We can complain about the lack of quality in the field for the Mexico Open, but it doesn't get much better than a final group of Jon Rahm vs. Tony Finau vs. Akshay Bhatia.
It will be interesting to see how the 21-year-old Bhatia holds his composure as he tries to slay multiple Goliaths on Sunday, but let's go to a different area of the market in Round 4 to find the best value on the board.
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 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.
Mexico Open Round 4 Matchup
Harry Hall (-115) over Francesco Molinari (Bet365)
It's been a quiet week of wagers for me at Vidanta. I didn't want to have much exposure to this board because of the inflated pricing in all market sectors. However, I believe we have about 25 points of value on Sunday when looking at Harry Hall vs. Francesco Molinari.
Molinari was not a golfer who graded as an overly enticing option from a pre-tournament perspective when diving into his two-year totals. My model believed he ranked 110th in this field when combining distance and long iron proximity into one statistic, which helped turn him into an option that graded just outside the top 100 in projected scoring.
We did see reasons to be optimistic when looking at Paspalum for his putting and a trending around-the-green game that registered inside the top 35 of the field. Still, the production through three rounds at Vidanta has overly accentuated those factors I highlighted and left a profile with some red flags for Round 4.
Molinari's lack of distance has lost strokes off-the-tee over all three days. That aggregated return of -2.38 shots places him second-to-last in this field. And while the irons have performed respectably to land 20th this week, something has to give for a golfer gaining 5.34 shots with his short game.
A fair output at this point should have Hall up by about three shots when directly comparing the two players, and it doesn't hurt matters that my model believed Hall was a legitimate top-20 candidate for win equity before the event started.
Let's bet on that deviation difference in at a number that is worth a shot.
