Wilmington Country Club bit back on Friday at the BMW Championship, as the lead only moved one stroke from where it started.
Adam Scott will head into the weekend with a one shot lead at 8-under. He has a formidable group of chasers, though, with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler leading a pack of four players — including Jordan Spieth — who are just one shot back.
It sets up for a fantastic final two rounds of the second playoff event of the season.
More big names like Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay sit one shot further back, and are very much in the hunt.
Overall, 21 players are within four shots on a course that appears to be getting more difficult as we go through the week. If that continues, we could certainly be set up for a Sunday battle with many big names in the mix.
Saturday's third round will be a big key for players looking to position themselves for that push for the title on Sunday. I'll be looking for some top talents that may be able to work their way into the hunt.
Strokes Gained Explanation
Strokes Gained can give golf bettors, DFS players and fans way more detail on how a golfer has truly played by measuring each shot in relation to the rest of the field.
Using the millions of data points it collects, the TOUR calculates how many shots on average it takes a player to get the ball in the hole from every distance and situation. If a player beats those averages, he’s gaining strokes on the field.
Every situation in golf is different. Strokes Gained measures how players perform relative to the situation.
In this piece, we’ll touch on a variety of Strokes Gained metrics:
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green
- Strokes Gained: Putting
- Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (which is Off-the-Tee + Approach)
- Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (which is Ball-Striking + Around-the-Green)
In general, SG: Ball Striking and SG: Tee-to-Green are the most stable long term, while putting is more prone to volatility.
You can often find live-betting advantages by identifying golfers who are hitting the ball well, but are just not getting putts to drop. Likewise, players with high SG: Putting numbers may regress moving forward.
3 Golfers to Buy in Round 3
Cameron Young was one of my favorite plays to start this week, and through two rounds, he has done nothing to change that opinion. He has gained strokes on this elite field in every metric after the first 36 holes, and is certainly in position to contend for his first TOUR victory.
I'm going to take a stand early and predict that Young will follow up his Wake Forest roommate's win with one of his own this week. Young has all of the skills to get it done on this track, and even as well as he is playing, he still hasn't quite put it all together yet this week.
The odds are short, but if you want in, they may only shrink if he has the round I'm expecting on Saturday.
It seems pretty likely that we see someone from down the leaderboard put together a low round and find themselves in the hunt for Sunday.
I'll be willing to throw a dart down there and for me, I'm going back to Collin Morikawa.
He is now +6600 over on BetMGM after an abysmal day on the greens, where he lost more than three strokes to the field. He only lost one shot on the leaderboard, though, and is just five shots back heading into the weekend.
The bigger thing for me is that Collin seems to have found his iron game again, as he has gained nearly four shots on the field in that category across the first two days.
I won't put it past him to find the putter on Saturday and put together a low enough round to be in the mix for the title going into Sunday.
Quietly one of the hottest players on TOUR right now is Trey Mullinax. He has been on a nice run since his win at the Barbasol back at the start of July, and he carried that form into a top-five finish last week at the St. Jude.
Mullinax finds himself just outside of the top 20 going into the weekend here in Delaware, and while I don't necessarily see him contending, I do think he can be a viable play in all formats on Saturday.
He's gained shots on this field in every metric tee-to-green and just needs to get the putter going to really post some scores.
I'll be watching him for a potential move in Round 3 and shopping for odds for a top-10 type of finish from the Alabama alum.
3 Golfers to Fade in Round 3
It's become pretty clear through the first two rounds that you have to hit the ball well tee-to-green to hang in contention this week in Wilmington.
Jordan Spieth is the guy that stands out as falling short in that category going into the weekend, as he lost strokes to the field in both ball striking categories on Friday.
I know he carries around the magic beans with his short game, but I will take my chances here on a guy that only gained strokes on the field with half of his approach shots on day two.
There was a stretch of time close to the beginning of the year where Shane Lowry was seemingly in contention every week. He had a great chance to win at the Honda Classic and had a couple more top finishes at the RBC Heritage and the Masters.
It's been a few months since that run, though, and he has really struggled to find the top of the leaderboard since that time. I think we may see him start to fall off again this weekend at the BMW after he lost 1.75 shots to the field on approach on Friday.
Even with his spectacular short game, he needs to be firing with the irons to contend, and he seemed lost with those clubs in the second round.
I always get concerned about Sungjae Im when I see the ball striking start to fade. He is someone that seems to have trouble getting his game back on track when he loses it, and even with his 2-under round on Friday, he lost 1.49 shots ball striking, with a large chunk of those coming on approach.
He ended the week just barely in the negative last week in Memphis, and it certainly showed up again on Friday at the BMW. That has me leery of his game going into the weekend.
