Jayden Daniels vs Caleb Williams
Jay Felicio
DraftKings has thrown us a curveball this week by featuring the Grant Thornton Invitational, a new team event featuring LPGA and PGA Tour combos. I will dive into that slate later this week but for betting purposes, I want to set my focus on the DP World Tour.
The event is the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek. This course has plenty of history and is known for being located right next to Kruger National Park. There is no shortage of wild life in the area this week.
Course Fit
The first step of the process is always to evaluate the course.
Leopard Creek is the host venue, located in South Africa. When heading down here we often see high altitude courses but it’s reasonable here, situated around just 1,000 feet above sea level.
The course is a par 72 that plays around 7,112 yards. There are three par 4s under 355 yards and two of the par 5s check in under 550 yards. It’s a relatively short test but that doesn’t make it easy. The field has averaged over-par in each of the last five editions, going as high as 74.3 in 2019 when Pablo Larrazabal lifted the hardware.
With that in mind, we can use a split-stat search for our course-fit criteria this week. We are looking at past performance on tough-scoring courses, performance in Africa, performance on Bermuda, and performance on short courses. Does anyone check all the boxes? These are the names that show big-finish rates above average in all four split-stat categories.
- Gavin Green
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout
- Thriston Lawrence
- Dean Burmester
- Scott Jamieson
- Branden Grace
- Oliver Bekker
- Antoine Rozner
- Matthias Schmid
- Zander Lombard
Mean Dean has won back-to-back events, could he make it three in a row?
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
The books certainly think that Burmester could pull off the three-peat, but at +650 that is an easy pass.
Finish Position Markets
The outright markets provide big payouts but there is plenty of value in other markets, and those markets provide a more steady stream of reliable win rates. So, what stands out when looking at the finish position markets this week?
Gavin Green Top 20 Finish (+225)
Green is one of the best putters on the planet so it makes sense to see him rank fifth in this field in consistency rate on short courses.
What really catches my eye, though, is his past performance on tough tracks. When look at events with tough scoring conditions over the last two years, Green ranks fourth in the field in big-finish rate. He leads the entire field when it comes to strokes gained per round on tough courses compared to baseline, nearly a stroke per round better over the last two years.
Last but not least, Green has found his groove since the DP World Tour reset the schedule. He’s opened the new season with back-to-back top 15s, both of those played in South Africa. I like his chances of making it three top-20 finishes in a row.
Should we get greedy with Gavin and go for a top-10 or outright bet as well? Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker to see what I think. Hop in the discord to get those bet alerts.
