The third round of the U.S. Open set up as a movie script just outside of Hollywood. The top player in the world played the final two holes in just five shots while many of his opponents, including the leader Rickie Fowler, struggled to get in at even par. It was a difficult back nine for much of the field as Tom Kim's 4-under was the round of the day. There were only 17 players who posted scores under par in the third round, but just five players are within four shots of the lead going into Sunday at Los Angeles Country Club.
Fowler will go into the final round tied alongside playing partner Wyndham Clark and seeking his first major. Those two played together from the final pairing Saturday and it appeared there would be a decent spread between the two going into the final round, until a final hole birdie from Clark was met by Fowler's first short miss of the week.
While Fowler and Clark play from the final pairing, the penultimate group will get many of the headlines. Scottie Scheffler's climb up the leaderboard over the final two rounds leaves him and Rory McIlroy together on Sunday. They will play from a few shots behind, but will also have the leaders looking over their shoulder throughout the day. It seems to be a bit of a four-man race going as it's hard to imagine someone outside of this group doing enough to capture the third major of the year.
Strokes Gained Explanation
Strokes Gained can give golf bettors, DFS players and fans way more detail on how a golfer has truly played by measuring each shot in relation to the rest of the field.
Using the millions of data points it collects, the Tour calculates how many shots on average it takes a player to get the ball in the hole from every distance and situation.
If a player beats those averages, he’s gaining strokes on the field. Every situation in golf is different. Strokes Gained measures how players perform relative to the situation.
In this piece, we’ll touch on a variety of Strokes Gained metrics:
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green
- Strokes Gained: Putting
- Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (which is Off-the-Tee + Approach)
- Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (which is Ball-Striking + Around-the-Green)
In general, SG: Ball Striking and SG: Tee-to-Green are the most stable long term, while putting is more prone to volatility. You can often find live-betting advantages by identifying golfers who are hitting the ball well, but are just not getting putts to drop.
Likewise, players with high SG: Putting numbers may regress moving forward.
2023 U.S. Open Round 4 Best Bets: 3 Golfers to Buy
I am standing pat Sunday and sticking with my pre-tournament pick of Scheffler to win this year's U.S. Open. He hasn't had his best stuff to start the week, but a flurry to close his third round put him back in the hunt. If the best player in the world plays that way Sunday, he'll put some fear in that final group and let them fold a bit under the pressure. Scheffler continues to be the best player on the planet tee-to-green and there's no reason to expect that to change Sunday. If he can put some low numbers together early in the final round, he'll certainly get in the heads of both Clark and Fowler.
Hideki Matsuyama has been the best player in this field tee-to-green this week, but has lost more than three strokes on the greens, leaving him at just T12. He finally found his putter Saturday as he gained more than a shot on the field with the flat stick. If he can continue to get something going on the greens, he'll continue to climb the leaderboard. My play on Matsuyama heading into Sunday will be for a top-10 finish as he sits just a shot back of that position and has everything trending in the right direction.
I sent a tweet Saturday highlighting Russell Henley, who has missed just four fairways this week at LACC. He's hitting the short grass at a 90% clip, but sits at just even par because his short game has let him down. He's losing strokes both on and around the greens, which becomes a bigger concern when he starts to miss the greens from the fairway. Still, Henley is in position for another solid finish as he likely needs just a couple shots to go his way on Sunday for a top 20. I'll be buying into that market as the Georgia Bulldog has everything going with his ballstriking and just needs a couple breaks to finish strong in the final round.
