It was a tale of two tapes for our outright wagers on Saturday. We saw Sam Ryder (90/1) and J/T. Poston (35/1) both fall down the leaderboard after struggles with various portions of their game.
I always talk in these articles about how future bets won't be the ultimate decider for why I have a winning or losing week. Still, profit is in sight after Adam Hadwin helped us to maintain a clean sweep through three rounds in the head-to-head market and shifted into the co-lead at his 50/1 pre-tournament price tag.
I am not going to add any extra exposure to that area of the market since the only value I saw on the board would have been Adam Svensson. I like the equity I have for Sunday with tickets on Poston and Hadwin.
I don't see a point in forcing action for the sake of saying we hit a winner, so let's instead talk about a head-to-head play that I liked for round four that may have about 20 points of value at its current going rate.
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 input to create custom golf rankings. That sheet is released every Monday, so be sure to check it out and construct your own numbers from the database.
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Shriners Children's Open: Round 4
Vincent Whaley -120 Over Lanto Griffin (FanDuel)
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The thought process for why I am fading Lanto Griffin is similar to the exact reason I took on Cameron Champ Saturday.
There is this level of inconsistent production that my model always hates for these in-tournament matchups when a player is massively overachieving their projected score. We saw Champ land 8.35 shots over his expected scoring total entering round three as the co-leader before firing a three-over par mark to allow Hadwin to get across the finish line.
While Griffin was already a similar overachiever on Saturday before shooting a three-under score to get himself into the co-lead, the 11.90 shot disparity between the expected score and the total score inside of my model landed him as the most significant difference of the week.
As I always say, that doesn't mean Griffin can't maintain this level of overproducing from his baseline short-game totals. But when you add into the equation that he ranked 100th in strokes gained around the green and 80th for strokes gained putting on similar greens compared to the field pre-event, you get this alarming return for a golfer who currently leads the tournament with his putter at 8.66 shots while adding 2.77 strokes around the green.
Maybe this isn't quite the same "fade" route of Champ because there is a stark contrast in rank inside my early data before a ball was struck on Thursday. Griffin graded 56th overall versus Champ landing 99th. But winning a golf tournament is hard when you have dropped one shot to the field with your ball striking over three days. That is a total that places Griffin 55th out of all cut-qualifiers.
I'll bet on regression taking place when all the chips are in the middle to decide the tournament in round four, making Whaley's clean record of gaining in all four critical areas that much more palpable for success when pressure starts to arise.
