Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
The PGA Tour season gets put on pause as a group of 60 golfers head to Paris for some Olympic competition.
It’s nice to see the sentiment shifting since that initial Rio Olympics, and we no longer see many self-exclusions when it comes to golfers opting out of this competition. That gives us a pretty strong field to handicap and with that said, let’s jump right in to find a potential course fit which is always step one before betting the board.
Course Fit
The host course this week is Le Golf National. It needs no introduction to golf fans as it recently hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup and also hosts the Open de France annually on the DP World Tour.
Glancing at this week’s setup we see a par 71 course that plays to 7,174 yards. It’s not overly long, but it’s certainly tough.
Water comes into play on more than half the holes, so comfort on water-heavy courses should be a positive. That also lends itself to more irons and 3-woods off the tee, looking to avoid those big numbers. It becomes a second-shot course where course management is crucial. We want our targets to either be standout in approach or around-the-green. You can’t really overpower the course so I’m not targeting elite distance as much as usual.
If you watched the 2018 Ryder Cup, you’d expect narrow fairways and thick rough. They have things set up slightly different this time around. Monday, Tom Kim said, “I was expecting a lot more rough than I would imagine because of the Ryder Cup, and I played here last year at The French Open.” Then Scottie Scheffler added, “The rough is not nearly as penal as it was for the Ryder Cup.”
Historically this course plays around average difficultly but ramps up to very tough as soon as the wind whips over 10 MPH. That makes sense with all of the water lurking here. Courses with similar birdie and bogey rates include PGA National, The Renaissance Club (prior to this year), and The Open.
Risk-reward is what this course is all about, which is why comps like TPC Sawgrass and Muirfield Village often get tossed around.
For grass, we are looking at ryegrass from tee-to-green and bent-poa on the putting surfaces.
For a course fit, we can plug in our split stats of past performance on hard courses and courses with bent poa greens while including performance on less-than-driver layouts.
If we weigh all of those split stats, here are the names who show the biggest increase in performance over their baseline.
- Daniel Hillier
- Emiliano Grillo
- Ryan Fox
- Tom Kim
- Viktor Hovland
- Matt Fitzpatrick
- Jon Rahm
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Rory McIlroy
- Jason Day
Remember with a small field this week, a list of 10 golfers is nearly 20% of the field. The first six on the list have more extreme splits while the last four just “lean” in the direction of fitting the course.
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:
While a +330 price looks extreme for Scottie Scheffler, the FTN Betting Model confirms that Scheffler has indeed earned that respect in the market, even with a handful of big names playing great golf right behind him.
Olympic Games Free Golf Bets
Christiaan Bezuidenhout over Abe Ancer (-125)
Looking at recent form, I have Bezuidenhout more than two shots better than Ancer over the course of a four-round event.
Both golfers are extremely accurate, so I like their chances of avoiding big numbers.
That said, Bezuidenhout has posted top-20 worthy weeks in 46% of his events with similar split stats while Ancer sits down at 21%.
I was a bit scared of his Scottish Open WD, but it was nice to see him still tee it up at The Open, even if he did miss the cut. That two-week stretch is likely the reason we get this price, but I’m willing to lean on the slightly longer-term stats and back Bez.
Matt Fitzpatrick to Win (40-1, one-fifth each-way for 6 spots)
He hasn’t been in peak form this year but when you highlight his top-fives, both came at courses I have pegged as potential comp courses (TPC Sawgrass and Muirfield Village).
Both of those comp courses force you to play second-shot golf and navigate around a lot of water trouble. That same test will be presented at Le Golf National.
Looking at courses with similar splits in the last two years, his expected top-five rate has been 29% while the price for the top-six portion of this each-way implies an 11% chance of a top 6. I like that value.
Wyndham Clark to Win (66-1, one-fourth each-way for 5 spots)
Speaking of comp courses, Clark posted podium finishes at PGA National and TPC Sawgrass this season. He proved he can handle a water-heavy track, despite his oft-errant driving ways.
For that reason, I wouldn’t call him a superb course fit but he’s getting priced so far from his long-term upside that I can’t ignore this number. Over the last year, he ranks seventh in the field in top-five-worthy weeks, but he is priced around 20th in the top-five market.
Clark has been hearing all the rumblings of people saying Bryson should be on the team instead. While I can’t disagree on that front, it may, just may, be the extra chip on his shoulder needed to motivate him to the podium this week in Paris.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the Discord to get those bet alerts.
