NBA Postseason Best Bets (5/17)
Alex Christenson
The PGA Tour season kicks on with one final tune-up this week before the season’s second major championship. It’s the Wells Fargo Championship, a no-cut signature event in Charlotte, N.C.
Let’s dive into the course fit 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 Quail Hollow Club. There is plenty of course history here with regular season events hosted since 1969, a Presidents Cup and a PGA Championship.
Looking at the scorecard we see a par 71 that stretches all the way past 7,500 yards. This was a par 72 for many years but that shifted ahead of the PGA Championship, and they’ve kept it as such ever since.
As Rory put it, “The golf course has become a little bigger, a little longer. There’s one less par 5, which probably isn’t great for me, but then there’s a couple really hard par 4s put in there. I think it suited me both ways.”
So we know it’s a long layout and with six par 4s over 460 yards, there are a lot of drivers used off the tee. Now we are starting to get a good picture of what course splits might matter this week.
What about the scoring environment? That is actually what grades out as the most predictive here. Over a long-term sample, we see the field average of 20 % bogeys or worse which puts it as second toughest non-major on Tour behind only Torrey Pines. That happens to grade out as one of my four correlated courses with the others being Augusta National (23% BoW), Bay Hill (20% BoW) and Memorial Park (19% BoW).
If we’re isolating one split stat this week, we want to focus on past performance on tough courses.
If we do that while also factoring in the other splits (driver heavy, long courses) then here are the names that show the biggest increase in performance over their baseline.
Sungjae Im
Tony Finau
Keegan Bradley
Emiliano Grillo
Taylor Moore
Jordan Spieth
Jake Knapp
Tom Kim
Cam Young
Jason Day
This is not a list that relies on putting, to put it nicely. You have to handle your business from tee-to-green when you head to a big boy course like Quail Hollow.
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:
Rory took home the hardware in NOLA alongside Shane Lowry and the oddsmakers want no part of him now. Combine that recent win with elite course history and it’s easy to see why he’s made such a huge jump this week. Will he stay home for a while, or will that team win look like an outlier at year’s end?
Wells Fargo Championship Free Bets
There are plenty of big names teeing it up this week in a signature event but without Scottie Scheffler in the field, it certainly feels a bit more wide open. Let’s dig into the odds board to see what stands out.
Taylor Moore Top 20 Finish +240
Moore is driving it well again and the results have followed with top-20-worthy weeks in four of his last five starts. That includes a runner-up finish at the Houston Open, which is played at Memorial Park and a 20th place finish at Augusta National, both being courses that popped as a correlated venues for Quail Hollow.
His putter went cold in his latest solo start at the RBC Heritage, but I like his chances of rebounding on a course where he can unleash the driver again.
Kurt Kitayama Top 10 Finish +600
When you look at the percentage of rounds that he records that are at least one standard deviation better than the field, that rate jumps by 7 percentage points on correlated courses this week.
That includes a win at Bay Hill which stood out as the highest correlation to Quail Hollow. Both are tough courses that require you to take advantage of the few scoring holes and hold on for dear life for the rest of your round.
Jake Knapp to Win (125-1 each-way, 6 places)
As Alex has pointed out recently, his desire to use the mini driver is maddening at times but he’s still proving to be a guy you want to back on any course that lets you pull driver a lot.
Quail Hollow fits that bill and despite his strong showing (for three rounds) last week, we aren’t seeing much of a market adjustment in his odds.
With some drivable par 4s and par 5s that you must take advantage of this week, I like going right back to the well with Knapp.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the discord to get those bet alerts.
