Recap - John Deere Classic
Looked like it was going to be mostly a lost weekend when we went to bed Friday only to have Alex Smalley go super low and get right into the mix for Sunday.
Then we get to Sunday and Sepp Straka put on an absolute show and Smalley could not really get going off the tee or with the putter enough to get there. In the end, we drop a couple of units this week and while I do not like losing that is not a disaster by any stretch.
Hard to get too upset with having Shenk in the Top 10, more or less a split on head-to-heads and a 40-1 shot with a real chance coming down the last 5 to 6 holes. I always say that these super low tournaments are really hard to handicap and I am personally happy that we have those behind us now and we are going to be getting the big boys back at a super fun tournament across the Atlantic…..oh and do NOT worry, I will actually also have coverage of the Barbasol tomorrow!
Genesis Scottish Open
This week the PGA Tour joins up with the DP World Tour for the Scottish Open as the last opportunity to play yourself into the Open Championship next week. The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland (an Edinburgh suburb) will play to a Par 70 across ~7,250 yards as it hosts the Scottish National Championship for the 5th time.
When thinking about The Renaissance Club it is important to call out the brutal 18th hole; here is a great hole-by-hole from Golf Digest. As Justin Ray points out, it was the only hole on the PGA Tour last year that had more bogeys/worse (251) than pars (205).
While this tournament is being played the week before The Open it always has rather a strong field but I always wonder how much of that is guys really trying to win vs those trying to get tuned up on links golf1 before they head to Royal Liverpool. This edition will have 20 of the top 30 and more than half of the top 65 in OWGR.
Weather in Scotland can be a huge factor in these tournaments. As Ron Klos points out, in the 4 playing at this course the course has played -1.87 in calm conditions and +0.96 in wind/rain. This week the temps appear to be in the high 70s and low 80s with really high humidity. They do not expect the wind to be that high, but there is rain in the forecast for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
The 2022 edition, which was the first to be sanctioned by both the PGA and DP Tours, saw Xander Schauffele (18-12) capture his 2nd win in 3 weeks and his 3rd of 3 wins in 2022 when he shot -7 to beat Kurt Kitayama (200-1) by 1 stroke. The 2021 edition saw Min Woo Lee (-18) capture his 2nd DP World Tour title, this time at 100-1 odds, when he beat Thomas Detry (100-1) and Matt Fitzpatrick (25-1) in a playoff, and 2020 saw Aaron Rai (-11) capture his 2nd DP World Tour title at 50-1 odds when he beat tournament favorite Tommy Fleetwood (10-1) in a playoff.
The event’s 72-hole to-par record is -22 which was shot by Bernd Wiesberger in 2019 while the aggregate 72-hole record is held by Brandon Stone when he shot -20 across 260 shots in 2018. Weisberger’s -22 and 262 are the record for the event since it moved to the Renaissance Club.
Last year at this tournament we had a very mediocre week with a 0.9u loss which accounted for -10.8% ROI. I am going to be going for 10.75u of risk this week for this card, but be on the lookout tomorrow morning for my Barbasol Championship card!!
Outright3:
2u on Scottie Scheffler +700
0.75u on Tyrrell Hatton +2000
0.25u on Adam Scott +6000
0.25u on Ryan Fox +7500
T10:
0.65u on Scottie Scheffler -1304
0.25u on Tyrrell Hatton +165
0.25u on Wyndham Clark +300
0.25u on Adam Scott +475
T205:
1.5u on Xander Schauffele -150
0.65u on Tyrrell Hatton -130
0.5u on Adam Scott +185
0.25u on Luvig Aberg +200
0.25u on Ryan Fox +220
0.25u on Nicolai Hojgaard +300
0.25u on Robert McIntyre +320
Matchups
0.72u on Matt Wallace over Eddie Pepperell -144
0.6u on Padraig Harring ton over Thorbjorn Olesen -120
0.575u on Taylor Montgomery over Billy Horschel -115
0.55u on Calum Hill over Richie Ramsay -110
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Threads
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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.
I took a pass last week but this week I am going to take a swag.
Scheffler $11,600
Aberg $8,200
Scott $8,100
Fox $7,500
N. Hojgaard $7,300
Mitchell $7,200
Good luck with all your action!
For those unfamiliar with Links Golf, here is a good explainer
He was the 5th shortest odds. Rahm was 12-1 while Scottie and JT were 14-1 and Fitzpatrick was 16-1
This week I am going to focus my parlay action on (sorry to do this) Patrick Cantlay, Xander, and Fitzpatrick.
I am personally going to do this for 1.3u but limiting the risk in the official card as we have ANOTHER event to bet!
I debated Xander vs Cantlay hard in this spot at the same odds and really this just came down to how well Xander has played here the last 2 years.