Recap - WGC Match Play
End of the Group Stage: Well, that did not go as planned. We went 4-12 for 1.65 unit loss1, but that is why we aim small as we only miss small, and with this very unique tournament you have to be careful not to get out too far into risk. If you followed the stroke by stroke it do feel a bit hard done by our results given that McCarthy lost 4 of his final 5 holes on Wednesday to lose 1 up and Im wins his group if he doesn’t lose 4 of the last 6 holes on Thursday to lose 1 up. Let’s hope Cantlay can go on a run.
End of Elite 8: Well I thought Cantlay might have some magic for us, but it was clearly not meant to be. The reason I was so adamant about this being a high-risk tournament and the reason I didn’t personally bet Scottie is because you could end up with a guy playing well and losing or a guy playing poorly and winning and it is just so hard to predict. Oh well. 3.2u loss is nothing too big. Hopefully, Scottie can get it done for those of you who tried to go with him as a one-and-done.
Final Summary: Man-o-man, that was some AMAZING golf in those semi-finals. We were SOOOO close to an epic Scottie / Rory final, but both guys fumbled down the stretch of their matches and ended up in the consultation match. Sam Burns was a deserving winner (thought it was clear Cam Young was burnt out by the end) and he really does not get the credit he deserves for how good he is, but I want to talk about Cam Young. Last July, I wrote a whole section about how much I liked him and how I was going to bet him for the Masters 50-1 and PGA Championship 40-1. Now, I was wrong as he has yet to win, but he played so well this week that his odds are now 22-1 and 25-1, respectively. I can’t wait to see how he does next week in Georgia.
Valero Texas Open
The PGA Tour now heads from Austin to San Antonio for the Texas Open which dates back all the way to 1922!
This 144-person tournament takes place at TPC San Antonio’s Greg Norman-designed Oaks Course, where it has been contested since 2010. The course plays to a par 72 across ~7,435 yards.
Two key things to keep in mind:
The Masters is next week so this field will be a bit weaker than a normal tournament and it will be interesting to see how seriously the “bigger names” that are playing are taking this tournament if they have already qualified for the Masters. This is one of the main reasons I am staying away from some of the short-odds guys for outright bets like Hatton, Hideki2, Conners, and Si Woo though if you wanted to throw down on any of those guys outright, I would not hate it because if they are focused any of them could win.
While the final winning scores have been quite low, this course can play tough if the wind is blowing and traditionally plays pretty tough in the first 2 rounds. As such, last year was the first time since the tournament moved to TPC San Antonio that the cut line was below par (-1)!
The 2022 edition saw JJ Spaun win his first PGA Tour event by shooting -13 and beating Matt Jones and Matt Kuchar by 2 strokes. The 2021 edition was won by Jordan Spieth (-18) who beat Charlie Hoffman by 2 strokes and in 2019 Corey Conners (-20) beat Charlie Hoffman by 2 strokes3.
The event's 72-hole record is -27 was shot by Mike Souchak in 1955, while the lowest aggregate score was shot by Tommy Armour III (254) in 2003. Since the tournament moved to TPC San Antonio, the 72-hole record is -20 (268) by Corey Conners in 2019.
Nine men have won this tournament more than once, with Arnold Palmer and Justin Leonard leading the pack having each won 3 times. The winner of this tournament has defended his title 5 times, including Arnold Palmer who went back-to-back in 1960, 1961, and 1962!!!
Let’s get to this week’s card (about ~8.1u of risk):
Outright (0.25u each):
Chris Kirk +3300
Nick Taylor +6600
Beau Hossler +8000
Ryan Palmer +10000
T10 (0.25u each)
Si Woo Kim +260
Ryan Palmer +750
T20
1u on Si Woo Kim +120
0.5u on Chris Kirk +160
0.5u on Nick Taylor +220
0.5u on Ryan Palmer +350
0.25u on Byeong-Hun An +275
0.25u on Tyler Duncan +350
Matchups4
1.5u on Tyler Montgomery over Davis Riley -150
0.75u on Akshay Bhatia over Pierceson Coody -150
0.69u on Padriag Harrington over Erik Van Rooyen -138
0.69u on Joseph Bramlett over David Lingmerth -138
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Make sure you are coming over to the Gamblers Paradise Discord where we are chatting all things sports and better. The Discord is entirely free and there are a ton of folks on there talking about the bets they like, the games they are watching, and you can even get some of my picks early (like this week!)
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.
Let’s take a fun swag ($30 worth):
9,700 - Si Woo Kim
9,300 - Chris Kirk
8,900 - JJ Spaun
7,700 - Taylor Pendrith
7,400 - BennyAn
7,000 - Charlie Hoffman
Good luck with all your action!
EDIT NOTE: when first published these had placeholders. they have been updated
If you bet Hideki, keep in mind that he withdrew last week with a hurt neck
The 2020 edition was canceled after the first round due to the outbreak of COVID 19
I tried to keep action around 8u of risk this week so if you want more action here are two more matchups I like but didn’t make the cut and the reason why:
0.66u on Tyrrell Hatton over Corey Conners (-132) - My calcs say this should be a 0.5u bet, but the reason I am holding off is that Hatton is already qualified for the Masters so he could easily just be here for two days or look to wrap up early if he is not in contention
0.3225u on Chesson Hadley over Chad Ramey (-129) - My calcs say this should be a full unit, BUT Ramey has been playing really well so that scares me a bit here so if I was doing anything I would take a small shot like this