MLB Best Bets – Free (Wednesday 5/15)
Josh Gross
With team golf out of the way, we are refreshed and ready for the second half of the PGA Tour season. Next up is the CJ Cup Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch.
Let’s dive into the course details and then see if any names pop off the page when looking at the odds sheet.
Course Fit
The host course this week is TPC Craig Ranch. It’s a par 71 that plays to 7,414 yards.
That’s pretty beefy with six of the par 4s playing over 465 yards. It’s certainly a week where driver usage is ramped up and elite drivers are, pardon the pun, in the driver’s seat.
Looking at the agronomy, we have a mixed bag with zoysia fairways, bermuda rough and bentgrass greens. I guess with that kind of mix, it’s not surprising to see past grass splits performance not really popping on the correlation matrix.
What does stand out, though, is the ease of scoring here. Missing fairways is not heavily penalized, and greens are hit at a very high clip (12.6 GIR per round). That GIR rate is the highest among any course we’ve played so far this year.
So, let’s plug in those key splits (driver heavy, long courses, small penalty for missing fairways, and easy scoring). Here are the names that show the biggest increase in performance over their baseline.
K.H. Lee
Seamus Power
Peter Kuest
Taylor Montgomery
Sungjae Im
Jordan Spieth
S.H. Kim
Tom Kim
Justin Lower
Ben Griffin
Kuest is an interesting name here as he pops in the splits and is also arriving off back-to-back top 10s. Unfortunately, the market is overpricing those recent results so I don’t see a lot of value there.
Head over to the Split Stats page to see who the top performers are in these split stat categories.
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
The Tuesday morning WD of Will Zalatoris left this odds board even thinner at the top than it already was. Add in the extremely easy scoring conditions and it may be a good week to fire further down the board.
CJ Cup Byron Nelson Free Bets
There is plenty to like this week as we have a weak field event and I generally find the market to be more exposed when the stars are on the sidelines. Here are three bets that stand out at first glance for the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
Taylor Montgomery Top 20 Finish +400
I will continue to target Taylor whenever he heads to an easy scoring venue. Over the last two years, he ranks fourth in the field in top-20 worthy performances on easy courses. That sits behind only Spieth, Sungjae, and Jason Day. His easy-course T20 rate over that span is 48% which would equate to a +108 price here. I like this at +400, which is widely available, but if you have MGM, you can snag +450 (thanks, prop shop).
His play style fits the easy-course narrative too as accuracy and approach are his main weakness so when you have an easier tee-to-green test, he’s able to shine with his short game.
Montgomery’s recent results are pretty ugly, but I’m expecting him to get back on track in Dallas this week.
Seamus Power Top 10 Finish +550
The Irishman looked lost for much of 2023 but Seamus is getting his groove back with finishes of T-26 or better in three of his last five starts.
He has top 20s in all three trips to TPC Craig Ranch and shows great improvement in the splits, as shown in the list above.
There is a lot to like with Power this week.
S.H. Kim to Win (125-1 each-way, 6 places)
Kim’s profile grades out very well for this venue. His strengths are distance and short game. With a small penalty for missing offline and easy-to-hit greens, his accuracy and approach weakness may be hidden more than usual.
The FTN Betting model has his fair price at 107-1 and that is with Zalatoris still included in the equation.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the Discord to get those bet alerts.