Here's everything you need to know about the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course — our expert PGA Tour predictions and betting picks for Thursday.
The run of no ShotLink/StatTracker continues at this week's 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
That is never ideal since the ability to pull historical information from a course is 90% of what my model tries to find weekly, although I will say that what you see is primarily what you get from Port Royal.
While the track plays straightforward with its 6,828-yard measurement, the layout provides an uncommon background when we look at the distribution of the yardage. Most of the hidden length is baked into three par-3s that range between 213 to 235 yards. That group will rank as your three most challenging stops daily because of their Bogey or Worse Rate that ranges from 26% to 31%
The most abnormal part of that answer is when you dive into the historical finishes for top-10 producers over the past four seasons and how it has shown that the par-3s are the most impactful range to finding high-end success. That does flip when looking at just cut-makers, suggesting earning shots on the par-4s or par-5s will be most crucial in making the cut.
Still, those metrics separate the genuine contenders from the rest of the field when you need to salvage a score in one location and produce birdies when the opportunity presents itself elsewhere.
If you only do one of those two things, you will limit your upside or safety. However, I tend to think this is a good course for modeling, even if we don't have the long-term data we would hope to see because of the lack of StatTracker.
If you haven't already, you can find me on Twitter (@TeeOffSports). There, I provide a link to my pre-tournament model, a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user input to create custom golf rankings. That sheet is released every Monday, so be sure to check it out and construct your own numbers from my database of information.
Butterfield Bermuda Championship Thursday Matchups
Lanto Griffin -115 Over Stewart Cink (bet365)
One of my favorite plays this week landed under a similar mentality as we are going to get into here when looking into Davis Riley -125 over Stewart Cink for the entire event.
That was my best bet on this week's Links + Locks podcast because of Cink's current nosedive with his driver. You can hear a deeper breakdown of that bet if you listen to this week's show and why I am trying to fade the 50-year-old when possible.
Many of my answers there will be transferable to this section over one round of golf. Obviously, some of the volatility during only 18 holes will enter the mix for a matchup that has sharp markets quickly rushing to oppose both Lanto Griffin and Cink. Still, Griffin's run to begin the fall may demonstrate more safety than we saw throughout most of 2023.
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Three consecutive appearances on the weekend since the Sanderson Farms have generated a better built-in floor, and while his irons will leave something to be desired, these short courses that present slow and soft green complexes have been his best chance for success over the past two years.
I always talk about how these matchups stem from finding an opponent to take on versus one you are trying to back. That narrative will change marginally for the next head-to-head bet below. Nonetheless, I am comfortable opposing one of my top-five mispriced golfers on the board and doing so with an underrated commodity in Griffin.
Five Most Overpriced Golfers In The Field
Brandon Wu -115 Over MJ Daffue (FanDuel)
It appears we have gotten an overcorrection to the market because of MJ Daffue's respectable finish last week at the World Wide Technology Championship and Brandon Wu's nine-straight tournaments outside the top 30.
Not all courses are built the same. Specific venues will provide an increase/decrease to a player's projected equity based on numerous factors. I can't say Daffue experienced a massive divergence in that area since we are still talking about the 36th-best golfer in my sheet for this event, but the value enters the mix when you realize most books have the South African as a top-20 talent.
That disparity is often worth diving into deeper if it means we can grab a golfer who is more solidified into the price range of the matchup, which is where Brandon Wu's massive upside continues to pop off the page of my model.
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Wu has posted back-to-back top-35 showings at the property because of a skillset grading him as a top-10 win equity choice on the board.
I definitely have found myself with a lot of weekly exposure when we look into all the bets I have made on the Stanford Cardinal this week, but I always attack my edges aggressively. It doesn't mean my math is guaranteed to land us a bunch of winners, but exploiting those advantages will be beneficial in the long term.
Bonus First-Round Leader Bets
| Golfer | Odds | Risk/Win |
|---|---|---|
| Doug Ghim | 50 | 0.06/3 |
| Thomas Detry | 40 | 0.07/2.8 |
| Davis Riley | 50 | 0.06/3 |
| Troy Merritt | 70 | 0.04/2.8 |
