still very short and it still comes down massively to difficulty with wedge play and difficulty putting. And so those guys...
let me give you this as well um the best guys on these types of shorter courses it's you know not a lot of people think short they think driver accuracy i i weeded out the super important driving accuracy courses because i think that's a major distinction is you can't just lump
all these short courses into the same bucket. Okay. They have very different skill sets that they favor courses like Harbor town and TPC sawgrass and such fields. Driving accuracy is really, really important. And then you have other short courses where driving accuracy is not very important. And the emphasis falls squarely on wedge play and putting. So the guys on these types of courses, number one, can't lie. Number two, Russell Henley, three, Scotty Scheffler, uh, four, Eric Cole, uh,
Five Seamus power. It's a great spot for Seamus power. Um, he may be broken though. Six Victor Hovland, seven JT, eight Corey Connors, nine Sungjae. That makes sense. 10 speed. That makes sense. Then you have Fitzpatrick, Harmon, Denny. So all that makes sense. You kind of want to look at those guys again this week, right? And that's why you're going to have an interesting decision with Rory and, and chef where we could talk about those guys. When I talk about my model, um,
And then a birdie or better percentage from the fairway as well. Again, you're going to be playing from the fairway here a lot, and you're going to need to score and generate opportunities for yourself. It's a much different style of golf than what you saw at Torrey Pines last week, where it's just very low driving accuracy percentage. It's kind of a 50-50 proposition whether or not you're able to hit the fairway. Just hit the ball as far as you can and try and hack out the
as many short irons as you can out of the rough. This is about placement in the fairways, short iron scoring ability, ability to score from the fairways, right? And then in terms of
like course history and comp courses, Pebble ranks right around middle of the pack in course history outside of the Poe of greens strategically. It's really not that difficult of a golf course to figure out. You don't need to hit a ton of drivers. And, you know, if you look at the players that have had success here, like,
Last year, scrolling through the leaderboard, Justin Rose, Brendan Todd, Brandon Wu, Denny McCarthy, Peter Malnati, Tom Hoagie, Jordan Spieth, Troy Merritt, Patrick Cantlay, Joel Dahmen, Andrew Putnam, Daniel Berger, Maverick McNeely, Paul Casey, Jason Day. These guys are all great wedge players and great putters, many of them with West Coast connections or solid experience on Pella. So like I said, I'm really interested to see how some of these players
bombers interact with pebble this week because it's it's not really a course that kind of accentuates what they do best um it accentuates what can't lie does best uh but it doesn't really accentuate what rory does best uh doesn't mean he can't win right but uh it's kind of an interesting juxtaposition there and decision matrix about are you gonna go with skill or course fit um
And there's never a right answer, right? I play low-owned guys that don't totally fit the course all the time, right? Sometimes you have opportunities on guys at low ownership if the narrative is... If the narrative swings too far in the other direction. It's like, oh, you know, this course sucks for Scheffler. This course sucks for Rory. Like, no. No course sucks for Scheffler or Rory. These guys can win anywhere, right? It may not...
give them the leg up, right? It may not allow them to start on third base the way they do at a golf course like Torrey Pines or Augusta. But even if you start from first base and you're Rory and Sheffler, you can still win a fair amount of the time too. And then outside of the sheer West Coast Poa connection, I think that I think you want to look at in terms of like putting it Torrey and putting it Riv and
The other two courses that I would want to highlight in terms of pure correlation of skill set, Port Royal, host of the Butterfield Bermuda. Both courses, coastal, wide landing areas off the tee that de-emphasize driving and place a much greater emphasis on wedge play and scoring inside 150 yards. You can actually get some weather there too from time to time. Let me look at it. I'll give you some of the guys that have been super good
there as well that are in the field this week because there's not many of them Wyndham Clark wow yeah Wyndham Clark McKenzie Hughes Eric Cole yeah not a lot of Norrin Denny McCarthy Brendan Todd yeah Seamus Power
Kevin Yu, Alex Smalley, Adam Scott, actually. Schaeffler's actually played well at Bermuda before. But like Norrin, Wyndham Clark, Denny McCarthy, Brendan Todd. Those are some of the guys that play really well at Port Royal. And Seamus Power, too. And oddly enough, play really well at Pebble Beach as well. Okay, so...
I threw all this together. Oh, the last one I want to mention too as well, a little different agronomically, but Silverado is another one of those like shorter West Coast, off the tee, gets devalued, wedge play and putting, smaller greens. Silverado is a little bit more of a driving accuracy course with narrow fairways, but still West Coast. Those aren't pure pull in the sense of like a Tory thing.
or Riviera or Pebble, but Finau, Hideki, Sahith were the guys that have been really good there too. Yeah, Sahith, Finau, S.H. Kim, Brendan Todd again, Matt Kuchar, Homa. Homa's won twice there. Cam Davis. Okay, so I threw all this together in a model and here's who it shot out. Pretty interesting this week. Eric Cole, number one.
Great flop block opportunity. I'm playing him. We're back on an Eric Cole golf course. He got some rest. This would be his fifth week in a row, I think. I think he's played every single event this season, but he got some rest over the weekend. I don't think he can win this event, although it's kind of silly to say that anyone can't win an event on the PGA Tour at this point.
But I like Eric Cole as a draft Kings play big way. JT Poston as well. How long could JT Poston keep this up? JT Poston is playing out of his mind. Three top 11 finishes to start the season. And now we get JT Poston once again, going back to a JT Poston golf course. He hasn't had a ton of success here in the past. He just hasn't played this event, but man, the JT Poston playbook, the schedule optimization of what he's doing, like,
Skip Torrey Pines. I'm going to play Amex and Sony and Kapaloo and Pebble, all of these courses that emphasize putting and wedge play. Kind of no reason to believe he's not going to keep playing well. Wyndham Clark, number three. For a lot of the same reasons that I liked Wyndham Clark at the American Express, I like Wyndham Clark here a lot too. He has played well at Pebble in the past. He has had a lot of success on the West Coast. He is an incredible putter inside 15 feet.
And then once again, of the elite players, the best statistically for me are Cantlay and Xander. I have Cantlay four, Homa five, Xander six. And I went with Cantlay Xander as my big stand in 50% of my lineups each over Homa Morikawa.
I got that one right for the most part. I mean, the most the the optimal combination was Homer's homo Xander, obviously. I don't know what's going on with Cantlay, man. I watched a lot of him this weekend in person. Nothing seems like.
in your face wrong. Like there's nothing that's you watch it and are like, man, this guy looks lost. Like the way that I was watching more call on Friday, it was like, oh man, this guy's lost right now. There's nothing about that with can't lay. And I watched a lot of can't lay this weekend and,
It's just Matt. He's not putting well. He's not doing anything terribly. He's not doing anything great. But, you know, I think people are kind of going to be sick of his shit. So listen, playing can't lay and Xander, these guys rate out these. My numbers keep telling me that like these guys are the best golfers in the field every week in terms of their course. Yeah.
And I'm going to keep playing them when the situation calls for it. Maybe people are done with can't lay shit despite his unbelievable course history and like last week, even though it didn't totally work out the way I hoped it was. It worked out better than Morikawa, but it didn't totally work out the way I hoped it would.
you get can't lay at a deflated ownership number. Although maybe not because he's been awesome at Pebble beach. And a lot of these guys like Rory and Sheffler haven't really played Pebble beach or played at once at the 2019 us open. But in terms of the elites can't lay Xander Homa are the guys that read out the best statistically. Brendan Todd seven again, great course for Brendan Todd, Adam Scott eight. I think this is a really good spot for Adam Scott. Like he's,
Again, he's got that Port Royal six recently. Adam Scott's been playing some sneaky good golf overseas. I love Adam Scott here as a sleeper. Denny McCarthy, nine. Justin Rose, 10. Adam Svensson, 11. Like again, these same types of shorter course guys, wedge players, putters. 12 Victor Hovland might be a bet for me this week. 13 Matt Fitzpatrick, who is a bet for me this week. I think that's your winner. 14 Sungjae Im.
Decent flop lag opportunity on him. Better golf course for Sung Jae. 15, Russell Henley. I like this golf course for Russell Henley too. 16, Lucas Glover. Wedges, iron play. 17, Cam Davis. 18, Morikawa. Again, probably a good flop lag opportunity on Morikawa. I don't know if I can do it. And it's not just the eye test because a golfer can look completely lost one day and then
figure it out completely with one tweak on the range right um tony finau for example i watched all of tony finau on wednesday xander was like kicking tony's ass all tony was super loose off the t on thursday and i came back and watched finau uh on thursday and i was like did he just fix something on the range finau looks great like i don't know what's going on with his driver yesterday but he looks great today um and then he went on to you know finish top 10 in the tournament but
Not to body language doctor it too much. I'm going to need some low ownership on Morikawa to go there. I think that Cantlay, Homa, Xander are still better options than Morikawa this week. And I really like Hovland as well. And then 20, Bazaydenhout. Good bounce back spot for Bazaydenhout after he was so kind to us at the Amex. Now, at the top of the board, for better or worse, this...
But what we've seen, this trend of long shot winners is not going to change my betting strategy. I believe that there will be regression to the mean with this. And I do believe that in an elevated event, even though this is a golf course that brings a little bit more variance into play, maybe we don't see that this year because we get tougher weather conditions. And that places far more of an emphasis on TD Green skill and basically who can grind it out.
I'm going to bet an elite player at the top. And that elite player at the top is going to be can't lay Xander Hovland. And I think it's going to be Hovland, even if he comes in at the worst odds. Um, I'm going to keep playing can't land Xander and DFS, especially if they're lower owned than, than Rory or Sheffler here. Uh,
but I have a hard time stomaching the, the, the Xander bet at the numbers. They continue to price him at the problem with Xander is he's so consistent. He just, he's finished top 10 and all three events this season. And a lot of books are just going to correlate their top 10 odds to their outright odds. And Xander's, you know, outside of chef or like probably has the highest, highest floor in golf right now, outside of chef or, and maybe Rory, um,
Um, he's a walking top 10. He hasn't missed a cut. And I think he holds the longest cut streak record. So you're just never going to, but he also hasn't won in like 18 months. So based on,
how little win equity he has and based on how much he wins compares to other elites, like he should be 20 to one or higher. He hasn't won in 18 months, but you're never going to get that with Xander. So if Xander wins, I'm probably going to miss it. And can't lie was shaky enough last week that it, that, you know, I I'm ready to take a chance on him and DFS at what I hope to be lower ownership again. But yeah,
in terms of paying that price, because he will still have a good, a high outright price because of the course history. And there are a lot of guys that don't have as much course history. I think it kind of leads me to Hovland as my guy this week. And I have some of the same concerns about Hovland as I do with Scheffler and Rory, where it's like, man, I don't know if this is the golf course that you want to...
pay 12 to one for Hovland at when you're going to be able to get him at majors and the Memorial and Riviera and Bay Hill, those golf courses that suit his skillset a little bit more. But the case for Hovland is simple, right?
Of the elite guys, actually a really great wedge player actually has had a lot of success on shorter courses. You look at all those wins. He's had it, of course, like my Coba, my Coba is like the quintessential lesson lesson driver course, right? Um,
His short game is really improved, particularly his bunker play. Like one thing about Hovland is my number suggests that the best aspect of a short game right now is his bunker play. And I think that's a good thing at Pebble. He's had a lot of success on POA. Okay. He's had success putting at Riviera. He says success putting at Torrey. He's had success putting here in the past.
He's sixth on these shorter, less than driver courses, right? I bring up the multiple wins at, at my Coba as well. And he still makes a ton of birdies have no reason not to trust him and like super windy and rainy conditions. Like they have no reason not to trust Hovland any less than any of the other elites. And if we do get some super crazy windy weather, you know, he's, he's,
Play a lot of golf in Scandinavia and he's played well at opens now. He's, he played really well at that 2019 us open at pebble beach, which is,
It wasn't windy or rainy, but it was pretty cold. I went to that 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Hovland was low-am. He was unbelievable. He was up there towards the top of the field in ball striking. He also won the U.S. Am at Pebble Beach. So maybe this Hovland pick becomes...
I literally forgot that. I just remembered it off the top of my head that Hoffman also won a U S amateur at pebble beach. I was going to come in with the, he was low am at the 2019 U S open. He also won a U S am at pebble beach. So, um, but you know, we haven't seen Hoffman in a while. Um, but if you're,
And, and the other thing about Hovland too, he's played here. Like he plays in the pebble beach of that. Um, sometimes like, I think he played here in 2022 and finished, uh, finished 13. So as opposed to like Rory and Sheffler and Mark Allah, who, yeah,
You have only seen the course in the context of the 2019 U S open. Hovland's been to this event and seen this golf course in non U S open conditions. He's played well here in non U S open conditions. He's played well here in U S open conditions. He's played well in USM conditions here. He, we haven't seen him in a little bit. I'm okay with that. Like he hasn't been gone for a while. There's just been guys that have been having like a crazy schedule these first couple of weeks, but yeah,
Two weeks off is it's not like a long layoff by any means. And he was good enough at the century, you know, 22nd off the tee looked good. Putting look good. Um,
but he's such an improved bunker player. He's a great wedge player, great long arm player. He's had a lot of success in Poe in the past. He's putted well here. He's putted well at Tori's put it well at Riviera. He should have amazing vibes here with the USM and, um, the low am at the, at the U S open in 2019. So this is kind of where he broke onto the scene. And,
He's a smash play for me this week. That's probably going to be a big stand, I think, in DraftKings. I'm probably going to go heaviest on Hovland and then really hope for pairing him with a low-owned Cantlay. I don't think Sander will be low-owned. But I think Hovland, maybe 12-1, and I end up doing something similar to what I did last week at Torrey. I bet a guy 12-1.
I make a big claim on an elite, on an elite player. And then I fill it out with a guy in the 40s or 50s. And that guy who will probably be in the 30s, but...
Is my favorite play at this golf course will be the guy that I highlight and talk about more in my article. I love Fitzpatrick here. I always love Fitzpatrick at this course. I was talking to Brian today. He reminded me that I always bet Fitzpatrick here, which I had forgot about. And then I ran the numbers and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
This golf course is perfect for Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick should win at Pebble Beach. I like him here. If the conditions are calm, I like him here. If the conditions are a bloodbath, he finished sixth at Pebble in like chill, calm conditions in 2022, 12th at the U S open and U S open conditions. When it was colder, he's,
largely, largely raises his baseline off the tee on shorter courses. He's got an unbelievable short game, great bunker player, sneaky, good par five score. Um, great on the shorter courses. Great poet putter has had a lot of success putting a pebble. He's had a lot of success putting at Riviera as well. He's unbelievable from five to 15 feet, uh,
Um, and I think you'll get a decent number on him this week. Fitzpatrick. Uh, you know, he's coming off a miscut at the Sony open, which is fine. He still gained two strokes on approach. So those are my guys this week. Fitzpatrick and Hovland. That's probably my betting card. We'll see what the numbers looks like. Um, as terms of like, you know, more DFS options. I love Eric Cole. I love Wyndham Clark. I love Adam Svensson.
That's a sneaky one for you. Wyndham Clark, Adam Svensson, Adam Scott, Brendan Todd, Eric Cole. Those guys are going to have a lot of exposure to those guys in daily fantasy. We'll see what the price and ownership comes in as well. Watch out for Svensson. It's like a sneaky play in the sixes. I think he'll be in the sixes based on the strength of this field. But that will do it for me. Enjoy the football tomorrow.
I think both the favorites cover. I know betting against my homes is scary, but I think both the favorites cover. I think they're both competitive games, but I think both the favorites cover and prepare to look dumb on that as well. Betting against my homes. But I think we're, I think we're headed to our Ravens 49 or Superbowl, but enjoy the football tomorrow. Rump your sports.com promo code. Andy, if you want more of my content,
If you want to chop it up with me about golf, ask me any questions. Shoot me a message in that Discord, runpuresports.com. We'd love to have you as part of the community. And we will see you back on this podcast feed Tuesday morning. Cheers.
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