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We will have wind data, something Ron and the dev team have been working very hard on. It's probably getting wind right from a data perspective is probably the most tricky and nuanced type of stat category to get right. And I have not seen this been pulled off correctly anywhere else because so much of it is
Context related, but we feel really good about the model that we've put together for wind. So once again, a new feature that you can't find anywhere else. And I would lock in this price now because it is...
Obviously going to go up when we put all the course data and player pages together as well, not to tease too much, but that might be right around the corner as well. So with my code inside golf, that is inside golf. You can get 25% off a product that is already way too cheap. So head on over to bets, birds, golf.com code inside golf. You can try it for a week. It's like five bucks. The best deal, uh,
is obviously longer term but if you want to give it a shot for the players obviously a massive tournament for us if you want to check out my model if you want to make your own model that is a place to go a lot of very specific things that i would definitely recommend looking at for the players championship this week that is exclusive to the rabbit hole and
TPC style of architecture, water heavy courses, club down courses, courses with a high missed fairway penalty. Like these are all filters that really matter at such a unique course like TPC Sawgrass that you can't find anywhere else. So betsbertsgolf.com code inside golf for 25% off. Okay. Players championship week, full disclosure. I have not gotten a chance to watch a
A lot of the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week. We had our team club championship today. Me and my partner, we lost one up on the 18th hole. It was a crushing defeat, but we played our butts off. I'm proud of how we competed. I shot even par on the back nine on my own ball, and our team was given a bunch of strokes to them. One of the guys who I think I was giving six strokes to shot in the mid to low 70s. Almost beat me straight up. He played amazing. So it was a true case of
The better team won that day. I'm very proud of the way that we played. And we'll get them next time. It's a real bummer, though, because it's my favorite. Playing a lot of club championships and member guest stuff every year, this one's always my favorite. So I was bummed to lose out, but...
That will free up my Sunday. So I will be very locked into the API tomorrow because we got some live ones. Thank God, because Honda and Mexico were back to back. My only losing weeks of the season thus far, and it's particularly Honda. I took such a beating. So I'm glad to see the ball go through the hoop again this week. We will see, you know, the player pool changes.
looks great right now. I had 17 of 18 make the cut. Thanks, Tommy Fleetwood. And Rory made the move that we needed him to. But again, I also need some guys like Keegan and Jaeger and Zal. I will need some big ones from them tomorrow. Not sure what happened to Zalatorris. I checked my phone on the golf course today. It seemed like he had a four-stroke lead at one point. I
That would be an incredible outright to come through. We bet him as high as 43 to 1 this week. Shout out Bookmaker. So that would be a huge bonus if that was able to come through. But there's a guy ahead of him named Scotty Scheffler. So unfortunately, not sure how much we can count on that. And it seemed like
he really started to wilt down the stretch. So maybe he doesn't have the most momentum heading into Sunday, but very excited to watch some golf tomorrow. I haven't really gotten to watch Bay Hill all week. And I've really enjoyed at least just from tracking the scores on my phone and watching the leaderboard that Bay Hill is Bay Hill-ing, right? It's not, this course hasn't
It hasn't been changed. The rough is up. The greens are firm. We've gotten enough wind to really challenge and test golfers. And again, I can't yet speak to, I'm going to talk a lot more about Bay Hill on Monday with one of my buddies who was at Bay Hill this week. So I can't speak to how entertaining the product has been on television, but
But it's a really good leaderboard, and it's a golf course where you can absolutely make some birdies. But huge numbers are in play as well. And it's very, very demanding from tee to green. It's a lower greens and regulation percentage. The type of stuff, the type of course conditions that I have been bemoaning about how –
We don't get enough of conditions like these on the PGA Tour from a week-to-week standpoint. And that, as a result, actually hurts the best players in the world because the best players in the world –
don't separate themselves on courses like PGA West, tournaments like the Amex, where there's a really high greens and regulation percentage. And it's a lot easier for lesser tee to green players to roll in a bunch of putts. The golf courses, where the best players in the world that typically possess the skill set of long and straight off the tee and long iron play, they're
Those players are better able to separate themselves on golf courses like Bay Hill, right? Golf courses that demand long and straight off the tee that are able to separate the men from the boys from a skill set perspective, right?
What do you know? Pretty good leaderboard at our first real, real test of the year. I guess you could throw Riviera into that category, but Bay Hill's played a fair amount tougher than Riviera just from looking at the scoring. And I've already talked a ton about how Riviera has kind of been trending in the wrong direction from a test standpoint. So it's glad to see that Bay Hill still holds up and
Rory, Burns, Homa, all within four, Zalatoris, Clark was not on Clark this week. Big miss for me, but I will continue to Vick lap Clark being a top. I may have even been conservative about it. I may have just said earlier in the season when he was like, you know, 90 to one at pebble that this is absurd. He's a top 15 player on the PGA tour. He might be a little bit better to be honest. Lowry, Hideki, Scheffler, Scherzer,
Just a bunch of good names. And I'm more excited not because I have a sweat, not because I have good DFS lineups. I would be excited without all of those factors as well. But I am more excited to watch golf and lock into golf on this Sunday than I think I have been maybe any other week this year outside of maybe Riviera. And it's golf course related. It's that feeling that you get
I don't even like Bay Hill too much from an architecture standpoint, but I think it has a place on the PGA tour in terms of that feeling that you get when you're watching golfers down the stretch, play the back nine on Sunday, all golfer, all golf viewers know exactly what I'm talking about. When I say that, that feeling where you get, where they step up to a hole and you actually say, okay, there are a lot of things that could happen here. Like the range of outcomes on this hole is wide, right?
If my player hits two really good shots, he could make birdie. He could also very easily make bogey or triple, right? And Bay Hill, to its credit, has a lot of holes like that. And I think that—not I think—that unquestionably is what we should be searching for in terms of our PGA Tour golf courses, right? Is—
Golf courses that produce a wide range of outcomes, because what happens when you have a wider range of outcomes, you get a better entertainment product, right? You get more guys making a charge on Sunday. You get more guys falling back. And you typically also at a course like Bay Hill, a golf course that has a lower greens and regulation percentage, you get a better leaderboard. And again,
I think the players is a very interesting contrast to Bay Hill. It's a very different golf course than Bay Hill. I would not categorize it as the type of a course like Bay Hill where your Rory's, Scheffler's, Ludwig's, Cam Young's start on second base because of their driver. It's a little bit more leveled in terms of the skill profile that I think can compete here.
But it certainly, last year being the exception with Scheffler sort of rolling over everybody, it certainly is the type of golf course that produces a wide range of outcomes, particularly coming down the stretch. So let's talk about it. Very fired up for this week. The Players' Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour since 1974, Ponte Vedra Beach, the Swamp. It has the highest purse on the PGA Tour, and just since 2019, it's
It has doubled. It has gone from $12.5 million to $25 million. So, you know, this one and done week, even if your one and done season has been pretty porous up until this point, if you nail the players, you are completely back. The winner receives $4.5 million. The field consists of 144 players.
Definitely the strongest non-major championship field we will see all year. And the host course is the iconic TPC Sawgrass designed by Pete Dye in 1982. We will talk about this golf course and how it plays. But the main thing that I want to start with on TPC Sawgrass is the time of year. So the first 30 years of the tournament, it was played in mid to late March.
which provides very different scoring conditions than May. And it moved to May from 2007 to 2018. And then beginning back in 2019, the year that Rory won, it has been played in March again ever since. Different greens, overseeded greens. We'll talk about that more when we get to the course. But really important to note that we are back in March for the players and
That period of 2007 to 2018, I would tread a lot more lightly in terms of valuing from a data perspective what happened because it was completely different course conditions. And I could explain more about why this golf course is a lot different from an agronomy standpoint, from the way it plays in March than it is in May. But a couple of interesting notes that I was looking at.
Only one player in the history of, because, you know, I'm starting to really think a lot closer about the Masters every single week. I'll probably talk a little bit about the Masters every single week on this podcast leading into the Masters. That's not just because I'm excited to go with my dad for the first time ever, but I just think that we are at a place in golf where
Not breaking any news here, but the majors are elevated to this completely different stratosphere than they have been even pre-lift because obviously it's the only four tournaments of the year currently that we get to see all of the best players playing in the same place at the same time. So I started to randomly get down a rabbit hole of how correlated is the players to the Masters?
There's only one player in the history of the Players' Championship that has won the Players and the Masters in the same year. If this was a live show, I would have people guess it's not. So I'm going to tell you the answer. It was Tiger Woods in 2001 in the midst of one of the best stretches of golf of all time. So, you know, outside of Tiger doing Tiger things in 2001, Tiger
It's never happened. You know, there's never been a guy who's won outside of this crazy tiger peak, you know, at the tiger, nearly at the peak of his powers. There's never been a guy to win the players in the masters in the same year. I thought that was very interesting. Another one in the 40 plus years of the players, we've never had a successful title defense. Five players have won twice, which also felt kind of low to me.
And it's interesting because I am the first guy that I've bet. Yes, I've made a bet as I record this on Saturday evening because there are some odds. Odds just dropped on FanDuel. I just had my buddy in New York put in a bet for me. But we, like I mentioned, we've never had a successful title defense and only five players have won twice. And we've never had a defending champion. And this all speaks to the variance of the golf course.
We've never had a defending champion finish better than fifth in their title defense. So, you know, it will be very interesting to see how Scottie performs this week because one of the things that I will talk about with the players in terms of how predictive it is and what are the number one, what's the number one thing that we can count on in terms of predicting the players championship. For me, it is,
recent approach play. Like that is the one thing that you could really count on as this giant lead in indicator of success and everything else, course history off the tee putting short game, like all of these things that are generally useful data points at other places, you can find a million, the players is just really anomalous in, in, in that sense. So yeah,
I don't know if Scottie's going to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational tomorrow, but Scottie is starting to play at the level that he was playing before he entered the players. And when he won the players last year, I remember being kind of like, we're starting to kind of learn this lesson at the Masters where it's like, gosh, maybe don't overthink it. Like maybe the guy who's going to win the Masters is
the guy who's playing the best at, at the time. And when Scotty won the players last year, it was like, Oh yeah, right. Like Scotty's the best iron player in the world right now. He's the best ball striker in the world right now. I'm just going to take this guy on a golf course where there are hazards at every single turn. And so it's going to be interesting to see how Scotty performs at the players this year, because while he is playing again, some of the best golf of his career, he,
Defending champs just really struggle here for whatever reason. So former winners, Scottie minus 17, 10 to 1. Cameron Smith minus 13, 32 to 1. That was a big number on Cameron Smith at the time based on a guy who won Capolo. It's another example of a player that it's like the guy had won this year. He's playing great.
Justin Thomas in 2021, I remember that being a little bit more unheralded in the sense that JT was 20-1, and I remember a lot of folks. I did not. I remember specifically not betting JT that week and being really disappointed at myself because there were a lot of people that said to themselves, okay, JT may not be playing great, but just on the basis, this is back when JT was a lot more consistent than he is right now. JT is...
25 to 1 this week on one book he just opened. But this was back in the day where JT very rarely got to 20, and he hadn't been playing great golf, and he got to 20. And a lot of people bet it, and he immediately won the players. Rory McIlroy, 2019, 16 under par. He was 12 to 1. And those were the four years since it moved to May. It got canceled in 2020 because of COVID.
So those are the four years that I'm mainly going to talk about. You want to go back a little further, you get Webb Simpson, Siwoo Kim, Jason Day, Ricky Fowler, Martin Keimer, Tiger Woods. So for all the variants of the players that we like to talk about, 50% of the last 10 winners have come from 20 to 1 or lower.
The golf course, TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach, as I mentioned, Pete Dye, I mentioned. Par 72, 7,256 yards. Water comes into play on 17 holes. Big week to look at those water-heavy features on the rabbit hole. Fairways are Celebration Bermuda Grass, overseeded with Champion Ryegrass.
Rough is Celebration Bermuda Grass, overseeded with Champion Fine Ryegrass. Greens are 5,500 square feet, featuring Tiff Eagle Bermuda, overseeded with Poetrivialis, running 12.5 on the stem. So the big change with the tournament now being played in March, Ryegrass and Fescue have been added to the fairways and rough, which actually makes the course easier.
A little bit easier in my opinion, although the scoring has kind of held up. Here's what Rory had to say about the change.
And then when you miss the greens, you're not having to contend with that Bermuda. You're not having to guess how this is going to come out, whatever. So it lends itself to more aggressive play. And the greens play a lot easier, too, with the POA overseed. Now this is the same type of overseed that we see at PGA West, Heritage, former match play, Austin Country Club. They overseed Ballas Bar now, too, TPC Scottsdale.
So we actually are the only data site where we have our own specific filter on the rabbit hole to take a look at POA overseed. Big edge there for people, you know, looking at the rabbit hole compared to other sites that are just looking at Bermuda putting. This is not Bermuda putting. This overseed makes these greens incredibly different. I've talked about this.
At TPC Scottsdale, it's like putting on carpet compared to grainy Bermuda. It's totally different. You have to worry about grain way less. And the overseed actually takes a lot of the trickiness of the grain out of it. And as well as the Bermuda overseed in 2019, there were also some notable changes to the golf course. All of the bunkers were rebuilt. Green complexes on 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, and 14 were modified to feature green.
They've just got larger, basically allowing for more pin position. So similar to what we talked about at Bay Hill when Chris Flynn took over, you really want to look at this golf course in two different lights, overseeded, which is the last four years versus non-overseeded pre-2019. So obviously be very careful in getting caught up in pre-2019 data. Not something I would recommend focusing on too much. I found this quote from JT interesting.
Well, I think as well as I was starting to learn it, it got switched to March. So I kind of had to relearn it. I really, really love this place in May and how firm and fast it would play. I felt like it was not very many drivers. I used a two iron at this event.
And I would just get it on the ground a lot and just really focus on hitting the ball in the fairway. I'm still clearly focused on hitting the ball in the fairway because this is a course that if you drive it well, being in March, it's always going to be softer. It's a key thing there, the fairways and greens, and you can make so many birdies out here, end quote. So just even a little bit more credence to how this is a different golf course in March. It's a little bit softer. You can be a little bit more aggressive off the tee. It's still a club down course, but
But I think you're going to see more drivers. I know you have seen more drivers here. You know, and Rory talked about too how now rewards a more aggressive style of play with the softer conditions and the less unpredictability of the now over-seeded rough because under softer conditions, it's easier to hold these fairways. And it's also...
easier to control span out of the rough because the rough is now overseeded. So I think you could be a little bit aggressive, a little bit more aggressive on this course with the overseed because it's softer, makes it a little bit easier. Now, with that being said, in terms of scoring with the overseed, making the course conditions a little bit easier, it still holds up, right? Like TPC Sawgrass ranked ninth out of 38 courses in difficulty. And
And since the overseas shift in 2019, it is ranked between 14th and 18th toughest course on the PGA Tour. So again, regardless of wind,
This is such a controllable golf course that they can very easily, it's easier for them to get the target winning score that they're looking for at the players down the swamp where they have the most technology. And the best staff in terms of the grounds crew at TPC Sargras are really something else.
but they can get that target winning score that they're looking for. So yeah, weather's really important. We'll talk about weather a lot this week, but you know, it's still probably going to be 10 to 1800 would be my guess. I know that's casting a bit of a wide net. Uh,
And maybe whether it's one at 10 under or 18 under dramatically changes how you're handicapping this tournament. It does not for me personally. But as we get Clued in closer to tournament week, I will be talking all week in the Discord about the weather. It consistently features some of the hardest par 3s on the PGA Tour. Last year, they were the third toughest set of par 3s on the PGA Tour. The Infamous...
Island green hole 17, probably the most recognizable hole on the PGA Tour, I would say. It historically ranks as the sixth hardest hole on the course. So that hole really does get in players' head. It features a 10.4% bogey rate and a whopping 8% double rate. That's really high. The eighth hole, which measures 237 yards, is even more difficult. That ranks as the third hardest hole on the course. And
The par fours of TPC Sawgrass, none of them measure over 480 yards, but they still rank as inside the top 14. Last year, they were top 10 most difficult set of par fours on the PGA Tour.
And they respectively rank 5th, 1st, 7th, 4th. All feature a scoring average over 4.1. Finally, got a score in the par 5s, right? Par 5s ranked 15th out of 43 courses in scoring average each of the last eight years. They've ranked outside the top 10, even on a difficult course. All of them feature over a 30% birdie rate. So, you know, par 5 birdie or better percentage is another big one that you want to focus on on this par 72. But, yeah.
The big themes that I got from how the players talked about it, because I was looking at a lot of quotes yesterday, there's obviously an element of creativity here. You're going to hit some different shots, especially if you're missing the greens. You can probably win here without hitting a lot of drivers. You can also win here by being a lot more aggressive than you think. And it's a very deceptive course where you really have to think your way around it if you are...
Playing well, maybe a little bit unlike the Honda in previous years, I think you can go really low here. And if you're playing poorly, you can very easily shoot 76, 77. There's a pretty wide dispersion pattern here in terms of the scoring that we get every year. You're going to see some really high scores and you could see some low scores here too, especially if the golf course is soft. Obviously two years ago,
You got to pay attention to the weather here, right? Two years ago, we got a ton of rain. We got that famous wave advantage and high winds. And I was actually thinking about how Minwoo Lee this week and DFS, the mispricing on Minwoo Lee is really analogous to that.
players weather edge two years ago where this crazy thing happens in DFS. And now this very strange situation is going to be used as a talking point for, you know, the next couple of years of why you should or shouldn't do something like the weather edge at the players is
And the weather report saying one thing that was, I remember doing content from that time. I fell victim to it completely too. The weather report was so obviously telling you,
to stack in one direction and then we got a crazy delay and it got completely flipped where the other direction the other wave got the huge advantage and now you can cite that weather advantage for the next couple of years about the reason why you should either stack in both directions which is true i agree with that or about how you can never really predict the weather like i
Like, ah, remember the players 2022 when everyone got it wrong? It's kind of the same with Minwoo Lee this week, right? Like I was thinking about whatever happened with Minwoo Lee, if he sucked, it was going to be, see, this proves there's never a free square in golf. And if he smashed...
It was going to be, see, this proves if a player's mispriced by that much, doesn't matter on ownership. You always have to play him. And, you know, I haven't been watching a lot of Minwoo this week. I'm kind of glad that we got a very neutral outcome. Like, I think he is T44. He made the cut for you. I haven't gone through the pivots. I didn't happen to play Minwoo Lee. And I think the pivots that I played around him are outperforming him. I don't know. I played...
Let me see. I can check on that for you. I played Patrick Rogers instead of Min Woo Lee and Taylor Moore instead of Min Woo Lee. Patrick Rogers, Taylor Moore. Who else did I play in the 6K range? Adam Hadwin? Yeah. And those guys are T44, T31, T31.
T53. I mean, they're all the same as Minwut Lei. I guess the difference, obviously, is I'm not in a 5v5 with all the other people that played Minwut Lei, but, I mean, the pivots are, like, destroying Minwut Lei. They're just... They're also all doing the same thing as Minwut Lei through three rounds. So I'm kind of glad that we got a neutral outcome on the Minwut thing because I thought it was a really fun conversation. I love doing content about it because it was...
It added this extra element of game theory that I thought is really fun to talk about. Um, and I ultimately ended up fading him. Uh, I didn't feel passionately about it. I thought the arguments to play him were a lot. I almost played him. Okay. It made a lot of sense for me to play him. I ultimately decided against it, uh, after some long deliberation, uh,
But I thought it was fun and interesting to talk about, which is kind of the reason why I say that is because I've had kind of a crazy half-baked DraftKings take that every single week they should just make a moderately good player free.
and see what happens, right? Like actually test the free square theory and see what people do and see how it works out just to add this extra element of strategy. I'm not being totally serious with that idea, but I think it would be fun. Okay. So just a quick look at the weather. You know, I'm recording this Saturday evening, but
So Wednesday morning, it looks like we're going to get a lot of rain Wednesday morning. So the course should be very soft, very lush, and then no rain during the tournament, which is great. PGA Tours had to deal with a lot of delays this year. Some of those delays, some of the weather, they haven't done the best job of navigating stuff that...
You don't need to be a meteorologist to figure out a week before that, hey, some of this stuff could be problematic. It looks like as of now, there's not going to be rain during tournament week as I record this Saturday night. So, you know, I think Thursday is going to be perfect scoring conditions, barely any wind, softer course, and then the wind kicks up.
Friday, 25 mph gusts, consistent wind speeds of 15 mph. Stays pretty solid overall over the weekend. So early prediction on the weather, I can give a winning score. My Bay Hill winning score was minus 11.
So I think that's in play. Scotty shoots two under par tomorrow and wins 11. I think that's a good prediction. We'll see how hard the course plays tomorrow. But I think you're going to get perfect scoring conditions Thursday. You'll have to go out and get it. And then the wind picks up and the course dries out. And the course should start to show a little bit more teeth tomorrow.
The thing about TPC Sawgrass, it is the most technologically advanced, well-conditioned course on the planet outside of maybe Augusta National. So, you know, it seems like the PGA Tour wants a winning score between 10 and 18 under par. And whatever wind or rain we get, they will still be able to manufacture the winning score that they want. I'm going to go with early prediction. I'm going to say...
I'm going to say 15 under this year, but somebody wins by two or three strokes. Yeah, I think that I think Scheffler won at 17 last year, but he won by five. So second place came in 12. I kind of like that. I'm going to say 15 under, but somebody wins by two or three strokes. But we'll be talking weather and course conditions in the discord all week. And we will have a couple boots on the ground as well as we always do. Okay, let's talk about the stats.
Off the tee, okay, despite the overseed allowing players to be a little bit more aggressive, it is still featured one of the lowest average driving distances on tour. And that's because of the claustrophobic nature of this course off the tee, the high missed fairway penalty, the amount of hazards in play off the tee. I would still...
categorize TPC Sawgrass as far more of a club down accuracy placement golf course. This is not the type of golf course that can be typically overpowered. It needs to be picked apart more meticulously in each of the last four years since the overseed the Miss fairway penalty has gotten slightly easier, but it still ranks top 10 in Miss fairway penalty between six and 17th in rough penalty. Um,
So the first two years of the overseed, the rough penalty went down, but each of the last two years it went back up to sixth and seventh. And it always ranks top 10 as well in fraction of missed fairway drives that result in a penalty stroke. So that's another great thing about the rabbit hole is you can look at
the best players in this field off the tee on these types of courses that actually penalize you for missing the fairway, which is one of the things that I looked at pretty closely this week. And that kind of makes the advantage of distance here very negligible. Now that doesn't listen. Distance helps on every golf course. If you just look at it at a granular level, if Rory McIlroy,
is able to hit his two iron 250 yards the way that you know some of the shorter players are not able to hit their driver that much more than that like that's still a huge advantage right but you look at last year 50 percent of the top 20 lost to the field in driving distance but only five of the top 20 lost to the field in driving accuracy um
And it goes back a little bit further as well. So I think what you really want to look at, and I'm going to hammer this point home in terms of, I know this podcast gets very in the weeds and that's my MO and that's how this podcast has been able to become successful because it's giving you the, hopefully the deepest level of analysis on a golf course that you can get out there. And I know that's what sets this podcast apart. But I think it is,
Really important also, and I've been trying to do this a little bit lately to try and simplify things so you don't get lost and bogged down in a bunch of useless stats. And one of the key pillars to me in terms of TPC Sawgrass is just look at
How players are driving the ball right now in terms of their accuracy. Are guys right now hitting the fairway? And we'll talk about that with their irons as well because recent approach form to me is still the number one most important thing that you want to look at at the players is how players are hitting their irons right now. And the reason for that at TBC Sawgrass is...
There's so much trouble off the tee. There are so many visually deceptive tricks to this golf course that this is not a soft landing golf course. If you're not playing well, I don't think you're going to find it at TPC Sawgrass, right? Like if you're struggling to hit fairways, if you're struggling to hit greens, if
This golf course isn't going to be the soft landing where that starts to come together for you. It's actually the type of golf course that is going to expose that more than anything else. So I'm looking at guys who have performed historically very well. Like how do players perform off the tee on golf courses where there's a lot going on off the tee, right? Anybody who plays golf knows that
sometimes you swing different when there's trouble on both sides of the fairway. I know I certainly do, right? So who are the types of players, you have this on the rabbit hole, who have performed the best off the TM courses with a high missed fairway penalty, and who are the guys that are driving the ball the most accurately right now, right? Distance helps anywhere, but this is still far more of a keep the ball in play course. It's a
Position A, position B golf course, right? Like a TPC Potomac is also very much like this where it's like, okay, step one, hit the ball in the fairway, keep the ball in play. And then step two,
Second shot approach shot and approach play is incredibly, incredibly important here. But this is not a pure second shot golf course. A pure second shot golf course is actually more like Mexico or Kapalua, where everybody's hitting the fairway. Everybody's driving the ball in a very similar place. And thus, the second shot is far more determining of your outcome on the whole.
Your first shot at TPC Sawgrass very much determines your outcome of the hole. So I'm looking very closely at those off the tee metrics, particularly recent driving accuracy. And then same with approach, right? Like this golf course ranked third out of 45 courses in approach difficulty. Each of the last four years, it's ranked top 10 in this category in approach difficulty. And why that's so interesting to point out is that Sawgrass is
you know, it still features 27% of its shots are coming with long irons, but it's a very evenly distributed golf course in terms of approach buckets, right? Like, you know, the only approach bucket that it ranks proximity bucket that it ranks above tour average is 200 yards plus. And everything else is kind of right around tour average. The reason 200 yards plus is the, at least three of the four par fives are certainly reachable and you've got
two longish par three. So suddenly, and a couple longer par four. So suddenly you're kind of up to six, seven long iron shots. At a golf course like TPC Sawgrass, recent approach four remains the strongest indicator of success at this tournament. So a lot of people overthink this golf course. And if you really want to simplify it and stick to one code and just
test. Like, okay, one thing that I'm just going to stick by this week is I'm just going to take guys who are hitting their irons right now. Can't guarantee that you're going to win a million dollars doing that, but I think it's your safest bet. Okay. There's a lot more nuance involved. It's not going to be, I am crazy in the weeds with how I break things down. But if you're looking to simplify things, like I think that's your safest bet. Like who's driving the ball in the fairway right now, who's hitting their irons right now. And you look at
Even just looking at last year, okay? Scheffler, Hoagie, Hovland, Hideki. That's your top five. Four of the 10 best approach players in the world at the time coming in. And then short game two. I want to say that I think Sawgrass is an underratedly difficult short game course, just like Bay Hill was. Sawgrass is way more difficult than Bay Hill around the greens. It ranks seventh out of 45 courses around the green difficulty, and it's that...
Pete Dye sort of, you know, humps and hollows and pop bunkers. It ranked first out of 45 courses in rough around the green difficulty, 10th out of fairway around the green difficulty, 11th in bunker around the green difficulty. So it's a really tough short game course and
Despite it not being overly long, it still features a lower than average green regulation percentage. There's all these humps and hollows and undulation around the green and pop bunkers. So you're going to have to have some really creative, tricky short game shots around Sawgrass. I actually think, like I mentioned, short game skill, really underrated aspect of this course. Every single player in the top 15 in 2021 gained strokes around the green.
Last year, 15 of the top 20 gained strokes around the green. Scheffler gained five strokes around the green. So I actually have a higher than standard weight on around the green play this week. And then for putting, less so. This is far more of a tee to green golf course. I think putting is the easiest aspect of TPC Sawgrass with the overseed.
statistically 27th out of 45 courses in strokes gained putting difficulty. And again, as expected, since the overseed, Sawgrass has been getting easier from a putting standpoint. And it's not super surprising, right? I think last year, somebody like Scotty Scheffler, who significantly raises his baseline on overseeded greens, like
We see this every year at TPC Scottsdale too, where with guys like Hideki and Scheffler, where these worst putters can still find so much success on this style of greens. So I would not, outside of the overseeded Bermuda tool that you can find on the rabbit hole, I would not focus a tremendous amount of your attention on putting this week. And then in terms of
the scoring stats. I'm still looking at how players perform in Florida. I'm looking at how players perform on these water heavy golf courses, right? Your TPC Southwinds, your Honda classics, even your Bay Hills, these Florida water heavy golf courses, TPC Twin Cities. And then in terms of course history, TPC Sawgrass ranks pretty low in terms of course history correlation. Now there are various reasons for that. It's a super high variance golf course.
with all the water, right? So if you're not in good form, it's really hard to show up here and perform, even if you've done that in the past. Like, somebody like Xander, he finished runner-up in his first appearance and then missed three of his next four cuts. Molinari, I think for a while, played here eight times. He's got four missed cuts, four top tens. Rory has five missed cuts and five top twelves, right? And, you know,
Sergio, Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, Hideki have probably been the most consistent here over time, but this is not the type of course that you can just expect players to show up here regardless of form and play well. That's not how it works. It's too variable of a course. It's
A lot like Riviera, where nobody has an impeccable course history here. Like you look at Scottie before winning, miscut 55th, but he was in the best form. Hovland, miscut 9th third. Hideki, bunch of top tens, bunch of miscuts. Siwu, total misback. So I think the only thing that I care about is if you've seen it before, right? It's very hard to win the players on a golf course like this on your first appearance, right?
but I would still take recent approach form and even recent accuracy off the tee way more than if somebody's been good at this golf course, because you have examples of it every year where guys who are playing well are just able to play well in this golf course because it exposes the guys who aren't playing well. And then in terms of
There are so many golf courses, and I'm not going to talk about them all because I want to get to my model and the odds.
You can find all of the comp courses that I'm looking at, these primary comps, these secondary comps. I wrote about all of the comp courses in terms of like what are the courses we should actually be looking at, what should we kind of be looking at, what doesn't matter as much. That is all in my RumpureSports.com article on Monday, and you can check out in the rabbit hole as well.
all of the golf courses that I'm weighing in my model, I've kind of put them in primary comps and secondary comps. But the thing about TPC Sawgrass is it probably is the most
influential golf course on the PGA Tour. It has had more influence on setup and architecture of more TPC courses than any other course by such a wide margin. Now, your mileage may vary on that in terms of whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing that TPC Sawgrass has become, was, I mean, particularly in the 80s and 90s.
Just this major influence of all these other, I mean, it really started the TPC style of architecture boom. But again, your mileage may vary on like how all of these other golf courses that have kind of tried to take the TPC Sawgrass playbook forward.
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing because none of them are able to quite do it like Sawgrass, I would say probably Scottsdale comes the closest. TPC Sawgrass is really the GOAT of the TPC style of architecture. But so many different golf courses that you could say are translatable. Heritage, Sedsfield, PGA West, right?
Awesome country club. There are a lot. So let's talk about the model. You can look at all of the comp courses that I'm looking about in the article that I wrote. You can look at your own comp courses on the rabbit hole as well. You can do that all together. Like I like how you're able to group golf courses together. That's another great tool of the rabbit hole. I certainly did that this week. So let's take a quick break and then I'll run through my model and talk about the player that I bet this week.
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So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. How did they get 30, 30, how did they get 30, how did they get 20, 20, 20, how did they get 20, 20, how did they get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail. Okay, number one, Scotty Scheffler. Huge shocker there. Uh,
Going to be tough to look past him, man. I mean, I would expect the ownership to keep going through the moon. I mean, I preferred Rory. I used Scottie for one and done, but I prefer Rory for Scottie this week in DraftKings. And that looks like it's going to be a mistake. Who knows? Rory's only four strokes back from Sheffler, but the guy's pretty inevitable, man. There's a real Thanos energy to him. And it just seems like...
Maybe Rory's best can still be as good as Scheffler's best, but Scheffler's worst is still so much better than Rory's worst. Like Scheffler did not play well on Thursday. Rory did not play well on Thursday. Rory shot plus one, Scheffler shot minus two. That's like the difference in the tournament. And I just think on this golf course,
going to be pretty hard to look past again if you're looking for reasons not to bet scotty scheffler defending champions do not do well at the players so you can fade him at your own risk just based on that data point but scotty scheffler has a little i'm gonna break the mold here with with a lot of different things just based on the way that he's seeing the ball number two is cory connor's
I have not bet Corey Connors yet, but I'll reference the FanDuel odds because the FanDuel odds just got posted right before I did the podcast. He's 80-1 on FanDuel. That is very much likely a bet for me. I'm not going to spend a ton of time extensively talking about Connors after the model and why I particularly like him. I have probably like six more shows this week to do that. Connors 80-1.
He sits 11th right now at the API. He was a big DK play for me at the API, and he is, let's see, third in approach play. So, you know, just based on that, take guys that are hitting their irons well right now. Connors is on pace to gain, you know, right now he's gaining like,
over five strokes on approach at the API and he gained over five at the Honda. And, you know, so we'll see what happens on Sunday. Selfish, but not selfishly because he could help me win a lot of money on draft Kings, but maybe that does mean I should bet Congress now. Um,
But he has a great golf course for him in terms of his accuracy off the tee as well and his ability to raise his baseline in these types of greens. Number three is Justin Thomas. A little bit more on him later. He's also since tee 11 at API, and he's hitting his irons well. He's 11th in this field in approach play through three rounds. Four, Cantlay. Five, Xander, the Disgusting Brothers. I stayed off the Disgusting Brothers this week for the first time.
Felt pretty good, to be honest with you. Just felt pretty good to wipe my hands clean of them. I don't like them as much in Florida. With that being said, Sawgrass is not really the typical Florida golf course because of the overseed. And they have a mixed bag at the players, both of those guys. But they continue to play really good golf even in Florida.
This is a down week for them at the API 31st Camelot through three rounds Sanders 44th We'll see what they do on Sunday. You're probably gonna get some good ownership on them six Tony Finau That surprised me a little bit But he's hitting his irons really well right now. He's he's hitting the ball really well right now I don't know why he skipped API. It's confusing to me. I know they're allowed to skip and
an elevated event per year but he played really well in Mexico I know he didn't win and maybe he should have won in that field but the numbers from Mexico were great his numbers at Torrey Pines are great and kind of confused about what to do with Finau because I think this is a sneaky good golf course for him the way that he's playing I kind of trust Finau's ball striking more than
lot of other players right now and he's had a mixed bag here as most players have at the players but let's see what the fan duel number is on Finau he is 55 to 1 that may be bad I'm just waiting I'm waiting I mean the Finau isn't going to change but because he's not playing this week but just waiting to see because who knows if he gets some crazy numbers on other books but 55 to 1 on Finau is pretty good
Pretty good on this golf course, the way he's playing. Seven, Shane Lowry, another guy. He's playing great golf right now. Great golf course for the players. Keegan Bradley, heavy on Keegan Bradley this week. A little disappointed. Hopefully he can have a good Sunday for us. Nine, Ludvig. Very disappointed in my guy, Ludvig. To be honest with you, we can talk about Hovland too, although he's a little bit farther down in the model range.
With these guys, I went a different route of the Disgusting Brothers. I went Ludwig and Hovland and Rory at the top. It's good because so much of Shane Lowry and my guys at the bottom are playing so well. But I was really disappointed in Ludwig this week at the API. I know he played a lot better today. Hopefully he can have a good Sunday backdoor, a nice little T20 for us. Collin, great golf course for Collin.
Yeah, we'll see. Scary, scary. I did see a little bit of his round on Friday morning, and it just wasn't great. Something looks pretty off with him. So it'll be interesting to see where Colin comes in. 11, Sam Burns. 12, Adam Svensson. That will probably change after those ball-striking numbers at Bay Hill come in. I was pretty glad that I didn't try and get cute with an Adam Svensson flop lag after I watched him at the Honda because...
Something's going on there big time. That's a scary one. 13, Eric Cole having a nice little rebound week at Bay Hill. It's a good golf course for Eric Cole. 14, Jake Knapp just playing really good golf right now. 15, Hideki. Hideki's got a good chance, man. Man, this is such a – I don't know if Hideki is going to win Riviera and the players in the same year. I could go and effort later whether that's ever happened before.
But in terms of the recent iron play, the success on overseeded greens, he has been one of the only guys that's been super, super consistent at TPC Sawgrass over the years as well. So I think you've got to big time, big time consider Hideki. Gosh, Vandal's got good numbers, man. Hideki's 45-1. How is Tommy Fleetwood 35-1 and Hideki's 45-1? That makes zero sense to me.
16, Brian Harmon. 17, my guy, Will Zalatouris. Great golf course. I think sneaky good golf course for Will Zalatouris. I know we like him on bigger ballparks too, but he's such a precise iron player and he's played well, okay, at Sawgrass in the past and he's hitting his irons great right now. Hopefully he gets it done for us this week and
then maybe I won't worry about him as much as the players. 18 Fitzpatrick, 19 Cam Young, which is interesting to me because I do think the inverse of a golf course like Bay Hill is you will get some lower ownership on bombers. I think people will, like who's going to play Rory at the players next week? I don't know. I mean, it's Rory, so still, yeah. But, you know, the love, a 20% Cameron Young player
unless he plays like amazing on Sunday, I think a lot of people will tell themselves that the players is not the type of golf course for him because it's going to take driver out of his hands. Well, you know, he's finished runner up at the heritage before. So Chris Kirk 20. So the player that I bet, and the only reason why I did this now is because I do think the number was so good and he's going to play well on Sunday, but
I bet Justin Thomas 25-1 on FanDuel. Now, Justin Thomas would become, you know, only the sixth guy to win the players twice. It doesn't happen very often. But he's talked about how much he loves this golf course. The Irons are great right now. I know he had an incredibly disappointing week at Riviera, but he bounced back very strong for us this week. I didn't play him at the API. I wish I did as a...
fairly obvious flop lag to consider, and I didn't totally consider it. Particularly, he was kind of lower owned, too. So, I bet JT at 25 to 1. Okay? And...
The case is simple. One of the best iron players in the world when he's on. He's got an unbelievable short game. And I think his short game really sets him apart at a golf course like TPC Sawgrass. Because you're going to hit a lot of weird, creative shots off of uneven lies, humps and hollows, pop bunkers, etc.
Just shots that kind of bring out the best in JT. I will always, I don't think we're going to get crazy weather this week, but if we do, I think that plays into JT's hands. I remember, you know, he was one of the higher finishers when we got that crazy wave on. He had this crazy round that I think many people remember where he was one of the only guys in high winds to be able to play well when everybody was just getting dusted and
And he talked about how that frees him up. And he doesn't think, he doesn't think about his golf swing. He just thinks about finding a way to get the ball in the hole and hitting different shots. I think it's just kind of a perfect playground for him. I think he loves to hit different trajectories and shape the ball. And TPC Sawgrass is like the perfect golf course to be able to shape it both ways, to be able to hit the ball low when you need to hit the ball high, control your trajectory, and
He's been amazing in Florida. Third in strokes game total in Florida over the last three years. Despite having difficulties with accuracy off the tee, he's been really good on like
water-heavy golf courses with high missed fairway penalties. He's also won the Honda before. He's playing well at Bay Hill this week and keeping the ball out of trouble at Bay Hill too. He's driving the ball well. He's driving the ball in play. His short game's awesome. And he's had a lot more success. He's putted well at the players before. And he always putts well in Phoenix too. So he raises his baseline really
fairly significantly on, on overseeded Bermuda. So I bet JT at 25 to one is an amazing number. And again, I'm going to wait to see what happens on Sunday at a sawgrass or sorry, at the API before I make any more hot takes big judgment calls, big stands on sawgrass, but yeah,
I just bet JT now because I thought 25 to 1 was such a good number. And to be honest with you, I may bet the fee now 55 and the Connors 80. It's just risky because those FanDuel numbers seem really great. But who knows? It's a week with competitive pricing that books are going to take a lot more action than they normally do on a regular tournament. So maybe they, again, try and compete with each other and give us some really good pricing.
Vandal's thoughts were good. They really were. The other guys that I would just consider, like if you look at Tom Hoagie is leading the field in approach play at the API. He's first in this field in approach play. He's not really doing anything else good and he's still T11. He's second to last in this field in putting, but
He's finished third at the players before. And you look at, let's see what Hoagie's odds are. Hoagie's 110 to one. I think you got to bet that. God, I just don't want to fill up the whole card based on these FanDuel numbers, just in case a book comes out with better numbers. But, you know, my other lanes outside of JT is the bat, but the guys I'm eyeing really closely that most likely will be on the card, Hoagie, Connors,
I may have to get suckered into FINAO 55. And then, you know, if I had room to go in the 20 range again, I want to dig into like how many guys have run Riviera and players in the same year. But God, Hideki is the guy that is checking the most boxes in terms of the things that I'm looking for here. A couple other guys to look out for.
Adam Hadwin, third, played Adam Hadwin. He's not doing great. It's D53, but he's third in this field in approach play. Third in, oh, actually, sorry, that was round one. He's a little bit farther down, but still heading his irons very well. Yeah, Hoagie is still first in approach play at the API.
Siwoo Kim, number two. That might be a look. Maybe Siwoo Kim is another guy that could make his second victory at the Players' Championship, even as unlikely as that has been. So that will do it from us. A bigger week for me in terms of content. I have a big podcast coming out on Monday.
I will be going on my buddies Capper and Steve's Golf Gambling Podcast on Tuesday. That'll always be fun. We'll do our show with Wiley on Monday. We do the Subs Only, my favorite show of the week, the Ball Knowers After Dark, as we call it, where I bring on Kyle and Kobe to say absurd things on Wednesday night for the RPS Subs Only. That was...
pretty much one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to go to RPS because I was empowered there to make the content that I want to make and bring on the people that I think are the smartest in the industry to talk golf with and those and my friends. Um, and those are Kobe and Kyle. So I just started doing a show with them because I can do that at run pure sports. Um,
And Kobe just continues to be on a, I think he's taken like 80K off of Mock Love It and Head to Heads over the last couple of weeks. And he does tremendous content on that Wednesday night stream with me and Kyle as well. So if you want more of my stuff, if you want my articles, the ability to ask me anything and kind of,
chop it up in the golf streets, sweat golf, talk golf. This is the best Discord community that in the industry I've ever been a part of. I've been a part of many. You can find me at runpeersports.com. That is the place to go for the Discord, for the premium shows, for the premium articles, for
to ask me questions, to tilt. We've got an incredible team over there, like I mentioned. Wiley, Big T, and the guys, plus me bringing my own friends.
and building that community the way I've always envisioned it. And it's starting to come together. It's starting to look like what I think we wanted to, what the plan was when me and Wiley decided to do this thing together. So runpearsports.com if you want to try it for a week. It's like a big week. Big week to try it if you want. You can try it for, I think, like $15 with my code. Yeah.
Andy, Code Andy, different from Inside Golf from Bettsburgs, but Code Andy. Try it out for a week. The players' content will be incredible. And I don't ask for this often, but if this podcast helped you at all in terms of the course breakdown, just particularly on these weeks where it tends to get a lot more downloads than some of the lesser weeks,
If this podcast helps you at all from a course breakdown standpoint, again, part of the RPS deal was I made it essential that this podcast would always be free. If it helps you at all, please leave a five-star review. It takes two seconds. Just log on to Apple Podcasts and say,
This podcast helps me. There's some good information on it on the golf course. That's it. Say whatever you want. It takes five minutes. But I always try and ask that on the bigger weeks, the players and the majors. So that would help me a lot. And best of luck with your bets over the weekend at API. Enjoy the golf on Sunday.
Go Will Zalatoris. Hopefully we get a low one in that Rory, Willie Z, Yeager, Keegan lineup. But ideally the Will Zalatoris outright I would be very, very pleased with. So enjoy the golf tomorrow.
We've got a great week ahead. I'm fired up for it. I will be grinding in the Discord 24-7 for the players. So that's the place to reach me with any questions. And we will see you back on this podcast feed on Tuesday morning. Cheers.
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