Welcome welcome welcome. Ryan Fox came through last week! Let's try to avoid Scottie ruining the week for us this week in MN.
Course Preview
Alright, we are getting into the late-middle of the season where we can really start to lean on the last 6 months of data. Especially in a weak field, the separator is usually recent form. No real surprise there, just like after Scottie Scheffler missed the cut at the Genesis Scottish Open, his projection for the next event doesnt change much but for a player like Casey Jarvis that spike in Scotland is what can drive another good performance like he had at Royal Birkdale.
This course feels like it offers a really good balance from T2G. I kind of love it. Looking at the profile of the course...lots of drivers. we have 9 tee shots between 290-310 and 7 of those are 300+. So drives are important. The Driving Distance penalty is +0.15 which is more than a typical pga tour event. And then on top of that, our Driving profile chart leans Driving Accuracy.
So what does this tell me? I find this to be a unique combination of players gaining OTT, above average for rDD (Driving Distance) and for rDA (Driving Accuracy). So whether you want to call that total driving, essentially we want players hitting more fairways than average but can't afford to play anyone that is also shorter than the tour average. Here is a look at the best players in both categories over last 6 months.
From there, there isn't much unique. The best Approach players haven't always fared the best, and certainly the ARG and PUTT numbers are very volatile here. So that's where I am starting, using the basis of the lead-in stat correlations which revolves around SG Total, T2G, Spectrum T2G and Bogey Avoidance, and then adding in the specialty driving splits.
For thos looking at course comps. here are what we have.
WeatherIQ
Looks great this week overall. No commentary necessary.
Thursday:
Friday:
CORE PLAYS
ELITE
Scottie - nuff said. His SG expectation this week is 2.4 strokes per round...next best is 0.67 Kitayama. Certainly 2 distinct builds with balanced and Scottie, and as always, my advice is to match the field or get close. So basically 1 in 3 or 4 should be a Scottie lineup. They are ugly and in SE or handbuilds I wouldn't play him, but for GPPs, we can get to some punts and make him work. Otherwise, don't feel a need to jam him in.
Kitayama
Keith Mitchell
Jake Knapp
Koivun
Ghim
MID
Suber
Woodland
Jordan Smith
Ben James
Sudarshan
Rasmus Neergard Petersen
Steven Fisk
VALUE
Stefano Mazzoli??! Out of nowhere and crushed last week. Might as well hop on and maybe people weren't paying attention.
Cam Champ
Kevin Roy
Jimmy Stanger
McGreevy
Glover
Bauchou
Honestly the 6k really sucks. low 7s is loaded and then drops off a cliff. This makes the scottie builds uncomfortable but also helps you lean into the variance. Now, if you want to play scottie and hang out in the low 7s
BETS THIS WEEK
Honestly, probably need to take a look at why we don't have scottie winning more this week, we are about half of what the market suggests despite being nearly 2 shots better than the next best player. With that said, the "NO" at 75 cents on Kalshi seems like the best value, but I feel silly laying -300 for him NOT to win in this field. For that reason, I am playing these mid to long shots.
A lot of people on Koivun and Ben James, I like those too, especially Ben James, but here is where I landed in our sims.