It has been a weird beginning to the Wyndham Championship as many of my more significant exposure golfers got off to horrible starts, but are still in decent shape in the markets where I backed them.
That's one of the reasons I always recommend any head-to-head wager as more of a fade against the opponent than a straight wager on the golfer I'm supporting. I've always believed there are too many variables in golf to make matchup wagers solely based on names you may like for a given contest and the"fade" route gives provides more wiggle room if things go south.
We saw all of that come to fruition Thursday as my stances against Gary Woodland, Adam Schenk and Sam Stevens all got off to quick starts. However, there are definite concerns in the placement sector if Alex Noren and Ben Griffin fail to get into the weekend. Still, the tournament isn't as grim as it might appear on the surface because the more significant exposure spots are all sitting in a good position. That includes a round one victory in which I backed Ben Griffin over Austin Eckroat.
Let's try to continue that run of correctly taking on the proper names and keep our fingers crossed that some of the placement wagers turn things around in round two.
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 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 my database of information.
Fades
Gary Woodland
I had concerns with Gary Woodland before this tournament started. As a result, Brendon Todd became my final head-to-head wager against him.
Woodland's short game and expected total driving were so bad inside my projected model that it caused a slip from 41st to 101st in expected strokes gained because of the downward trends that presented red flags across the board.
We saw much of that on display Thursday after Woodland lost 3.06 shots off the tee. That was the 154th in the field out of 156 players. However, the outlier result that saved his day came via his short-game metrics. He gained 2.08 strokes, good for 2.94 shots above his baseline projection.
Woodland is a full-fade for DFS and any matchup market or missed-cut option on the board is worth looking into since my model believes he should be in 142nd place (as opposed to 68th).
Taylor Moore
Taylor Moore was one of the biggest day one fallers for me.
Moore lost 2.31 shots and found the 0.44 strokes he gained with his irons to be roughly 41 positions better on the leaderboard than it should have been based on his baseline expectation.
I haven't grabbed an official play for round two, but if you are looking into what my model thinks is the best value is on the board, it's Mackenzie Hughes (+126) over Moore at BetRivers. My math believes the wrong man is favored.
Matt Wallace
My model had Matt Wallace outside of the top 100 prior to the tournament, which makes his three-under, 16th-place position on the leaderboard much more concerning when considering that his value managed to get worse after day one.
Wallace's 125th-place head-to-head ranking doesn't leave a ton of optimism, and you can see him next to some of the names I have already talked about as big overachievers due for regression.
