Recap - US Open
Unfortunately, we were unable to recapture the magic that led us to a winner in last year’s US Open, but we were RIGHT there. I know it is easy to be disappointed in not having a winner after being so close, but I will tell you that I would happily sign up for T1, 3, and 4 going into the final round of EVERY tournament. Yes, there will be times it won’t work out, like yesterday, but in the long run, we will cash more than we lose.
One of the things that is most important is to understand why you lose. Well, yesterday Rickie was exceedingly mediocre, Scottie still couldn't really putt, Rory’s putting was atrocious and he couldn’t hit a wedge shot close to save his life. Wyndham withstood all those challenges to capture his first major. Congrats to him and all those who bet on him.
The other thing I want to point out is that I often talk about how my plan is to be profitable on the non-outright bets and we have not had that for a while here, but this week we got back on track for T10, T20, and T40 bets though match-ups remain a problem.
The Travelers Championship
The PGA Tour wrapped up its third major and now heads back to the east coast for a visit to Cromwell, CT to visit TPC River Highlands. This 95-year-old course was redesigned in 1984 by Pete Dye and has since then it has hosted this even. This course plays to a par 70 across ~6,8401 yards which makes it the 4th shortest course in the regular rotation.
This is an elevated event this year so this is the strongest field ever at this event with most trying to adjust their body clock coming off the grind that was LA CC and seeing a much easier course. Something to note is that in 14 of the last 19 editions of this tournament, the winner was decided by 1 stroke or via playoff so get ready for what might be big sweat on Sunday (also notable if you are a fan of prop bets).
The 2022 edition saw Xander Schauffele (16-12) capture his 2nd of 3 wins in 2022 when he shot -19 to beat JT Poston (200-1) and Sahith Theegala (150-1) by 2 strokes. The 2021 edition saw Harris English (-13) capture his 4th and most recent Tour win, this time at 40-1 odds, when he beat Kramer Hickok (300-1) in a playoff, and 2020 saw Dustin Johson (-19) win at 20-1 odds when he beat Kevin Streelman (150-1) by 1 stroke.
The event’s 72-hole to-par record is -25 which was shot by Tim Norris in 1982 while the aggregate 72-hole record is held by Kenny Perry when he shot -22 across 258 shots in 2009. Perry’s -22 is the record for the event since it moved to TPC River Highlands. Do not forget when Happy Gilmore won this tournament back when it was called the Waterbury Open!
Jim Furyk holds the course record of 583, which he shot during the final round of the 2016 Travelers and is also the lowest round in PGA Tour history! Billy Casper has the record for Travelers titles with 4 victories. Xander will attempt to become the 2nd man to defend his title in this event after Phil Mickelson won back-to-back in 2001 and 2002!
As can be seen from the history of this tournaments - any type of golfer can win this think and while the winner tends to be a shorter price, but there always seem to be long shots lurking at the top so I am going a bit longer on the T20 side with some longer shots and hoping to hit a couple of them. I am taking 9.9u of risk this week:
Outright4:
0.75u on Patrick Cantlay +1200
0.25u on Russell Henley +4000
0.25u on Sungjae Im +5000
0.25u on Si Woo Kim +5000
0.25u on Sahtith Theegala +5000
T10:
0.7u on Scottie Scheffler -140
0.25u on Sahith Theegala +550
0.25u on Harris English +700
T205:
1.75u on Patrick Cantlay -175
0.5u on Russell Henley +135
0.5u on Si Woo Kim +140
0.5u on Sungjae Im +160
0.25u on Tom Kim +220
0.25u on Harris English +300
0.25u on Mark Hubbard +500
0.25u on Justin Suh +500
Matchups6
0.645u on Brian Harman over Matt Kuchar -129
0.645u on Benny An over Kurt Kitayama -129
0.3175u on Mark Hubbard over Nate Lashley -127
0.3175u on Shane Lowry over Adam Scott -127
0.275u on Lucas Herbert over Billy Horschell -110
0.275u on Rickie Fowler over Matthew Fitzpatrick -110
0.25u on Denny McCarthy over Corey Conners +106
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 just okay. They had a small profit for one lineup and a small loss for the other. I am going to play the below but do it pretty conservatively:
Cantlay 10,200
Sungjae 8,700
Si Woo 8,000
Henley 7,800
English 7,700
Denny McaCarthy 7,600
Good luck with all your action!
9 of the 12 Par 4’s are less than 450 yards, incision the 15th hole which plays under 300 yards and is drivable
He was joint 4th lowest odds. Rory and Scottie were 9-1, Cantlay was 12-1 and Xander and Sam Burns were 16-1
Worth noting that the course record had been 60, which was set by Patrick Cantlay in 2011 when he was 19
This week I am going to focus my parlay action on Scottie (want to get him above 10-1), Cantlay, and Tom Kim (hoping to get him closer to 75-1 odds).
Stephan Jaeger +400 JUST missed this list
Again, not sure the deal with these not performing so I am again going to hold down the amount of risk I am going to take with these until I start to see positive returns. Two other matchups that had a fair bit of value but were just too juiced for me given my H2H performance so far were Scott over Rahm (-163) and Scottie over Rory (-184).