Max Homa brought his putter with him this week to Chicago and it's always dangerous when he can pair it with his typically sharp game tee-to-green. Homa has gained more than six-and-a-half strokes on the field with the flatstick through two rounds and on Friday, he turned in an 8-under 62. He carries a two-shot lead into the weekend at Olympia Fields.
Homa's Saturday playing partner, Chris Kirk, will start the weekend at 8-under, one shot better than two recent major winners in Brian Harman and Matt Fitzpatrick. There's another gap from there as the next group comes in at 5-under, five shots back of Homa. World No. 1 and No. 2, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, headline that bunch, alongside other big names like Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose.
The stars are out in full force this week and it will be a battle to the end in the BMW Championship. I like the separation Homa has created because it provides value as we look to chase him down this weekend. However, he tends to be a closer when in this position, so we'll have to hope his putter cools off.
Strokes Gained Explanation
Strokes Gained gives 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 aren’t getting putts to drop.
Likewise, players with high SG: Putting numbers may regress moving forward.
2023 BMW Championship Round 3 Best Bets: 3 Golfers to Buy
This article has been built on the backs of chasing the players hitting it well, but putting poorly. Typically, that'd lead us to Scheffler. The issue with the best player in the world is that these putting issues have been a problem for way too long for us to expect him to bounce back in any given round. Scheffler's putting is a real issue and it's clearly eating at him as he again changed putters. If he could just putt to field level, he'd be running away with a number of tournaments as his ball striking and overall tee-to-green play is impeccable. Scheffler is again leading the field in SG: Tee-to-Green after two rounds. Unfortunately, he gave more than two of those shots back on the greens in Round 2 and is five strokes back of the lead going into Saturday. I'm buying Scheffler as we're getting a decent number with him a handful of shots behind, but I can't say I love it as we don't have a lot of reason to believe he'll find the putter over the next two rounds.
It hasn't been the season Xander Schauffele hoped for, but he did put together one of his better rounds in a while on Friday and I'm going to buy in on the hopes he can build on that this weekend. Schauffele is +2800 on DraftKings, which is a full 20 points beyond Scheffler despite being just one shot behind him after two rounds. I know Schauffele isn't in the elite stratosphere of Scheffler, McIlroy and Rahm, but he isn't as far behind as these numbers indicate. I'm taking my shot now at a nice long number after he was a full stroke better than the rest of the field tee-to-green on Friday.
I'm also backing Sungjae Im. I thought he'd breakthrough with another win after a hot start to his season, but he's faded lately. I still believe in the talent and a strong Saturday could put him in the mix. His +5500 price is just a bit too steep for me to overlook, so I'll throw a sprinkle on that and see what happens in the third round.
