With heavy winds expected in the forecast for Sunday, tee times have been moved up to avoid the nastiest of the weather later in the day.
Unfortunately, that shift does take away some of the luster for the final round, since the true defense of Links-style golf courses does always stem from the potential for wind to wreak havoc on the field.
It's not to say that the blustery conditions won't still be highly prevalent throughout the day, but I do think this deviation in start time does shrink how far down this leaderboard we can go to pinpoint a winner.
As always, you can use my model to get a more in-depth answer about what I think of the entire field over on Twitter: @TeeOffSports. That's a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs to create custom golf rankings.
However, let's instead talk about one specific matchup for Sunday that I thought had the largest edge on the board.
2023 Genesis Scottish Open Round 4 Buy
Matchup: Tommy Fleetwood Over Shane Lowry
It's been a tale of two tapes for Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry during their ascension into the top five of the leaderboard.
We've seen Fleetwood steadily gain across all four critical strokes gained metrics, earning a minimum of a shot to the field in each area of the model. That total made him the only golfer in the field to qualify when running the data under those requirements.
I assume the concern for most stems from his typical Sunday inability to win on the PGA Tour, but we're not in Kansas, and this is not your standard PGA event over in Scotland.
All of that points us in the direction that Fleetwood's price might already be reduced numerically because of the public perception. But then enter into the mix good ol' Shane Lowry to top off this fine concoction.
Lowry has overachieved his ball-striking during all three rounds by at least 38 spots on the leaderboard during each 18-hole stretch, highlighted by his negative-3.18 shots to the field off the tee and approach entering the Sunday finale.
My model had that mark ranked 75th out of 77 golfers.
Golf is a sport where it does allow for weird daily overachievement that sometimes sustains throughout the week.
Still, with Lowry and Fleetwood both placing inside the top five of my data for historical performance in strong wind, I don't necessarily believe the Irishman carries his distinguishing edge in blustery conditions as well as he may have against another opponent.
I have seen this price stretch into the -150s at a handful of shops, and I assume it will continue that trajectory into the night.
However, if you shop around, you can find some totals as low as -120. That'll be good enough for me to lay 1.2 units to win one unit on one of the most significant disparities I have seen in my model between a head-to-head matchup when we're talking about "Baseline Putting + ATG Rank."
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