Recap - Farmers Insurance
MATTHIEU PAVON!!!!!!!!! For those of you who are relatively new here, Monsieur Pavon is quite important to this Substack as we cashed 90-1 last year with his win in the Open de Espana, Ever since that weekend, I have watched his game and have fallen in love with it. I could not have been happier that we get to see him on the PGA Tour1 week-in and week-out.
Now, you all are tired of me telling you that you need to join the Gamblers Paradise Discord, but had you listened to me you would have seen me say this on Thursday afternoon:
Which turned into this winning ticket:
Now, that ticket will NOT be tracked as part of the substack as that was not a play through here, but all of my plays that I give out on Discord are tracked and we are turning a huge profit (+54u already in 2024) soooooo please come join. You are truly missing out:
Now let’s get to the rest of our card. Frankly, other than Hossler making a small charge on Sunday the card was pretty disappointing from an outright perspective. Day, Im and Min Woo Lee never really contended, and 2 of them didn’t even make the cut!
My blushes were saved by Hossler (+525) and Finau (+300) having good Sundays to cash our Top 10 bets, and Hossler (+250) and Hubbard (+550) both cashing in the Top 20 space to help bring us close to even. Oh, not to mention two pretty sweat-free match-up wins, which included Monsieur Pavon.
All in, a small loss, but the memories will last a lifetime.
AT&T Pebble Beach
The courses:
The PGA Tour continues its West Coast swing2 while staying in California with a trip to lovely Pebble Beach! Similar to The American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open, this is another tournament that leverages multiple courses. While they played across 3 courses last year, we will only see 2 courses this week, but they are 2 of the best courses in the country:
Pebble Beach Golf Links
Par 72, 6,816 yards
Designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant
Has hosted 7 men’s majors (6 US Opens and 1 PGA Championship)
Features some of the smallest greens on Tour with an average area of 3,500 square feet
Poa greens
Spyglass Hill Golf Course
Par 72, 7,035 yards
Designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr.
Has 5 holes that are exposed to the coast but the other 13 are tree-lined to limit the effect of the winds
Course record 62 by Phil Mickelson (2005) and Luke Donald (2006)
As with most tournaments with multiple courses, the golfers will see each of the courses over the first two days while rounds 3 and 4 will be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
You will hear a lot about this tournament is a “Pro-Am” and it is one of the biggest Pro-Am events of the year. What this means is that while the normal PGA Tour event is taking place, there is an entirely other event where each professional golfer is matched with an amateur golfer. This year, the Pro-Am event will take place across the first 2 days and only the professionals will move on to the weekend.
Last year this was not a signature event, but now that it is one there is no cut this week and we have a limited field with only 80 guys fighting for the big checks and increased FedEx Cup points. Here is a list of the men who have qualified for the event.
Something else we need to take into account this week is that the weather is looking awful so do not be surprised if there are multiple stoppages and if we end up with a Monday finish.
Prior results:
2023 - Justin Rose (35-1) won for the first time in 4 years when he shot a -18 to beat Brendon Todd (60-1) and Brandon Wu (100-1) by 3 strokes
2022 - Tom Hoge (60-1) won his first and only PGA Tour event when he shot -19 to beat 2nd favorite Jordan Spieth (12-1) by 2 strokes
2021 - Joint 3rd favorite Daniel Berger (18-1) shot -18 to beat Maverick McNealy (80-1) by 2 strokes
2020 - Nick Taylor (160-1) shot -19 to beat Kevin Streelman (80-1) by 4 strokes
If you would like more history on winners at Pebble, Ron Klos (as always) has published the winners going back to 2010, along with their odds.
Last year’s first-round leader Hank Lebioda shot a 63 on his way to a T15 finish. Justin Rose, who ultimately won the tournament, found himself 6 shots off the pace after the first round.
Justin Rose will look to become the 7th man, and first since Dustin Johnson did it in 2009 and 2010, to win this tournament in back-to-back years.
The record for most AT&T Pebble Beach wins is held by Phil Mickelson and Mark O’Meara who each claimed 5 victories at this event. The 72-hole record is held by Brandt Snedeker who shot -22 (265 strokes) in 2015. Only 2 players have won the AT&T and the US Open at Pebble Beach, Tom Kite and Tiger3.
Last year we did not bet Pebble Beach.
The bets:
The weather could absolutely wreak havoc this week on the Tour and we are seeing now 4 weeks in a row where triple-digit golfers are coming across the line, so it does seem like it is the time to shorten the card and go for chalk, but when they all zig, we zag so I am going to extend the card to 7 names and include several golfers who have done well on this course before and/or have played well recently or both (Mr. Hossler!)
I also considered Xander, Max Homa, and Collin4 for the top spot on my card as they do show value in my numbers, but I worry about Xander's inability to make putts, Max looked tired last week, and Collin’s swing during his collapse on Thursday of last week was everything that went poorly all of last year. I also took long looks at Sungjae (I seem to always be off on rating him), Jaeger (his choking is enough for me to pass), Harris English (I just don’t like his game), and Si Woo (he was tough to leave off).
We also have to take into account that we have the Bahrain Championship this week (link to picks pending). As such, I am going with 7.4u of risk this week:
Outright:
0.75u Jordan Spieth 20-15
0.34u Tommy Fleetwood 45-1
0.28u Benny An 55-1
0.22u Beau Hossler 70-1
0.18u Keegan Bradley 90-1
0.16u Patrick Rodgers 100-1
0.15u Adam Hadwin 110-1
T10 (0.25u each):
Xander Schauffele +135
Jordan Spieth +200
Tommy Fleetwood +320
Keegan Bradley +550
T20
1u Jordan Spieth -125
0.5u Beau Hossler +175
0.5u Keegan Bradley +210
0.25u Stephan Jaeger +225
0.25u Adam Hadwin +250
0.25u Kurt Kitayama +350
0.25u Mark Hubbard +3756
Matchups7
0.72u Seamus Power over Riley Davis -144
0.3225u Patrick Rodgers over Taylor Montgomery -129
0.2875u Matthieu Pavon over Keith Mitchel -115
Programming note - next week’s WM Open picks will be paywalled for 24 hours as a thank you to those who provide financial support to this Substack.
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Daily Fantasy
This will be back next week with a full field event
Good luck with all your action!
For those who do not know, as a reaction to LIV, the PGA Tour and the DPWT created a special partnership last year that meant that the top 10 players in the final Race to Dubai rankings would get PGA Tour cards (if you already had one, it went to the next guy). As such, coming down the stretch that Sunday as we were cheering on Nicolai Hojgaard cashing 25-1 for us, Pavon needed to birdie each of his last 4 holes to get the final PGAT card. He was able to do that and pipped Rasmus Hojgaard (Nicolai’s twin brother) for that final card. Now a guy who had to work his way up from the Challenge Tour, spent 7 years on the DPWT before his first win, and got his PGA Tour card on his final stroke of the year is now a PGA Tour winner, has a PGA Tour exemption for 2 years, gets to play in the designated events (and the Masters), ohhhhhh and has now put himself in prime position to play in the Olympics in his home country! THIS is why I LOVE sports so much.
The PGA tour starts its main calendar with a West Coast swing (2 in Hawaii, 4 in Cali, 1 in Arizona), then it heads to Mexico for the Mexico Open before it heads to the Florida swing.
Tiger actually won both in 2000
If I had to take a shot with one of these guys via a parlay it would be Collin
I know this is going to be incredibly public of a pick but I keep looking at his name and I have to bet it.
Given he got engaged during this event on the 18th green, I think you have to bet him somewhere on your card. right?
If things had been going better for matchups longer term and the weather wasn’t predicted to be so bad I would have gone 1.08u and 0.645u of risk respectively for the first two matchups here