It continues to be disappointing that the PGA Tour can't figure out how to finish rounds on time. From a betting perspective, this creates a trickle-down effect as books seem less inclined to post head-to-head wagers when the entire set of data and tee times are yet to be decided for the third round.
Our friends at Bet365 are one of the only shops with bettable options if you want to peruse their site and find something with tangible win equity. However, the fact remains that the lack of urgency to finish these days continues to impact the bottom-line for bettors. Without an assortment of varying matchups, the markets become stale. And with a stagnant market, there becomes a monopoly on pricing. That is terrible news for bettors, so let's hope golf stops normalizing these unfinished days.
If you haven't already, you can find me on Twitter @TeeOffSports. There, I will provide a link to my pre-tournament model, a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs 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.
Genesis Invitational
Lee Hodges
My model believed Lee Hodges was the 76th-ranked player from an overall perspective entering the week. However, none of that even scratched the surface when talking about his value or upside.
Frankly, I have found that results like Hodges' will almost always fall under a complete outlier or anticipated mark when you dive deeper into the numbers (there is rarely an in-between). My model happened to grade the American as one of the biggest climbers when viewing someone's upside probability versus expected baseline before the event, which you can see in the list below.
I wouldn't necessarily advise anyone to alter the pre-event grade for one player if you weren't going to run a similar creation for everyone else, but if I modified Hodges' pre-event overall grade and replaced it with his upside total, the American would jump into grading as a top-30 golfer in my model when running 65% pre-event numbers and merging in 35% in-tournament stats.
None of that suggests the 27-year-old doesn't have faults or issues he might need to overcome if he wants to maintain his spot with the top golfers in the world, but his $6,300 price tag on DraftKings is the biggest mistake my math sees for Saturday. I've always noticed that taking a shot at the possibilities a bargain-bin option provides versus their floor works extremely well for showdown contests.
Xander Schauffele
I included my top-10 golfers from a head-to-head ranking stature for those who might find pricing at one of their shops. Eight of the 10 names are ranked inside the top-12 of the leaderboard, but it was Xander Schauffele who yielded the highest underachieving mark in the field when I compared his baseline output with his short game to his actual performance over two rounds.
Schauffele's typical expectation at this point, when it comes to the way he is striking the ball, should have him closer to three-under par than what we have received over the opening two rounds. This feels like a savvy spot to jump back in on the golfer my model ranked first overall pre-tournament. Expect to receive a massive ownership decrease on DFS sites after his slow start to the week. I tend to believe gamers are too unforgiving and overweigh small sample sizes.
