Cognizant Classic - Recap
Another tournament and another really disappointting showing by our outright grouping. Cam Young had a good Thursday, was mediocre on Friday but still in the mix. Saturday was not good and pretty much took him out of contention, though he did have a nice showing on Sunday / Monday morning to T4 finish (which easily cashed our Top 20 ticket).
After that, we did have a little hope from Doug Ghim and Beau Hossler in their final rounds to get up into place where we could cash tickets, but Beau’s round was not enough to stay in the Top 20 and Ghim was one stroke from being in the Top 10, though he was safely inside the Top 20.
We went 2-1 in the match-up market, and we have seen consistent performance in that category to start 2024. I want to see one more week before I push any more risk on those bets.
Arnold Palmer Invitational
The courses:
The PGA Tour continues in Florida with a trip to the Orlando suburb of Bay Hill to contest Arnold Palmer’s tournament! The Bay Hill Club & Lodge has hosted this event in early March since 1979 and utilizes the Dick Wilson-designed Challenge and Champion 9-hole courses to combine into an 18-hole course that plays to a par of 72 across ~7,460 yards.
This is a classic style golf course that is no picnic for the men taking part, especially if the wind is blowing. If you are going to win at Bay Hill you are going to need every part of your game working.
This course plays as long as it is listed incredibly tough par 4s and several long Par 5s. If you miss off the tee you will be faced with 3 to 4 inches of thick Bermuda rough that is overseeded with Rye or many bunkers and you have to be on the lookout as water is in play on half of the holes. As you approach the greens you will be faced with very firm and fast Bermuda grass so running the ball up tends to be the way to go.
Given this is one of the 3 player-hosted signature events we have a cut we have to figure out with only 69 men in the field so for this event, the cut will be the top 50, including ties, and also include every player within 10 strokes of the 36-hole lead if that extends past 50 players.
One of the other things to keep in mind this week is that his tournament is a direct qualification event for The Open.
Per one of my favorite people on gambling Twitter/X and Orlando area resident Lord Brad Thomas said this morning “Forecast for API looks clean. No rain in the forecast and moderate wind Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday the wind will be there with gusts up to 20-25 MPH”.1 I am also seeing there could be rain during the weekend but it is Florida and rain is something that is basically a given.
The cut line for the last five years has been +3, +4, +3, +4, +2.
Prior results:
2023 - Kurt Kitayama (200-1) won his first PGA Tour event when he shot -9 to beat Harris English (250-1) and Rory McIlroy (8-1) by 1 stroke
2022 - Scottie Scheffler (20-1) shot -5 to beat Tyrrell Hatton (30-1), Billy Horschel (40-1) and Viktor Hovland (18-1) by 1 stroke
2021 - 2nd favorite Bryson DeChambeau (13-1) shot -11 to top Lee Westwood (150-1) by 1 stroke
2020 - Tyrell Hatton (55-1) scored his lone PGA Tour victory when he shot 4 to best Marc Leishman (40-1) by 1 stroke
As always, Ron Klos is giving us on twitter the list of winners and their odds going back to 2010.
Last year’s first-round leader was John Rahm who shot a 65 to lead by 2 strokes on his way to a T39 finish (+1). Eventual winner Kurt Kitayama was tied for 2nd after shooting a 67 in round 1.
The event 72-hole stroke record was shot by the late Payne Stewart (264) in 1987, the to-par record is held by Buddy Allin’s -23 in 1973, and the record for wins in this event is Tiger Woods who won this event a stunning 8 times, most recently in 2013.
Last year’s API saw us lose 2.7u for a -30% ROI.
The bets:
I know folks will look at the list of winners and their odds this year and think you have to bet only long shots, but I think a balanced approach is best as this is a small sample size and all you have to do is look at the course history (thank you again Ron Klos for the work you do) to see names up and down the board that have value on a course that has big-time course trending year to year.
Given this is a signature event we have a BANGER of a field with 9 of the top 10 and 22 of the top 25 in the OWGR, but I just personally wish they had 90 guys, especially if they were going to do a cut.
I usually like to get into the guys who I think are going to be public plays but given the late ending of the Cognizant the odds boards opened late and I am not hearing a ton other than Ludvig Aberg was a hot ticket immediately. I would also expect Matt Fitzpatrick and Jason Day to be hot names this week.
I thought long and hard about betting 1u on Rory and being done with my outright card this week, but his putting performance last week was so bad that I can’t do it at 10-1 odds; maybe if that was 12-1. I had been targeting Min Woo Lee this week, but his performance puts him in a place where he is too short for me. I also took long looks at Jason Day (I am scared by how obvious he is), Scam Young (I can’t help myself and will be betting on him via parlay), Willy Z (see J Day explanation), Sungjae Im (He looked so bad last week, but he has an amazing course history), Rickie Fowler (he looks like he is starting to find his form), Corey Conners (he profiles well in my numbers but I can’t stomach betting him I do not think), and Chris Kirk (I think the pressure last week threw him off, but not sure if he will rebound that quickly).
Do not forget that we also have the Jonsson Workwear Open (link to picks) and the Puerto Rico Open (link to picks) as well this week so when building my card I am going with about 6.4u of risk:
Outright:
0.53u Sam Burns 30-1
0.46u Matt Fitzpatrick 35-1
0.32u Benny An 50-1
0.27u Keegan Bradley 60-1
0.18u Adam Hardwin 90-1
Top 10:
0.5u Rory McIlroy +100
0.25u Sam Burns +190
0.25u Matt Fitzpatrick +275
0.25u Benny An +350
T20
1u Sam Burns -135
1u Matt Fitzpatrick +100
0.5u Keegan Bradley +150
0.25u Adam Hadwin +170
0.25u Matthieu Pavon +200
0.25u Rickie Fowler +250
Matchups
0.345u Andrew Putnam over CT Pan -138
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Good luck with all your action!
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