It has been an excellent start to the week on the head-to-head front. Stephan Jaeger managed to take down Andrew Putnam from a full-tournament perspective after Putnam stumbled out of the gates and was forced to withdraw after a few holes.
That was a wager I talked about extensively on the 'Links & Locks' podcast. We were also able to keep the momentum rolling Saturday when Dylan Wu had a landslide win over Stewart Cink.
That puts us in the driver's seat and guarantees a winning tournament. Still, there is one more wager I want to discuss as my math suggests the wrong golfer is favored Sunday.
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.
Wells Fargo Championship Matchup Pick Round 4
Matthew NeSmith -103 over Kevin Streelman (BetRivers)
There are a few things worth noting since my accurate price for these two names pre-event had Matthew NeSmith at the -103 price we see here at BetRivers. That, of course, is under the assumption Kevin Streelman should have been +103 and not -125.
That suggests there is no value for this play when running things to fully incorporate what my model derived before a ball was struck on Thursday, but I wouldn't be so sure an edge hasn't found its way through the cracks.
NeSmith has started to catapult himself past Streelman in my head-to-head power rankings because of his sound ball striking to begin the week. Three consecutive days of gaining strokes when combing off-the-tee and approach has him in second place in that category when comparing him to the entire field, a return that has generated a 5.83-shot discrepancy between NeSmith and Streelman for expected performance this week.
We aren't getting that deviation in scoring when we look at both men sitting six-under par on the leaderboard, but the fact that Streelman has outperformed his around-the-green baseline by 3.64 shots over three rounds is highly discouraging as short-game retrievals are one of the flukiest categories to decipher weekly.
Sure, I don't love that my model had some trepidation on both players pre-tournament, but this is one of those spots where an edge has started to compound on itself when more data enters the mix. That is typically a sign that books are being slow to react, so I will take what looks to be about a 22-point advantage, equating to about a 4.5% edge on this play.
Remember, small number grabs can add up heavily over the course of a season.
