Well, my cold streak has continued. After what looked like sure-things with Zalatoris and Im in the Top 10, they both imploded on Sunday. My Corey Conners outright got real close and at one point was only 2 back from lead on Sunday, until he made back to back bogeys on 12 & 13 to take him out of contention. It’s too bad “close” doesn’t count in betting. I’m getting crushed lately.
But, as the great Michael Jordan once said, “Just wait, the cards will change.” So we continue to power through and hope for some better bets. For what it’s worth, I did actually hit Scheffler live at +360 early on Sunday, which helped.
Now we move to The Players Championship; oft-referred to as the “unofficial 5th Major.” This is another hard course and it looks like the streak of good weather is ending this week also with rain and high winds in the forecast, at least at the beginning of the tournament.
TPC Sawgrass has plenty of trouble to get into. It boasts the most water danger holes on Tour, with 16. It also has the 9th most bunkers with smaller, very fast greens. It will be interesting to see how the rain will affect the speed of the greens. They have a sub-air system, but I haven’t seen anything on whether or not or even how frequently they will be running it.
That being said, accuracy off the tee will be important again this week, and playing through high winds will be ready to throw curveballs to guys that aren’t ready for it. The five stats that we will focus on this week are the following:
Good Drive % - On Par 4’s and 5’s, how often a player hits a fairway, or hits the green/fringe in regulation when they miss the fairway.
Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green - Comprehensive stat that combines SG:OTT, SG:APP, and SG:ARG.
Bogey Avoidance - With high winds and rain, guys that avoid bogeys will have an advantage. Just ask Daniel Berger and Talor Gooch.
Scrambling - How good are guys at saving par when they miss the green? Expect a lot of missed greens this week.
GIR% - Guys that can actually hit greens consistently will have a much better time this weekend.
Let's look at the names in the Top 10 in those stats:
Good Drive% - Morikawa, Harmon, Kisner, Oostheuizen, Berger, Conners, Stanley, Dahmen, Ancer, Armour
SG: T2G - Rahm, List, Zalatoris, Thomas, Berger, Morikawa, Fitzpatrick, Henley, Neimann, Im
Bogey Avoidance - Morikawa, Cantlay, Im, Berger, Thomas, Rahm, Burns, English, C. Smith, Spieth
Scrambling - Berger, Kuchar, Im, Cantlay, English, Hoge, Spieth, McCarthy, Hubbard, Thomas
GIR% - Rahm, Morikawa, Knox, Conners, C. Smith, Thomas, Oosthuizen, Glover, Burns, List
Outright:
Daniel Berger +3000 - He’s Top 10 in 4/5 categories above, and he’s 15th in GIR%. He played really well through 3 rounds at the Honda before blowing it on Sunday.
Hideki Matsuyama +2800 - He’s Top 30 in 4 of the categories above and ranked 30th in Good Drive %. He’s had some success already on Tour this season and has 2 Top 10’s and 2 MC’s in his last five trips to Sawgrass.
Top 10
Corey Conners +600 - He ranks no lower than 37th in 4 categories above. The only thing that strikes me is a 154th in Scrambling. He finished 7th here last year and T11 at a similarly hard course last week.
Collin Morikawa +190 - He’s the best iron player in the game right now, and you can get him to finish Top 10 at almost 2-1 odds. I’ll take that every day.
Top 20:
Shane Lowry +210 - Whenever there’s wind and rain and gross conditions, you can bet Lowry will be hanging around near the top. He finished 8th here last year.