Another round that couldn't finish in time. I continue to be at a loss for words about how the PGA Tour can't get through the day and provide us with complete data totals, but things could be worse this time around since matchups and other markets decided to get priced out for Friday. Thank goodness for that as we try to get some wagers going for the hybrid of rounds one and two!
If you are looking for how the day finished with the data we received, the image below reflects the top of the leaderboard. You will notice our pre-tournament favorites (Sungjae Im and Shane Lowry) sitting nicely through 18 holes, as well as notable moves from Billy Horschel and Christiaan Bezuidenhout up the safety portions of my model.
We will see if that continues as the event progresses, but the sub-standard quality from top to bottom has only helped the stars make some early moves up the pecking order.
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.
Honda Classic Picks
Nick Hardy +100 over Adam Schenk (DraftKings)
We got off to a great start on Thursday as Sepp Straka was able to take care of Garrick Higgo in round one. As I have alluded to over the past 72 hours, if you have access to any bets involving Higgo for Friday, I believe he is an intriguing option to take on once again. While that route is something I would highly consider, let's instead focus on a wager that has received too much of a boost on one side — Nick Hardy versus Adam Schenk.
In fairness, Schenk was one of the darlings from sharp bettors over the final 24 hours before options locked. That is noteworthy and something my model took into account on the back end of how I ran my algorithms for the event, but things sometimes reach a point where the movement becomes too extreme to warrant the price being offered.
My model had this appropriately priced at about -135 before it considered the steam that shifted Schenk into a more respectable area when running everything from a daily perspective. That gap closed even further after the American put together a steady output of gaining strokes in all critical factors. However, the -118 corrected price in Hardy's favor still generated about 18 points of value for us to consider.
When we look into what transpired Thursday, a "fair" score for each would have them tied at about one-under par. That suggests Schenk overachieved his expectation by about two strokes. However, it was Hardy who placed as one of the big underachievers for the day after yielding a three-shot disadvantage to his projection.
I don't want to twist my words here since we are marginally forcing a play that doesn't meet the 20-point threshold I typically want on a head-to-head wager. However, the same answer could have been given during the past five head-to-head calls we have discussed correctly during these in-tournament articles, making this one of the better number-grab spots on the board.
Schenk's 75.18% strokes gained output with his flat stick indicates there might be some regression in store over the next few days. If it all comes into play Friday, we should be in business.
