Jon Rahm seized control of the Genesis Invitational on Saturday at Riviera as his bogey-free round of 6-under 65 vaulted him to a three-shot advantage over Max Homa. Rahm did it with some really consistent play and certainly had some good breaks on errant shots, but he continues to show why he leads the conversation as the hottest and best golfer in the world, despite what the World Rankings may say. Rahm will look to close out his third win in five 2023 starts on Sunday.
Homa won't go down quietly and Keith Mitchell has certainly hung tough with two of the hottest players in the world. Unfortunately for them, it's a big hill to climb not only because of Rahm, but also because this course doesn't yield much to players coming from behind. I am unlikely to take a stab at beating Rahm, but I am sure we can find some other value going into the final round of the Genesis Invitational.
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 4
If you follow along in this column, you know I never like to pick a favorite as it's an uphill battle to do things that way in golf. I do however like to make a call on the winner and it's certainly hard to see any result on Sunday not ending with Rahm on top.
The added bonus here is that there seems to be a little bit of betting value on the Spaniard at DraftKings. Rahm is list at -275, implying a 73.33% win probability, while our friends at DataGolf give him a 74% likelihood of getting the trophy. It's a very small margin of value, but often times in this spot we get numbers that are completely unbettable and that isn't the case this time.
Rahm has already closed out two wins this year and has four victories dating back to October. Rahm will have no issue handling the moment and, on this course, he will have to give the others a lot of help for them to take the win in the final round.
We haven't seen much top-level ball striking from Luke List since his win at last year's Farmers Insurance Open, but he brought it with him to Riviera this week.
He is leading this elite field in SG: Approach this week, with more than nine shots gained with his irons. As is typically the case for List, the putter is holding him back from better results, but if he can find just a glimmer of play with the flat stick on Sunday, he could continue to climb for a top finish. He's just two shots short of the top 10 going into the final round and that will be my target play on him when placement odds open.
It's been quite a run of play to start 2023 for Rickie Fowler and while he isn't positioned right now for another top-11 result (like he has posted the past two weeks), I expect he will close out the week with a good Sunday.
Fowler seemed to find his swing a bit down the closing stretch of Round 3 as he birdied three of his final four holes and gained strokes on the field with both aspects of his ball striking on each of those holes. If he can carry that momentum into Sunday, a top-20 finish isn't out of the cards as he's only three shots from that position as things stand heading to the final round.
If the odds are juicy enough, Fowler can certainly be worth a flyer in the betting market and for final round showdown in DFS.
