Tom Doak designed The Renaissance Club in 2008, and the golf course features tricky and undulating green complexes on most of these massively oversized locations. Doak implements this quirk quite frequently, but these slower Fescue putting greens are much more challenging because of the stagnant feel players will experience on their putts.
My model picked up on that trend by trying to pinpoint a three-step process for how a player combined Driving Distance, Putting on Slower Greens and Proximity from 150+ Yards, since just under 70% of approach shots will occur from that range.
All of that is a very straightforward answer of trying to highlight the main steps to success on almost any links-style course, but like any annual golf course in Europe, a lot of the track's difficulty will come down to the weather. We can get this as easy as Bernd Wiesberger's 22-under in 2019 or as hard as Xander Schauffele's win two years ago at seven-under par.
Early reports on Wednesday are starting to push the narrative that this might get to 20-under, although I still think we inevitably land somewhere between 15 and 18 under.
Find my 2024 Scottish Open Data-Driven DFS Picks below.
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 Scottish Open Data-Driven DFS Picks
Scottish Open High-End Play
Xander Schauffele ($11,700)
My model projects a big three this week at the Scottish Open, with Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Ludvig Åberg all warranting their price tags on DraftKings.
Schauffele and McIlroy are the two who have driven the more substantial clearance from the rest of the pack after the duo placed as the only two to surpass an expected return of 1.35 strokes per round.
That becomes more relevant because the gap from Schauffele (2.10 shots) to our fourth-place option, Collin Morikawa (1.35 shots), is the exact difference between Morikawa and the 30th player in my model, Tom Kim (0.60 shots).
That was one of the reasons I bet McIlroy over Morikawa in a matchup at BetMGM at -130 since the market seems to have that second tier far too close to what McIlroy and Schauffele are generating mathematically with their expectation.
I prefer Schauffele when directly comparing, but it goes back to the answer I have given all year that Scottie Scheffler's truest threats are those two men weekly when World No. 1 is in the field.
Scottish Open Leverage Option
Matthew Fitzpatrick ($9,000)
This price was consistent with Matthew Fitzpatrick's recent volatility but may have missed the long-term upside when getting him on one of these traditional European-style tracks since the Englishman has captured eight of his 10 career victories in Europe, including a similar test at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship last fall.
Add all of that to a top-seven grade for Weighted Scoring because of his high-end marks for Scrambling, Total Driving and Projected Putting on similar greens, and you get a golfer whom my model projects as marginally underpriced but massively under-owned at roughly 10%.
Scottish Open Good Chalk
Robert MacIntyre ($7,800)
I don't usually find myself trying to back a top-15-owned golfer on the slate who is priced in the $7,000 range and has missed four of his past seven cuts. However, my model also rarely finds itself wanting to play MacIntyre, even during some of his high-end outputs.
Perhaps this still qualifies as a better outright or top-10 route, but I couldn't help but look at MacIntyre's profile this week since the Renaissance Club is an ideal venue for him to crack the top 10 of my Projected Win Equity.
Scottish Open Cheap Target
Matthieu Pavon (6,900)
I realize Matthieu Pavon's results have been highly volatile this season, but the best version of him has helped him climb to 21st in the world, taking down the Farmers Insurance Open and almost stealing the U.S. Open and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am titles in the process.
Pavon's ownership is starting to climb in projection, but the statistical profile makes too much sense for me to ignore.
Scottish Open Dart Throw
Alexander Björk ($5,600)
Alexander Björk has been extremely solid at the venue in the past, finishing inside the top 42 over the past four seasons.
My model graded him inside the top 10 when combining Expected Off the Tee, Approach and Putting into one category, Long Iron + Scrambling into another and a high-end mark with the putter that made him much more of a 100-1 sort of golfer than this 600-1 price that released early on Monday.
Everyone knows about the risk I am taking on the Swede at this point of the week, but as Don Quixote once said, "Let the dogs Bjork, Sancho. It's a sign that we are moving forward."
At least that is how I heard the quote…the show goes on!
