Recap - PGA Championship
Let me start with holy crap. What a win by Brooks and what an unbelievable showing by him, Viktor (thank god we already have him 28-1 to win The Open), and some of those other guys, especially Michael Block. That course was BRUTAL!
That all said, it is probably going to sound stupid but I am sooooo happy with that 4.4u loss. I honestly thought at times I was going to come here and have to talk about an absolute disaster of a week that was 10+ units in losses and really it felt like we were headed there for most of it.
Thankfully Patrick Cantlay, Mito (!!), our late T40’s and a couple of matchups came down on our side and saved me (and us) from a shit show of epic proportions. Oak Hill kicked my ass and I did a terrible job handicapping. I am grateful it wasn’t a bigger slaughter for me and us.
I believe in transparency and those miss-cut bets were just clearly poor handicapping on my part. I whiffed badly. On the flip side, there was the Rickie T40 one that I honestly still feel really good about even though he missed the cut. Go figure.
Alright, back to a normal golf tournament in the Dallas metroplex before we head up to Ohio for an elevated event!
Charles Schwab Challenge
The PGA Tour wrapped up its second major and now heads back down to Forth Worth, Texas to visit Colonial Country Club. This 87-year-old course has hosted an annual PGA tournament since 19461 and plays to a par 70 across ~7,200 yards.
While this is not an elevated event and a relatively short course, this course is no joke (it has hosted a US Open for a reason) and often brings in some of the best golfers in the world. The key stat this week is going to be strokes-gained-approach as this is ball strikers paradise and it will be a pretty good test of the 120 men taking part, including Michael Block!
The 2022 edition saw Sam Burns (30-1) shoot -9 and beat his best friend and Texan Scottie Scheffler (14-1) in a playoff. The 2021 edition saw Jason Kokrak (-14) capture his 3rd Tour win, this time at 50-1 odds, when he beat Texan Jordan Spieth (11-1) by 2 strokes, and 2020 saw Daniel Berger (-15) capture his 1st title in 3 years at 80-1 odds when he beat Collin Morikawa (40-1) in a playoff.
The event’s 72-hole record is -21 (259) which was shot by 2022 US Presidents Cup Captain Zach Johnson in 2010. Ben Hogan has the record for Colonial titles with 5 victories. Burns will attempt to become the 2nd man to defend his title in this event after Ben Hogan, who went back-to-back twice!
Let’s get to this week’s card (about 9.4u of risk):
Outright2:
0.5u on Tony Finau +1400
0.5u on Sungjae Im +2000
0.25u on Russell Henley +4000
0.25u on Stephan Jaeger +6600
T10:
1.65u on Scottie Scheffler -165
0.25u on KH Lee +525
T203:
1.5u on Tony Finau -150
0.65u on Sungje Im -130
0.5u on Chris Kirk +125
0.25u on KH Lee +175
0.25u on Andrew Putnam +235
0.25u on Benny An +260
Matchups
0.815u on Nick Taylor over Joseph Bramlett -163
0.815u on Andrew Putnam over Will Gordon -163
0.345u on Alex Smalley over Justin Suh -138
0.33u on Ryan Palmer over Billy Horschel -132
0.3225 Alex Noren over Matt Wallace
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Daily Fantasy
For those unfamiliar with Daily Fantasy, this is a game you can play (I use Draft Kings) where they give you a budget and use allocate that budget to golfers and use their scoring criteria to try and win money. The dollar values you see below are the “salaries” for each golfer I select. You can mirror what I do, do your own thing, or do some combo and as always I am just showing what I am doing, and is good for me.
Last week my picks were a dumpster fire and the only thing keeping them from floating down a flooded road was the fact that in 3 of my match-ups others were somehow even worse. Let’s try again with a very small outlay this week (around $40)
Finau 10,700
KH Lee 8,300
Jaeger 8,100
Benny An 7,900
Fox 7,500
Detry 7,400
Remaining Budget 100
Good luck with all your action!
This is the longest a single course has hosted a non-major annually on Tour
As my guy Brad Thomas said on Twitter - it seems like it is a week to single Scottie or pick 3 guys that aren’t going to win. I do not think he is wrong, but I can’t take Scottie at +450 (where he is right now). If I could bring him up to 10-1 then I am all for that using a parlay so I am going to try to do that too as well as using T10 for most of my risk on him. I also like Spieth this week, but his wrist scares me so I am still debating if I use him in degen parlays. If I had to add a 4th name to my list I would go with KH Lee at 80-1 odds.
It is enough risk at this point, but Kurt Kityama was VERY close to making this list