In this weekly feature, we will take a closer look at the upcoming PGA Tour event to see what the best outright winner values are on the board and also analyze some of our other favorite golf props and DFS PGA picks for Rounds 2-4.
Early in the week, our top winner plays and analysis will be posted, and we’ll then check in with our favorite selections for Round 2, Round 3, and Round 4. Let’s see if we can pick some winners!
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Golf Props Today – Outright Winner & Round 2/3/4 Picks
Every week, we look at our top outright winner picks for the upcoming tournament. We’ll then examine Rounds 2, 3, and 4 from a DFS and betting perspective.
Procore Championship – Round 4
We should be in for a fun finish in California. Ben Griffin has the one-shot lead, but Jackson Koivun and Scottie Scheffler are right there in the mix among a host of other golfers.
Here are the leaders in strokes gained tee to green so far, via Data Golf:
Scottie Scheffler (+3.46)
Ben Griffin (+2.72)
Maverick McNealy (+2.68)
Jackson Koivun (+2.67)
Russell Henley (+2.63)
Notable poor putting/positive ballstriking from Round 3:
Brandt Snedeker (+3.94 Tee To Green, +2.51 Approach, -2.89 Putting)
Gary Woodland (+4.00 Tee To Green, +1.42 Approach, -1.95 Putting)
Michael Thorbjornsen (+3.24 Tee To Green, +1.74 Approach, -1.18 Putting)
Our top overall play for Round 4 at the Procore Championship:
Top Play: Russell Henley LOWER Than 69.5 Strokes (Underdog)
Procore Championship – Round 3
Ben Griffin is up three shots at -14 through the first two rounds at the Silverado Resort.
Here are the leaders in strokes gained tee to green so far, via Data Golf:
Sahith Theegala (+4.42)
Ben Griffin (+4.22)
J.J. Spaun (+3.68)
Russell Henley (+3.33)
Jackson Koivun (+3.25)
Notable poor putting/positive ballstriking from Round 2:
John Pak (+2.78 Tee To Green, +0.82 Approach, -2.74 Putting)
Michael Thorbjornsen (+3.06 Tee To Green, +1.00 Approach, -2.02 Putting)
Our top overall play for Round 3 at the Procore Championship:
Top Play: Scottie Scheffler LESS Than 68.5 Strokes (Sleeper)
Procore Championship – Round 2
Mackenzie Hughes holds the one-shot lead at -9 after the first round, while Ben Griffin and Matt McCarty both impressed too with an -8 round.
Here are the leaders in strokes gained tee to green so far, via Data Golf:
Sahith Theegala (+6.12)
Maverick McNealy (+5.73)
David Skinns (+4.64)
Matt McCarty (+4.42)
Ben Griffin (+3.87)
Notable poor putting/positive ballstriking from Round 1:
Sahith Theegala (+6.12 Tee To Green, +3.73 Approach, -2.34 Putting)
Maverick McNealy (+5.73 Tee To Green, +3.04 Approach, -2.95 Putting)
Nick Hardy (+2.23 Tee To Green, +3.11 Approach, -4.45 Putting)
Our top overall play for Round 2 at the Procore Championship:
Top Play: Max Greyserman MORE Than 4.5 Birdies or Better (DraftKings Pick6)
Procore Championship – Winner Picks
The PGA Tour is back, and the Ryder Cup is right around the corner! Who should we be targeting for the Procore Championship?
Here are the odds-on favorites as of Wednesday, September 10th:
- Scottie Scheffler (+210)
- Russell Henley (+1600)
- Justin Thomas (+1600)
- Patrick Cantlay (+1800)
- Cameron Young (+2000)
- Sam Burns (+2000)
- J.J. Spaun (+2200)
- Collin Morikawa (+2500)
The golfers who stand out most for the Procore Championship:
Russell Henley (+1600)
Henley’s steady all-around game makes him an appealing option this week, behind the obvious favorite to win in Scottie Scheffler. He had been in excellent form before the short break.
Also Consider:
Akshay Bhatia (+3500)
Emiliano Grillo (+8000)
BMW Championship Plays
There’s another strong field over on the DP World Tour starting early Thursday.
Here’s who we like this week:
Viktor Hovland (+2200)
Shane Lowry (+2500)
PGA Strategy – Golf Props & DFS Tips
Betting on golf is in many ways a completely different animal than normal head-to-head sports betting.
However, fundamentally it is the same baseline proposition: can we find expected value against the value offered by the marketplace?
The situation is skewed, because in golf win betting we are often dealing with tournament results and not head-to-head results, which give us tantalizing payouts and maddening near-misses on odds that are dozens to hundreds of times the multipliers of most other sports.
Something to keep in mind: just like in real tournament golf, patience and discipline and belief in your process are key, and one big event can change your entire season.
So, how do we find expected value in golf?
The Importance Of Data
Really simply, we want to find golfers who have a chance of playing better than it seems they are playing.
Buying a data subscription alone and just playing the numbers will NOT make you profitable. The advanced analytics are available to everyone, including oddsmakers.
The key is learning to understand why the data is what it is, is how we can dig into the details to find trends that are actionable.
Sites uses a strict formula to combine past results and recent results to create a projection, and it is the best overall formula anyone has ever made, but what we want to look for are golfers who can make a case that they don’t fit the exact model, and have value that isn’t being captured by projections.
So in layman’s terms, here are some really great ways you can find potential value in a golf tournament field:
Recent Form
Golfers who have a track record of playing very well, but have had some bad results lately that we expect them to bounce back from (if recent poor results are just due to poor putting alone, this is ideal, as putting is by far the most variable category in golf)
Young golfers whose true value is still increasing every week and hasn’t been captured properly by the modeling timelines that are used by Vegas and Data Golf, as well as being slow to catch the public’s eye.
Golfers who have been playing extraordinarily well lately, but historically aren’t that good, are not well captured by Vegas models.
For example, a golfer having a “breakout” year can be slow to pop in the industry models. This is an especially good situation if we can tie this performance increase to something tangible, such as a swing coach change, an offseason increase in driving distance, or another technique change or injury comeback situation.
In these cases, we want to put particular emphasis on driving and iron play, as these are less likely to be the result of random fluctuations in performance.
Course Fit
The last angle that can sometimes be used to get an edge is extreme course-fit outlier situations. The thing about mathematical models is that they can be weak in truly capturing extreme outliers.
On the PGA Tour, course fit week-to-week is much talked about and a very entertaining aspect of the game for fans and commentators, but it is generally very well accounted for by Vegas, and most tend to over-value these adjustments.
OVERALL FORM AND RATING IS ALWAYS MORE IMPORTANT THAN COURSE-FIT — a good fit for the course should always just be the icing on the cake for a good play.
One thing to look out for is the really extreme length outliers – the very longest and very shortest few courses each season, that truly limit a portion of the field from competing with their best weapons.
This happens in just a few events per year, but it does happen, and there you can find value in a true “specialist” in the field, such as guys who make their career through putting and putting alone, or an absolutely wild bomber who doesn’t gain many strokes through the rest of the bag.
Featured Image Credit: Imagn
