2022 Zozo Championship Betting Preview

Betting possibilities are endless in PGA, but my focus is on outrights. The theory here is that outrights, being low probability events, are harder for books to price efficiently. Additionally, I believe my focus on course fit can lead to large edges in the outright market, where books are under-adjusting odds. Whether your interest is in the outright market, top 10/20 market, matchups, or all of the above, my expected strokes gained projections can be your best friend. You can also heavily reference Kyle’s PGA betting Model and Josh’s projections.

Course Fit Model

First, a brief summary of the Course Fit Model for the Zozo Championship, from my Course Fit article for FTNDaily:

“Every week, there’s a mad dash across the industry to try to figure out who best fits the course – you’ll hear everything from course history citations to quotes like “It’s a bomber’s paradise.” But what if we could actually mathematically measure which players are the best fits? We can.”

In other words, there’s no need for speculation of which skills will translate into success at a given course when we can measure it directly.

This week’s model is extreme, which may be a product of just a two-year sample, but the model has strong predictive power, nonetheless.

Thanks to our proprietary strokes gained: driving accuracy metric, we can separate the effects of distance and accuracy off the tee, and this week’s model shows how crucial the ability to do so can be. Driving distance and short games are at a premium, while putting prowess is, at the very least, less predictive than usual.

Outright Odds

Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:

Cameron Young is the first outright I put into the Bet Tracker this week. He’s a perfect fit for the course:

Meanwhile, what an incredible rise to stardom we’ve seen from Tom Kim.

Odds Shopping

As is always the case, the low hanging fruit of the PGA betting world is odds shopping through the use of our prop shop. The differences in odds from one book to the next are often larger in PGA than you’ll ever see in leagues like the NBA or NFL. Simply shopping for the best odds can turn a losing bettor into a profitable bettor in PGA. This week, the largest discrepancies I’ve found are:

• Luke List (100-1 with each-way potential on BetRivers, as low as 80-1 elsewhere)
• Keegan Bradley (35-1 at DraftKings or Caesars, as low as 25-1 elsewhere)
• Sahith Theegala (45-1 at DraftKings, as low as 30-1 elsewhere)

I love using examples to reinforce this point. Imagine getting a +300 NFL underdog at one sportsbook at +450 on another! It simply doesn’t happen.