It was a mixed-bag start for our card Thursday at the Mexico Open.
I love that our significant exposure wagers of Ryo Hisatsune over Mackenzie Hughes and Ben Silverman to make the cut both stayed in great shape after round one. I will always take those wagers working their way across the finish line over anything else in the more volatile markets since the actual extent of our bankroll growth comes there. Nonetheless, it was a terrible day for our outright card.
I only had four wagers (all landing between 50/1 and 125/1), but there is little hope in that market outside of Hisatsune. Losing less than a half-unit is a minimal risk, but here is where everything stands heading into tomorrow's head-to-head addition for round two.
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 my database of information.
2024 Mexico Open Round 2 Predictions
Jake Knapp -110 over Ryan Fox (Bet365)![]()
These in-tournament bets always work best when you implement a slow infusion of the data from each round into the extended baseline information. It is one of the reasons I always stress not getting carried away with one day of statistical returns. That said, we have a spot here with Jake Knapp over Ryan Fox that highlighted some of my pre-tournament concerns for Fox and incorporated a secondary answer regarding what we got from Knapp on Thursday.
Every Wednesday morning, I run a variation of my model to integrate some of the sharp movement that has entered the space to see where I may have been lower than other syndicates or bettors when it comes to influential money in the market. My math in that area led me to take a lighter stance against full-fading Fox since I saw this trend of noteworthy dollars backing him throughout various iterations of the space. However, whatever safety blanket I added Wednesday to mask the downside of his profile got ripped away when the initial concerns were highlighted during his Thursday round.
My model ranked Fox 120th in this field for projected weighted proximity from 175+ yards. That was an area we expected to receive a 22% increase in production over a typical week on the PGA Tour. I do believe some of his distance helped him with model-building because of Vidanta's wide-open nature. Still, round one played out in a similar fashion to my projections when he experienced a 1.88-shot disparity when comparing his off-the-tee versus approach data.
Fox's negative-1.35 shots with his irons landed him 104th in the field, and the situation crumbled when he couldn't get saved by his typically stout putter. It does seem likely we experience some form of positive regression with his flat stick (my model did believe he underachieved on the day), but I found it interesting that Sportsbooks decided to double-down with Fox again in round two against a highly credible golfer in Knapp.
It may be the return of sharp money backing Fox. Perhaps it is shops being too slow to move away from this pre-tournament inflated price. But my model has fallen in love with Knapp after round one.
I'll always use these head-to-head bets to fade golfers versus backing them, although it does work out nicely when you can accomplish both stances in one bet. Knapp jumped to second in my head-to-head ranking model when diving into his 5.01 strokes gained ball striking, and landed as the most likely outright mover up the board in round two.
While a lot of those answers will already be accounted for when we look into Knapp's four-shot lead over Fox after day one, my math still had meat on the bone for what the difference should have been since Knapp was projected 5.76 shots better.
I am not going to as aggressively back this wager as I sometimes might because maybe I am continuing to miss the upside of the 41st-ranked golfer in the world. Nonetheless, I am not going to sit idly again and ignore the red flag returns from Fox against one of my favorite golfers on the board in round two.
