The first round of the Shriners Children's Open kicked off on Thursday from Las Vegas and a player known for his play at the tables, as well as on the course, is leading the way. Tom Hoge has the first-round lead after an 8-under 64, which featured two eagles and no dropped shots.
Hoge is looking to follow up his first career win, which came last season at the AT&T Pebble Beach, with another this week. He'll carry a one-shot lead into the second round over Si Woo Kim and Maverick McNealy. There are certainly other names lurking just behind them though as defending champion Sungjae Im is just two shots back and young star Tom Kim is also at 6-under. There are 20 players in total within three shots of Hoge's lead, creating a lot of value going into Friday. Let's take a look at who stands out to make a move before the second round.
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 2
Seemingly all of the attention around the local products from the Korn Ferry Tour was on Taylor Montgomery this week, but it was Harry Hall who broke loose on Thursday afternoon. His round of 5-under 66 puts him within just a few shots of the lead when he tees off on Friday morning.
Hall's round wasn't perfect by any means and he made a huge mistake with a complete mis-hit that would end up unplayable from the desert on the par-3 8th. He had to drop back at the tee box and walked off with a double-bogey five. Hall lost 1.76 shots on approach on that hole alone, skewing his overall data. He was also able to quickly shake that off and birdie his next three holes to close with a bogey-free back nine. Hall had a win and four other top-10 finishes on the KFT last season and is in position for another top finish near UNLV, where he played his college golf.
I'm going to carry a final round buy from last week at the Sanderson Farms into Round 2 at the Shriners Children's Open. Joel Dahmen seems to have really found something with his game as he was in a slump heading into last week before he gained 8.9 shots tee to green, including 4.5 on approach in a top-15 finish. He has carried that form into this week as he gained better than two strokes with his ball striking in the first round on Thursday in Vegas. He gets the preferred wave, heading out in the morning on Friday and he can fill a scorecard with birdies when he gets going. I'll take a shot on him early this week and at +6500 on DraftKings, he is a good value in a nice position, just three shots back going into the second round.
My best bet of the week, Lee Hodges, got off to a good start on Thursday, but he left some shots out there. He was really sharp with his game both on approach and around the green, but he simply couldn't get enough putts to fall. He'll head into the second round four shots back. After losing nearly two and a half shots on the greens, I am hoping for some positive regression with his putting the rest of the way.
Hodges will go out with the afternoon wave on Friday, but he confirmed my thoughts of this course fit for him. He is someone who has shown some form in this desert golf after finishing third at the AmEx earlier this year. If you're not in yet, I like adding the lefty to the card at +10000 on BetMGM going into Round 2.
3 Golfers to Fade in Round 2
Will Gordon flashed on the TOUR back in 2020 in a duel with Dustin Johnson at the Travelers Championship. He showed us a lot of talent at that time and he certainly uncovered it to gain his promotion from the Korn Ferry Tour last season. I know he has the talent to compete at this level, I'm just not sure he is quite ready to capitalize over four rounds. I'm simply in a wait-and-see mode on Gordon as he had a similar fast start last week in Mississippi before finishing 30th. I expect we see a lot of volatility from him early in this season and I'll wait to see a little more consistency before I buy in.
One player who is becoming a bit of a staple in this column is Patrick Rodgers. He likes to come out fast and put himself inside the top 20 in the opening round, but he consistently drops back down the field over the course of the week. Rodgers had just two top-20 finishes last season and hasn't had one of those results since June. I'll let the former Stanford Cardinal show me some results across multiple rounds before I buy in on this hot start.
The numbers for Kevin Streelman don't look good. He only gained strokes on the field with his approaches on five holes on Thursday, but he took advantage of a couple of those with birdies and kept his card clean throughout the round. He also holed out from off the green for birdie to help boost his round to the 5-under he posted on the day. Streelman is usually at his best when he is dialed in with his ball striking and gets enough from his short game to compete. He was too reliant on his game around the green for my liking Thursday and that's the reason for my fade going into Round 2.
