Sony Open - Recap
It is honestly hard to imagine how we didn’t end up with a winner in this tournament. We had a guy who is a former major winner and 6 time PGA Tour winner, including twice in the last wrap-around season sleeping on the lead, then taking the lead and just needing a birdie on the 2nd easiest hole on the course (which he did each of the first 3 rounds) to win the tournament and he could not get it done in either those scenarios. Thanks a lot Keegan!
We also had Henley who put in a good run on Sunday but just fell short. Nick Taylor and Putnam both tried their darndest to get back into contention but none of it was to be and we lost to a 500-1 shot. Cest la Vie.
Okay, enough whining about what didn’t work, let’s talk about what went right and that is about everything else!!
Top 10 bets went 3-1 including cashing Nick Taylor at JUICY +825 and JT Poston at +325. Those were great hits for us. We also crushed in the Top 20 market with our big Henley bet cashing +110, Keegan +225, Nick Taylor +350, and MY GUY Matthieu Pavon with a sexy juicy +550!
Yes, we dropped both head-to-head matchups and that blows, but this is the second tournament of the year and it is hard to not get excited as to how quickly we are getting dialed in. As we have seen the last few years, we tend to get close and few times, and then we rattle off a few winners in a short time. Let’s hope that trend continues!
The American Express
The course:
The PGA Tour’s West Coast swing moves from Hawaii1 to the California leg to play what is often referred to as the Desert Classic and traces its history back to the original playing in 1960 and through the years when it mostly carried the name of Bob Hope.
One of the things that makes this tournament unique is that while the entire tournament is played in La Quinta, California, the 156-man field will play across 3 courses:
La Quinta Country Club, par 72, 7,060 yards, designed by Lawrence Hughes
PGA West’s Stadium Course, par 72, 7,140 yards, designed by Pete Dye
PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament Course, par 72, 7,181 yards, designed by Jack
Given that they play across 3 courses, the cut will be made after 54 holes are completed so that each golfer can play one round on each course, with the final round being contested on the Stadium Course, which is by far the hardest of the 3 courses.
We have a pretty decent field this week with 22 of the top 50 in the OWGR playing, including 4 of the top 10! I would expect the winner here to be into the middle of the 20-unders so I think you really need to look for someone who can get hot with their putter and put up birdies in bunches
Prior results:
2023 - favorite Jon Rahm2 (13-2) wins his 2nd Amex when he shot -27 to beat Davis Thompson (250-1) by 1 stroke.
2022- Hudson Swofford (150-1) picked up his second Amex victory3 when he shot -23 to top Tom Hoge (125-1) by 2 strokes.
2021 - Si Woo Kim (55-1) shot -23 to beat tournament favorite Patrick Cantlay (14-1) by 1 stroke
2020 - Andrew Landry (200-1) shot -26 to beat Abraham Ancer (40-1) by 2 strokes
Ron Klos has published a list of winners and their odds going back to 2012 if you are interested.
Last year’s first-round leader was Davis Thompson, who shot a 62 on is way to a solo 2nd. Eventual champion John Rahm was 2 back after the first round.
We did not bet that Amex last year.
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The bets:
We have to keep in mind this week we have the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour (link to picks) when building our card, but actually the reason I mam reducing risk a little bit this week is really because of the uniqueness of them playing across 3 courses the first few days which is something I do not like and can lead to quite a bit of variability so I am going with 6.1u of risk:
Outright:
T10:
0.75u Scottie Scheffler -150
0.25u JT Poston +350
0.25u Jason Day +350
0.25u Eric Cole +350
T20
1u JT Poston +170
0.5u Tony Finau +160
0.5u Eric Cole +170
0.25u Cam Davis +220
0.25u Taylor Montgomery +225
0.25u Austin Eckroat +450
Prop
0.25u Cam Davis top Australian +2756
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds. I bet them as I write this so they are live within the 30 min or so of publication.
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 to allocate 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 usually only do this for full-field events so let’s take a swag
9,600 Day
9,100 Poston
8,400 Cam Davis
7,800 Hossler
7,600 Thompson
7,300 Eckroat
Remaining budget 200.
Good luck with all your action!
Note that, per Michael Kim, there were some struggles getting from Hawaii to Cali.
Rahm famously hated this tournament and in prior years was picked up on a hot mic calling it a “stupid fucking putting contest”
Funny enough Swafford-Rahm went back to back in 2017/2018 and 2022/2023
I know there are some higher numbers out there, but I unfortunately can’t seem to lay the amount of action I want / need at those numbers so I had to take this one
Okay, this is a player I generally really dislike and usually don’t bet on, but here is a fun stat for you: Cam Davis has 15 consecutive rounds under par at this event so I am going to take a stab at him with his good form last week and combine it with his “horse for course” nature at this event. Yes, he missed the cut last year, but he has historically played well here.
Before someone is a wise-ass and points out I bet two Aussie’s on my card, I really like the value on this one as I think the right odds are closer to +200.