Zozo with Spencer Aguiar
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All right, Inside Golf Podcast, great show today with one of the very first people to ever come on this podcast, Spencer Aguiar. Really excited to...

catch up with him, one of my most trusted friends when it comes to golf. I'll let him plug all of his stuff when he comes on. Great Twitter follow, puts out a bunch of free content. But before we get to my conversation with Spencer, just a couple quick housecleaning things at the top. I have a bit of a career change going on with me right now that will affect the future of this podcast for the better. It's not going anywhere. I'm

But I'm going to explain all of that stuff very soon. But during this transition, it's probably going to be a little tough for me to do the solo Sunday ones as well. Just like for the next couple of weeks, I'll still put out an episode every week. In fact, I got some guests that I'm really excited about lined up. But just as I go through this transition, it's a little hectic for me.

but it's all a good thing. The only reason that I'm in this position is because people listen to this podcast. So I cannot thank everyone enough for that, truly. Again, so more information to come on all that stuff probably next week. Let's get to my conversation with Spencer.

All right, Spencer Aguiar is here. For those that are unaware, Spencer was one of the founding fathers of this podcast. My third episode ever was the Masters. Spencer said yes to come on. And I think that was when, I don't know, I had maybe 200 followers on Twitter. You said yes. An instant friendship was born. I think you were taken aback

by how much Jason Day ammo I had in the holster. And we gave maybe the greatest case in podcast history for why Jason Day was going to win the 2021 Masters. People are still talking about it today. But anyway, man, fill me in. I know we DM, but I feel like it's been ages since we've got to catch up. Has Nick just kind of like reached the point where he's so sharp at football that he's just like, I'm going to abandon Spencer and let him do his thing?

Well, I'll say this. Nick is super sharp at everything he does. And for those that don't know, Nick, who is StickPix on Twitter, him and I do the Better Golf Pod together. Sorry, terrible intro by me. No, it's fine. But it's a very similar show to what you do, Andy. I mean, I think it's very data intensive. We go and we break down the board from top to bottom.

And before we even start on any of that, I want to tell you congratulations, Andy, on your job at the score. You know, as you said, I did your show in April for the first time and I tweeted about it. I told you off air that the sharp money was on you blowing up within the next few months. So I will add that to my call to my win percentage this season, but it's definitely well-deserved, man. It's a, you know, it's, it's a hard industry to break into, but you are one of the best for a reason.

I really appreciate that, man. And I just kind of followed your path and your work ethic. Yeah, that's what I've been telling people. It's like, just if you work hard, you probably can beat 99% of the people just based on work ethic alone. I think that's the number one thing. And there's no better example of that than you, my friend. So-

Couple things before we get into it. We're talking about the Zozo Championship this week, Spencer. It's a no-cut event. There's 78 players in the field this week. It's not a great field, but still a couple of elites. We've only seen this course once before in 2019. Tiger Woods won. I've heard of him. And then last year, it was right down the road for me at Sherwood because of COVID. So we only have one year of defense.

data and there wasn't even any strokes gained during that year either so we're a little bit in the dark um but here's how i would describe this course and then i want to get your take it's

It's Narishino Country Club. It's just outside Tokyo. They have three sets of 18 holes. The one that we see is just a composite course. It was designed by Kenya Fujita in 1976. Nice change up from another Fazio week. I think we're reaching the point where in a year from now, every week is just going to alternate between the Faz and Pete Dye on the BGA Tour. Everything is just going to blend together, which...

probably makes our lives a little bit easier from a handicapping standpoint, but as an architecture lover, it can feel a little manufactured at times. So this is a nice little change up. It seems like more of a classical old school tree lined golf course with smaller greens, where maybe there's a little more emphasis on accuracy and short game and strategy. It's, it's a,

Par 70, it only measures 7,041 yards, although it does have a lot of really long holes and a lot of really short holes. There's five par threes, so it's kind of quirky. Half the par fours are really long and half of them are really short.

And like I said, it's quirky, which I kind of tend to like. It has bent grass greens and zoysia fairways as well, which are always interesting. So I've had a bunch of stuff going on with work right now. So I haven't gotten the chance to deep dive this course the way that I normally would. So I'm fascinated to hear your take on the place. What are you kind of looking for this week, man? Yeah, I think what you said, I mean, a lot of that is what I built into my model. And I said it on the show I do for Golf WRX called Be The Number. But I think it's important.

important to mention it again. For me, the less data we have about a venue, the more I complicate a model. And part of the reason for that is because I'm trying to separate my research to be as unique as possible. It's challenging to find an extremely contrarian outlook when most of the knowns are going to be similar for all. But I can tinker with the stats in my database to fit a more precise viewpoint that will separate me from the pack. And a lot of that is going to be a DraftKings answer with it. Obviously, I'm still trying to find outliers for the betting market, but I

We have two negatives this week when it comes to trying to handicap the board. The first is we've only seen this course once in action during Tiger Woods' 2019 victory, as you mentioned. And the second is that we don't have Stack Tracker present, which means a lot of the key data is more of a guess than a definitive answer. But let's start with that.

of how I view the track as a whole. And I can run everyone into what I put into weight into my model. So, uh, Nars, you know, country club was originally built in 1976. I think it features a rather claustrophobic design. The fairways are of average width, but the venue as a whole emphasizes a substantial tree line nature where golfers will be required to move the ball in multiple directions because of, because of the dog legs throughout the 18 holes.

You can make an argument that the course is more tree heavy than tree line because you do have a few yards on all sides if you miss the fairway. But I'm under the belief accuracy is going to trump distance this week. We get a general idea of that possibly being the case if you just look at the yardage being under 7,100 yards. As you mentioned, some of that yardage is hidden, and I will get into some of that in a second. You did a pretty good job of mentioning it, but I'll go a little bit more in depth with it. But

Yeah, there's an abnormal five par threes all measure below 200 yards. We have three par fives in total all exceed 560 yards with the 14th measuring 608 yards. I think that's noteworthy because the hole only has a 25.2% birdie or better rate. That's about as low as you will see for a par five in today's game. We have 10 par fours that go all over the map in length.

If rounding up or down by a few yards, we essentially have four between 360 to 400. Five are very long and have some of that hidden distance that Andy and I keep talking about. That almost places us in the mindset of having to create two different par four qualifiers. So one is more birdie heavy. The other should include some weight on bogey avoidance since all the longer par fours carry over a 20% bogey rate. But let me discuss my model from a statistical perspective. So I started with strokes gain total on short par 70 courses for 10%.

That's a statistic that is easily quantifiable and one that should pinpoint golfers that like a shorter course. I ran through all three par zones, starting with a weighted par three for 10%. That took 50% par three average, 30% proximity from 175 to 200 yards, 10% proximity from 150 to 175 and 10% 125 to 150. A weighted par four for 20%. That's trying to mimic

what we should expect at Narashino. You will see that for me anytime I build a model where I'm trying to hone in on a course specific build. It's slightly convoluted with what exactly went into that, but the condensed version is the key ranges of 350 to 400 and 450 to 500. There's some birdier, better bogey avoidance, a few other variables mixed into that.

And then a weighted par five for 10%. Overall, par five, better, some long iron play. How a golfer performed on longer par fives got weighted together to come up with a mathematical number there. I did a weighted bent grass category for 10%. That was 70% strokes gained total at bent grass properties and 30% strokes gained putting on bent grass. I like that combination because it added in some putting, but still kept the premier course fits up top.

15% weighted proximity for the most part, that was just removing a lot of the 200 plus proximity ranges and recalculating the model to try and mimic some semblance of the venue this week. A sand safe percentage for 10%. I think being able to get up and down will help salvage scores. And then I wrapped it up with weighted driving for 15%. I use the combination of driving accuracy and fairways game to derive a core power rating there. So essentially with what you're talking about with that, I'm trying to find guys that are accurate, uh,

I want to find guys, these are smaller greens. You know, you have two holes per green, which is a different thing that they do in Japan. You're going to hear that throughout the industry a lot. One gets played in the summer. The other gets played in the winter. So, I mean, I guess people need to be cognizant of where they're hitting it into, but yeah, I mean, to me, this is more of a second shot course where I'm trying to find golfers that can pinpoint their, you know, shots in the fairway and not get stuck behind trees.

That is a beautiful breakdown, my friend. And I'm sure we have some new listeners since the last time that you came on the podcast. So now I'm sure everybody understands why I chose you as my guest this week on the one week where I was starting a new job and a little bit behind on my own research. So I don't know if I have anything other to add than that, other than

You know, it did remind me a lot of people look for comp courses and stuff like that. And I always do my best to try and mention those. So people have an idea of maybe what some leaderboards are.

to look at when they correlate things. It reminded me a lot of Chapultepec, that Mexico course where they used to have the WGC, quirky old school tree lined, a little narrower, smaller greens. And it kind of reminds me a little bit of colonial even as well. There was surprisingly a good amount of correlation there in the very limited sample size that we have. But yeah, I think you hit on it well. It's

kind of interesting, quirky course. And I think that if you have played here before, then that might really help perusing through some of the player quotes. It seems like a lot of them were keen to mention that this course is a little bit different from the ones that we tend to see on the PGA tour all the time.

where, like I said, if you've played it before, maybe you have a much better hang of it. And I also think if you're just familiar playing golf in Japan, maybe if you went to the Olympics, I think that helps any experience playing in this drastic of a time change. Maybe you'll be a little better prepared. Maybe you'll have a little bit of a better routine down. That might help as well. So, okay. Sounds good, man. It seems like we are on the same page. I like

that. Let's get into the odds. I'm going to give you the favorites here, Spencer. These odds are all courtesy of DraftKings, but throw out any numbers that you want with these guys. I always encourage everyone to shop around. I'm looking at Colin Morikawa at plus 550, Xander at 6-1, Hideki at 12-1, Zalatoris at 16-1, Joaquin Neiman, Ricky Fowler, and Tommy Fleetwood all at 20-1.

Who is your favorite in that range, Spencer, either from a DFS or betting standpoint? And are you placing an outright on any of these top dogs this week?

Yeah, I kind of like this range more than the average person. You know, unfortunately, pricing does seem really good this week. And that is including where Xander and Morikawa are placed for the week. Now, I don't condone the five and a half or six to one numbers that you mentioned. And this board got more convoluted and difficult once Paul Casey pulled out of the tournament. So, you know, a lot of these numbers that I grabbed, at least on the two guys near the top, I was able to get at a little bit better number that you mentioned on it.

I don't have a massive issue with Hideki and Zalatoris being, you know, some of the top choices, but I do think that the hidden juice from books is coming from those numbers. I like Hideki, but I don't have interest at 14 to one. The same can be said for Zalatoris at 18 to one. As far as Xander and Morikawa are concerned, I'm very rarely, you know, if ever going to back a sub 10 to one golfer, my numbers would really have to be drastic for it.

I think the better value of the two is likely Xander because I trust him more. But my decision for the week kind of comes down to a few variables when I made my decision. So the first was how likely do I think it is that either X or Morikawa win? Depending on that answer, the second is how much exposure do I want for my card with them being the two most likely victors?

So to answer part one, I don't think sub 10 to one is outlandish, but I would be more in that eight to one, nine to one, 10 to one zone for those two to be a proper price. That means somewhere around an 80% chance that those two will walk out of the week with the trophy. And that's good enough for me to take some shots since I think,

the top four are all a few points overpriced. You can add Hideki and Zalatoris to that mix. So the first bet I placed before Casey withdrew from the field was Joaquin Neiman at 28-1. We've seen him go ice cold with the putter recently, which was amplified by losing 4.5 last weekend at the CJ Cup. But my viewpoint has remained the same for him over the last few months. He's gained with his irons in 14-16 off

the teen 11 of 13. And while we aren't talking about massive numbers during most of those appearances, uh, my math continues to believe another wind is trending for him. Proper price for me is 20 to one on Neiman. So, uh, at the number you mentioned that is breakeven, I have seen some 22s. I believe there is a 25 out there if you shop around. So 25 still has an edge there. Um, the second bet I placed is likely going to be very contrarian this week, but

I took Tommy Fleetwood at 25 to one. And I want to make it clear that I'm well aware Fleetwood isn't the player he was a few years ago, which also came during a time where he won zero times on the PGA tour. But I'm always attempting to find a narrative that bucks the consensus. And I found a flute, a few on Fleetwood that I really liked with model construction. So

Fleetwood is 37th for me out of 78 players when it comes to strokes gain approach. That is not good for the fifth price golfer, an event where I believe the course is a second shot venue. But when I condense the proximity numbers to equal more of what he should get this weekend at Naraschino, he grades eighth in this field. Proper math for me is 22 to one. So we are in this weird zone now where Casey's removal from the field has made some of these top end guys on the fringe of value. But I do like

the top heavy approach of grabbing two of that group if you can find the right number. It's hard to condone a 20 to one price if that's the only book you have access to. But with the way that I don't think there's going to be a ton of exposure around Fleetwood this week, I wouldn't be shocked if that shifts a point or two up and you may be able to wait on that.

Interesting. I wasn't expecting you to go Fleetwood there. I completely agree with the Neiman plays. Well, I love Neiman. I'm pretty heavy on him and DraftKings. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to bet Neiman because I have bet Xander at seven to one. And unfortunately,

You need to give me the chance to make the case and do my Xander thing because I didn't do a solo podcast this week, but I'll try and keep it relatively brief. And as you know, Spencer, we have a very similar betting philosophy. So betting a golfer at this odds is not something that I think I've actually ever done. I'm breaking all of my gambling rules with this one, Spencer. But

Here's the case that I would make. So for me to bet someone at this short of a number, like I said, I've never really done it before. Even for me to bet someone at like 10 to one or 12 to one, there needs to be a perfect intersection for me of course fit, recent form, narrative,

warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I test visual cues, interviews. There's just so many boxes that would need to be checked for me to be able to get there. And I haven't felt this way about a golfer in a certain spot in as long as I can remember. I kind of felt this way about Rom at the US Open. I was talking myself into it and then I was like,

no, I can't do it. I'm not going to bet a guy at eight to one, but I just think he's the guy Spencer and I could be wrong. I'll be happy to admit if I am, but I'm all in on this guy this weekend.

I can give a million reasons why he is a dominant record on Zoysia grass. Not a lot of players can say that. He's amazing. Bank grass putter, almost won at colonial, played great in Mexico, experienced playing in Japan. This means a lot to him because of his heritage. And eye test wise, he's just playing with so much confidence right now. I've gotten the chance to follow him up close three times in the last couple of months and

Each time I'm like, wow, this guy is really starting to come into his own. He was hitting shots at the Ryder Cup that I don't even know if he would have attempted a couple months ago when I saw him at the US Open. I think that Olympic win was huge for him. I mean, he's talked about it before, but he's kind of given a couple big ones away in the last two years. Hawaii, Shadow Creek, Phoenix.

dunked it on 16 at the masters just off the top of my head. Like he's kind of choked away a fair amount of chances. And I think it created a little scar tissue that I could feel him pressing a little bit. And for him to lead the Olympics from round one through four, the whole way and play that whole tournament with a lead as a front runner, that's,

experienced adversity on the back nine on Sunday and still find a way to close that tournament out, which was so important to his family. I mean, his father was supposed to be an Olympian and a drunk driver ruined those dreams for his dad. So for him to stick a wedge to win, which is, you know, an area of his game that he's been working really hard at, um,

It seems like such a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders after he did that. And Spencer, I listen to every interview he does. I follow every single person on his team, on Instagram. He's just happier right now. And like I said, it felt like he was really pressing to win because he had so many close calls. And now he just looks a lot

more loose out there. I mean, the Ryder Cup, man, I was like, who is this guy? And he's given quotes like, yeah, I could see myself winning eight times this year. I'm like, whoa, that's not the Xander that I'm used to hearing. You don't say that type of stuff unless your self-belief is really high. And those are a lot of unquantifiable narratives, which is what I tend to try and shy away from. But

I feel like he's just ready and he's feeling it now. And he closed out with a 63 at the CJ Cup. He knows the routine of Japan. There's no adjustment. He can taste it and he's tired of getting asked why he hasn't won on the PGA Tour and so on. So I think this is the week he wins and I think he wins by a lot. That is my piece. Like I said, I didn't get to do a solo pod. Trust me, that was the vast, vast abbreviated version of all of my Xander stuff, believe it or not. So we can move on now.

Well, I'll just say one thing to that very quickly. And I think you brought up a good point with John Rahm at the U S open because I ran into a similar situation with him that I didn't back him because I didn't like the price on it. And I think you mentioned a bunch of really good points there at the end of the day, it all comes down to value. Betting in a nutshell is value and where you perceive the value to be or where your model perceives the value to be is really the most important part of that equation. And it's a 78 man field.

The bottom of this board is extremely weak. You can get rid of 15 players probably right off the bat, if not more. I mean, I'm being generous with that number. So in a no-cut tournament where my model likes Xander a lot, he's number one when it comes from a safety perspective with it, which is kind of why I think he's a better bet than Morikawa. I like Morikawa's intangibles for an event like this, but if the putter goes cold, do you really want to bet Colin Morikawa? And

by the way, I don't want this to be like clipped afterwards where it's like, Oh, Morikawa wins. And Spencer said he was a terrible bet. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that he's more erratic with the putter. Xander's game is very complete for a venue like this. So I like your thought process with that. Like,

Obviously, when you bet Xander, you go down that route, your card's going to be either done or I mean, maybe you can take a few long shots with it. But I decided to try to take Xander on but I don't have a problem with that narrative and seven to one is the best of the number that was out there this week.

Okay, let's get into some of what we do best Spencer, which is finding value as the board continues. Once we get into this kind of 30s, 40s and 50s range, I'm not going to list all of these guys. But how are you kind of structuring your card once you get past Fleetwood and Neiman at the top? Is there anyone you like in kind of that 30 to 100 range?

Yeah, there's a couple guys. And I have a bigger card this week than I normally do. And I guess the best example I would give to this is if you were like a comedian back in the day and you were going on the Jay Leno show, you're going to bring your best jokes out. So if I'm going to do your show, I'm bringing out all the stops this week. So normally I have about a unit in exposure is what I'm looking at. This week, it's 1.19 units of exposure, which

it's a little bit overboard on it. It's not anything drastic. I'm never going to be somebody that's going to overexpose myself in the outright market. You know, Andy, you and I have talked a million times and it's kind of funny in a way because, uh, my outright bets recently have kind of gone crazy with it because I've hit six of the last 14 tournaments. I've hit 10 of the previous 34. Uh,

That's plus 41.825 units on the season in the outright market for 75.98%. Those are obviously not sustainable numbers, but the internment head-to-heads are a little over 20% ROI for me. Hit Rory last week leading into that. So it's kind of been a hot outright little run for me here. So I'm being a little bit more aggressive this week because I think there are only 78 players and that's something that

I believe you can work with here and I think you can find some values because of that. And I do think with the top of the board being a little overpriced in the bottom of the board being kind of dead to win, you have that. So I gave a hard look to Keegan Bradley, probably more so just because I like his upside this week. I'd probably rather play him in GPP contests and things of that nature. I'll run through a couple of these guys just with general viewpoints on it. Tringoli,

I've reached the point with him where if he beats me, he beats me. Uh, that's a chase that's been going on for over 300 events. If anybody's been backing him, it was one thing when I was throwing darts on him at a hundred to one, cause his game was turning around. It's another at 40 to one. I think Eric Van Royen and KH Lee are fine. Uh, but my third choice I went with was Chris Kirk at 50 to one, uh, Chris,

Kirk has gained with his irons at eight of nine starts off the tee and only four or seven, but this is the kind of venue you would anticipate seeing him find success because of his accuracy off the tee. He ranks 10th in my reweighted proximity category and is also inside the top 15 for GIR three putt percentage, San safe percentage, overall bogey avoidance.

scrambling par for average and scoring at a short par 70. So Kirk was actually the biggest disparity in my model when it comes to my rank versus his outright number of anyone we have talked about so far. I have a proper price of him being 30 to one. Moving down a little bit further on the board,

I'm not a CT pan guy, but my numbers did like him a little, but instead I decided to bite the bullet on Ryan Palmer at 55 to one. This is more of a belief that a short course turns his game around. I know Palmer's form looks shaky with multiple missed cuts in his last handful of showings, but he ranks 10th in this field over his past 50 rounds on short par 70 layouts. He is SEC,

second when playing short par fours, which will be needed to be scored at to compete this week. And he's also inside the top 20 for weighted proximity, putting from five to 10 feet and overall birdie or better percentage. You can call this more of a gut feeling than anything else, but I do like how he plays. If the wind does pick up here,

And then I guess I will wrap this down to the last couple of names into the hundred to one range because I do have one more. I don't love the group directly between Palmer and further than that. I guess you could make an argument for Garrett Kago at the price because we have seen that he can win. Doug Gim does have the iron upside if he can get hot with his putter. But my biggest outright of the week is going to come at 80 to one with Brendan Todd.

I love how he has played in his career on similar par fours as the one he has in front of him in Japan. He's the number one driver and number one putter in my model. That's a great combination for someone that at least can get hot with the irons out of nowhere. We've seen him rotating between gaining and losing with his approach game over the last few months. But when he has gained 2.6 at the Fortinet,

4.6 at the Wyndham. Those are also courses where you get a major benefit for finding fairways. And one of the things I sometimes like to do on these long shot wagers is bet them as if they are the price that my model makes them. So for example, I bet

Corey Connors at 250 to one at the Valero Texas open when he won that tournament, but treated him as if he was a 65 to one golfer to mimic my model. Uh, that means my risk goes up to win the perceived standard amount that I shoot for usually, uh, which is typically between eight to 12 units. Uh, but the actual total gets enhanced since he is 250 to one and not 65 to one. So hopefully that makes sense with that description.

of that, but I'm going to do the same with Todd here. My math has him being proper at 40 to one. So I'm essentially going to bet this for 0.20 units and pretend like he was 40 to one, but instead get the 80 to one price and a 16 unit win if he does pull it off.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, this is a very interesting range. Todd rated out very well for me as well, and so did Chris Kirk, for the record. The issue that I'm obviously run into a little bit is it's difficult for me to get too hasty in this range based on the big bet that I have on Xander. The two guys that I was looking at pretty closely that night

I haven't, I've made a move on one of them. I haven't made a move on the other, but I did like Carlos Ortiz at 66 to one. His ball striking has been pretty damn good. It's really just been the short game and putting that has been dreadful, but he kind of does a lot of the things that I'm looking for this week. He keeps the ball and play off the tee. He's a good driver of the ball. Good with the long irons for those long par fours and fives.

he's not a great wedge player. Um, and because of his putter, it's sometimes worried that he hasn't been able to keep up and lower scoring events, but I don't think that this is going to be anything close to the birdie fest that we've seen for some of the first couple of fall swings. And, you know, I, he was third heading into the final rounds of the Olympics at Kasumi Gusecki. He shot a final round 78. Um, I'm willing to forgive that. I don't think that this is the

greatest comp for Kasumi Giseki. But I do like the fact that he's shown an ability to play in Japan before recently. And he's coming off a 25th at the CJ Cup where he gains over a stroke off the tee and 4.6 strokes on approach. To finish 25th in that field while losing 3.4 strokes putting is pretty impressive to me.

you know, there's a decent chance that his putter is lost, but I really love the way that he's hitting the ball right now. And then the other guy that I, that I did bet is I bet Matt Wallace at 71. And it was more of just a, I don't know why he's priced around the Adam shanks of the world right now. Like I, I,

Wallace was the flavor of the week for a while. I mean, people were lining up to bet that guy at 80 to one at the PGA championship. And now he's 70 to one in this field. I get that he had a bit of a lull and people kind of came off him a little bit, but you look at what he's done recently and, and,

he's just coming off a 14th place finish at the Shriners, a very quiet one where he gained 0.9 strokes off the tee, 4.4 on approach. He actually gained strokes in all four major categories. This is the first time he's done that since the Wells Fargo back in May. So I think this is a pretty good spot to buy low on Matt Wallace. I would have a little bit more hesitation if he wasn't, if he didn't have that solid ball striking performance at the Shriners. But I

I think he's a guy who rated out really well for me, and I was a little surprised to see his number in this field based on the guys that he was priced around. You mentioned CT Pan. I think CT Pan is going to be very popular in DraftKings if I have any exposure, and I'm seeing him in the outright market in the 40s, which I think is an overprice. If I have any exposure to CT Pan, I like him as a top 20 bet. Same with Norlander as well. I think Norlander is a guy that is probably going to pop

in a lot of models based on the kind of upside that he has with his irons and his ability to gain seven or eight strokes on approach on a given week. But that's kind of it for me in this range. Is there anyone else that you want to touch on before we... I have a couple guys at the very bottom of the board that I can talk about. I have a couple guys at the bottom too. I will touch a little bit on what you just said. As far as Pan and Norlander are concerned...

I agree with you. I think that they're probably best suited. Like if you're playing on DraftKings, they're probably good cash game plays. That's equivalent to being a top 20 bet. I mean, that's like a betting's version of that. As far as Carlos Ortiz goes, I gave him a look also going into Sunday last week. He was the number one player in my model off the T plus approach. I run a little model for that trying to find, you know,

regression or positive regression for putters that were not performing, but we're hitting their irons. Well, and Ortiz just consistently kept popping out there. So I think Ortiz is an interesting name. I do worry a little bit that his short game might just be completely lost, but you know, he has the upside, the ball striking looks good. And then as far as Wallace is concerned, uh, seeing the shot and I talked about it on the show we do together, uh,

before the Shriners when he came 14th. And Sia brought up a really good point with him where he just continues to be mispriced in these fields. Like he just as easily could be, you know, a,

40 to one golfer. And I think like you could flip him with CT pan. Um, even though I do like CT pan a little bit this week, I don't like the 40 to one number, but you could flip them with CT pan. And at least then you would have like pan would be a value and Wallace would probably be more accurately suited for where he should be priced. So I like the Wallace and Ortiz card, um, or calls on your card. Obviously you're going to have a limited value.

game plan of what you can work with here. But I mean, your plan should obviously be to work for upside and shoot for upside along with Xander and try to hit some pieces. So it's hard to argue against Ortiz and Wallace in that sense. Okay. I'm going to give you some of the names that I was looking at towards the bottom of the board that I'm fascinated to get your take on. Yeah.

There's something in my numbers that keeps pointing to Pat Perez and I'm not sure that I trust it at all. Is that going on with you as well? I see you nodding your head. Yeah. Uh, Pat Perez. So if I look from just an upside perspective, so I run my model three separate ways. I run it for an overall rank, which is kind of current form. Uh,

all that statistical data I talked about. A lot of times it's course history. I don't have that here because I'm not going to use one tournament for an example there. He's 19th for me there. When I look from just an upside perspective, a lot of times that's your GPPs. That's your outright bets. It's the guys that you're going to throw out some of the things and just look how they fit statistically. He is sixth for me. And then from a safety perspective, that's

including a little bit more of either course history or current form. He's 31st. So he kind of has that trajectory with his numbers, uh, where he's a good GPP play. He's a good outright target. I heavily considered him also. I didn't go there, but the one thing I will note about Perez, he withdrew from the Shriners. That is not a real, real withdrawal. He withdrew on the final hole. Uh, he stated he had a foot injury. He had already missed the cut.

He probably wanted to go to the Vegas strip and drink at that point. So I would not view that withdrawal as being anything other than that. Obviously he missed the cut at the Fortinet. He has been being led by the putter a little bit, but I do think Perez has that upside that we are speaking of.

Yeah. Again, he's somebody that I think people are getting a lot sharper in general with, you know, because of so many good podcasts that are out right now and articles and podcasts that you do and stuff like that. And there's so many others that, you know, if we're seeing something in Pat Perez, statistically, there's a much higher percentage chance that other people are seeing it as well. So I worry about like a chalky seven K Pat Perez,

Perez, but I think maybe in the top 20 market is another decent way to have some exposure to him. I don't think I probably have room for him as an outright. Once we get to the very bottom of the board, I have one or two more names I can throw out at you. I continue to be perplexed by Kyle Stanley. So

This is truly insane to me. So I'm looking at the last 36 rounds here out of all players in this field, and he's sixth in off the tee. He's third in approach. He's third in good drives gained. He's second in fairways gained. He's fourth in proximity from 200 yards plus, and he's seventh in greens and regulation gate. So he's the only guy in this entire field that's top 10 in approach and off the tee. He's the only guy in this entire field that is top five in all of the driving accuracy stats and long iron point.

He's also the worst putter on the PGA tour. There will be a week where dumb luck strikes and the putts go in. I don't know if it's going to be this week, but I've never found a greater discrepancy in recent memory between ball striking and putting stats. And he continues to just perplex me.

Yeah. And if I look at my model, it's the same exact thing that I just discussed with Perez on it. So he's 24th overall. He's eighth from an upside perspective. And obviously I'm not using a whole ton of putting into my model, which is going to make him a little bit better. He's 46 for cash with it, but

I think the one thing Stanley has going for him is these are very well manicured greens. You're going to get a pure roll on it. To me, that means that either if you are really bad at putting or if you are really good at putting, you should probably get a boost. I think the really good guys might end up making everything, which is why I like a guy like Todd. And I think a really bad guy like Kyle Stanley may be able to stick his approaches in close, make enough putts to be competitive here. Like there's obviously a

between what he's doing in his ball striking numbers, as you said, and with the putter. But I don't know what number you said you see on him. I saw 150 to one. I don't mind him as a dart throw down there. Yeah, I was looking more so with DraftKings, like at 6.62 or 6.300, which I have to ask, by the way, Spencer, are you playing any of the Japanese tour guys? Because I am not absolutely

As of this moment, I'm willing to be sold on one or two of them, but I feel I swear one of these guys is going to pop off and he's going to be in the winning lineup and we're going to be shaking our heads because we decided to play like Kramer Hickok instead of like the number one player in Japan.

I think the most intriguing one of the group is probably Takumi Kanaya at $7,200. And popularity is following him a little bit, but when you look at what his outright number is, so on my model, I have him at 66 to one. I don't know where he's moved to at, at a,

shop like DraftKings, but let's just use 66 to one as the number there at 7,200 at 70 to one, Matt Wallace, that's 8,000. Garrick Higo, 7,800. That's 75 to one. Luke list 7,900. That's 80 to one. I think Vegas is telling you that there is upside there on Kanaya and he may be mispriced. He is probably the only one. I think the rest of the bottom of the board, like, I mean, sure. Nobody's playing them, but I kind of can't come up with a reason to play them either. Yeah.

Yeah, it's tough. When I don't have, both of us are so reliant on the stats. And so when I don't have numbers on a guy, it's so difficult for me to endorse a play on him because I just, I don't trust it. And I use the numbers to really kind of

guide me. So that's where it gets tricky for me. I probably should. I talked about this a couple of times on an earlier podcast with a lot of the corn fairy tour guys that are coming out and have playing well that I just don't have a lot of numbers on or as much numbers on as I would feel comfortable. There's a risk reward aspect to it, where if you take a chance on some of these guys, it will

pay off for you, but there's also a pretty big risk involved because you really don't know how much that is going to translate onto PGA Tour competition. And

I'm a little confused on or confused isn't the right word. I'm a little hesitant to say that, you know, Korn Ferry Tour or European Tour and stuff. I think the PGA Tour is a big jump. Once we get into the Japan Tour, it's like, okay, I have no idea if, you know, the number one player on the Japan Tour is as good as the literal worst player on the PGA Tour. So it's very hard for me to kind of

differentiate between those guys. I do think that there's probably something to be said for being more comfortable in Japan. I think Japan golf is a little bit different than American golf. I think this is a stranger course that is

If you see this course in America, it's probably... You're not going to see a lot of these on the PGA Tour, but I think the guys that play on the Japan Tour probably play courses like this all the time with this surface and this level of detail and manicured and the double greens and the tree-lined nature of it. So it's interesting. I unfortunately...

I'm a little bit gun shy with some of those guys and I hope it doesn't come back to bite me. Anyone else kind of towards the bottom that we haven't touched on yet that you think are kind of suitable plays either in the top 20 or 40 or, or in DFS, it's tough for us this week, man, because I, we're such big top 40 guys, but when you have a field of 78 player kind of players, it kind of limits our options.

Yeah, it makes it more difficult for sure. And I will run through a couple guys. I don't have wagers on any of them. They're players I will be looking to play on a site like DraftKings. But Brendan Steele, I thought he was intriguing at 100-1. It's kind of the same thing we've seen with him at like the Safeway or the Fortinet, where if he can find fairways,

His proximity numbers are pretty good. He's a good ball striker. We talked about Pat Perez, Andrew Putnam, 125 to one. My model had him inside the top 30, which it's only a 78 man field. So take it for what it's worth, but still he's in the $6,000 range. So there was some value there.

I think an argument can be made for Stanley. And I do think we made a pretty good argument for why Stanley is playable, but I did place two bets here and they're just dart throws. Um, I bet doc Redmond at 160 to one and James Hahn at 210 to one. And I will preface this by saying, I am not a Redmond guy. I know there's a lot of people in this industry that are, and I want to say that you might be Andy from what I've heard before.

Here and there, yeah, we have a storied past. We're on a little bit of a hiatus right now. Well, I think that that's probably the right call with him with where his game's been. But I always like him at a shorter course. And then Han is just a wild card at a good price for me. There's obvious red flags. It's why he's over 200 to 1. But he's eighth in weighted driving if this does play towards accuracy.

One of the things I liked is that both of those guys I just mentioned are shooting a little better than the results might indicate. Han has finished par or better in his last three rounds, small sample size, but at least he hasn't been like over par. I know they're easy courses, but I, you know, there's missed cuts coming, but he's at least producing a little bit. And then Redmond has contributed eight straight rounds of par or better, even though he doesn't have a top 50 in his past five starts. So maybe he gets hot for a couple of days and you know, can he actually win the tournament?

Probably not. I'm going to do it because I think there is some value in the number, but I think they're intriguing GPP targets if you're trying to get into that $6,000 range. And to preface it, I don't think you necessarily have to be down there. I think you can construct builds and live in the 7,000s to wrap up lineups. But like the Stanleys, the Redmonds, the Hans, there are plays down there if you are dart throwing.

Yeah. And I kind of like the point that you brought up with doc. I always try and tend to like, if you look at, and actually Stanley kind of falls into this category a little bit as well. But if you look at doc, you're going to see a lot of missed cuts. Um, but yeah,

If you dig into it a little bit further, there are some trend lines that show that at least his ball striking is getting a little bit better. And just last year at this time last year during the fall swing, Redman was like one of the best iron players on tour. So I think there's a pretty good buy low opportunity with some of these guys that have missed a bunch of cuts in a row. But if you dig into the statistics, you can see that they are at least trending in the right direction and

you know, there's a lot of different ways to miss a cut, right? Like you can miss a cut on the number. It's a lot different than missing the cut by four or five strokes and, and losing a couple of strokes, uh, T to green to the field and stuff like that. So there are, there are a lot of different ways to look at that. I like that. Anyone else before we do a little quick, uh, quick recap and then get out of here, my friend.

No, that's probably it for me. I mean, like sure, there's a couple playable guys down there, but I'm not trying to get too stuck in this range for the most part. Yeah, I'm with you. Okay. So for me, I have a big bet on Xander at seven to one, seven to one. I have a bet on Matt Wallace at 70 to one as well. And I think I'm probably going to add

Carlos Ortiz because I still see a 66 available to me as well. And I think that's a very fair number for Ortiz in this field. And I'll probably be a little bit overexposed to outrights if I have those three than I usually am in a given tournament just because the nature of the Zander bet and what I have to place on that to get the return that I'm looking for. But I think overall it will be a lower tier.

tournament lower exposure week for me I think kind of the only guys that I was looking at in the top 20 is yeah we mentioned pan I like Norlander I like Perez a little bit maybe I'll throw something down on Stanley and then you may have sold me a little bit on Brendan Todd as well what about for you

Yeah. So I will run these through with the exact units I have, what I'm betting to win and the number I got it for. So 0.32 units to win eight on Tommy Fleetwood at 25 to one 0.28 to win 7.84 on Joaquin Neiman at 28 to one 0.16 to win eight on Chris Kirk at 50 to one 0.14 to win 7.7 on

on Ryan Palmer at 55 to one. I have my big bet on Todd 0.20 to win 16 at 80 to one. And then my two dart throws of Redmond 0.05 to an eight at 160 to one and James Han 0.04 to win 8.4 at 210 to one. Um,

I will throw out a couple other bets just that I have. I don't love full tournament head-to-head wagers for no-cut tournaments because of the volatility. I released one for Roto Baller last week where I had Joaquin Neiman over Mark Leishman. That bet was pretty much a winner, and then it wasn't a winner on Sunday. So I like having that equity of missing cuts. So instead, I'm going to play a lot of these in tournament plays, and I'm also going to use the top 20, 30, 40 market

as more of my head to head gauge with that. So, uh, for a first round play, Chris Kirk minus one Oh five over Ricky Fowler. That is on draft Kings. I just think Fowler has received way too big of a boost in most markets. Uh, the matchup against Kirk as a whole is closer to the territory. He should be for the week, but Kirk is one of the most undervalued targets I have on the board. Uh,

you could legitimately flip the two of them in price and I would think it's more proper. And that's probably more of a DraftKings answer than anything, but we can still use that to our advantage here. And then as I mentioned with the top 40, 30 markets with this, I have Andrew Putnam and these are all on FanDuel, by the way. It's the only...

uh, market that I've seen that is offering top thirties and forties, but Andrew Putnam minus one Oh five to come in the top 40, Chris Kirk minus one 20 to come in the top 30, Brendan Todd minus one 35 to come in the top 40. And that's about as big as I'll ever play a top 40.

40 bet. But to me, that's essentially a head to head wager against half the field. If he can beat half the field, you'll win the bet. If he doesn't beat half the field, you're going to lose the bet. And I think there's a lot of value there with how weak the bottom of the board is. And then the only one I am considering that I have not done anything yet with would be Pat Perez, whether that is in the top 20, 30 or 40 market, he's minus 135 in the top 40 with as volatile as he is. I'd probably rather play it as a top 30 at a plus number. I believe that is plus one

30 or 40 there. You could play it a little bit deeper in the top 20s. But one of the reasons why I always like to go a step off of what I think is proper, just because numbers move. And I want to make sure that I'm in a market that you can get readily available. I think it's a good price there. And then if you decide to play some of these a little bit higher, that's kind of on you as a decision there. But that's my card for this week.

Spencer Aguiar, everyone. Spencer, thank you so much for joining me one last time, my friend. Please, you're doing a bunch of stuff right now. It feels like every single week you're adding something to your arsenal. So why don't you tell everyone where they can find you this week? Give the full plug on everything. You're doing a lot right now.

Yeah, so you can find me every week on multiple platforms. As you said, I do a show for Golf WRX called Be The Number. It's a data intensive show where I break down the week from a DraftKings perspective. I can also be found over at Winn Daily Sports and Rotoballer. At Winn Daily, I do a live Tuesday show at five o'clock Pacific time with Sia Najad and Joel Schreck.

I have my better golf podcast that I host with my good friend sticks picks. Uh, that is a show, as I mentioned, that's in the same wavelength as yours. So if you like Andy show, you'll definitely like that show. And then I write a handful of articles for roto ball or most notably a draft Kings embedding column. Uh, I have my internment model that I released where,

I try to make sense of all the data that we receive for an event. And of course I have my pre-tournament model where you can make a copy of it for free to do your own research. So you can find me on Twitter, Instagram at TF sports. You can find my two shows on Twitter at be the number pod and better golf pod. And it's always a pleasure talking to you, Andy. I really appreciate you having me on the show again. Thanks buddy. And we'll do it again soon. I wanted to schedule for schedule for,

schedule you for a tournament where day wasn't playing just to see if we were able to handle it. But I'm definitely going to get, I know that he mentioned, I made a joke with you on Twitter. I don't think we're going to see him till the farmers, right?

Uh, yeah, he's not going to have a very big schedule and maybe he needs to rest his body. And I made a joke with you that I'm not going to know what to do without talking about him, but, um, you know, maybe it's for the best that we don't waste an hour talking about Jason Davey. Cause as you said, for the masters, I mean, we had a very in-depth reason for why we thought he was going to win and I'm not so sure he's made a cut since then, but, uh,

Obviously, I'd love to have you on any of my shows whenever you're free. Congratulations again on your job. It's very well deserved. Thanks so much, buddy. Look forward to doing it again soon. And best of luck with the bats this weekend. We'll talk soon, my friend. All right, that's it for the show. Special thanks one more time to Spencer. I will be back next week for the Bermuda Championship. See you guys next time.

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