NBA Postseason Best Bets (5/17)
Alex Christenson
The FedEx Fall pushes on this week as the PGA Tour heads to Port Royal Golf Course for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
We’ve already seen more than 10 pre-tourney WDs since the initial field list was released last Friday. It makes me wonder about the course conditions, maybe word got around on how it’s looking with the area getting bombarded with tropical storms over the last few months. Or maybe it’s a matter of golfers crunching the numbers to find out their top-125 spot is secure to earn/keep their Tour cards for 2024. Likely a combination of the two, if I had to guess, but we may know more after some pre-tourney press conferences.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the remaining list of golfers in the field to see what stands out in the betting market.
Course Fit
Last week we had a new venue at El Cardonal, and I leaned on split stats and correlated course performance to highlight course fit. I shared a list of the top 10 and who ended up on that list? Three golfers that posted top-10 finishes, including the winner Erik van Rooyen and runner-up finisher Matt Kuchar.
We have four years of course history at this week’s event, so we don’t have to fly blind like last week but if we run the same metrics, here are the top 10 when it comes to “form fit,” which factors in performance on short, coastal courses as well as recent form with an emphasis on driving accuracy and around-the-green play which have proved relevant at this venue in the past due to windy conditions.
- Luke List
- Taylor Pendrith
- Troy Merritt
- Alex Noren
- Akshay Bhatia
- Lucas Glover
- Kevin Yu
- Alex Smalley
- Doug Ghim
- Martin Laird
Bhatia is the coastal king and he lived up to his reputation last week. Can he maintain his reign this week? Unfortunately, the bookmakers know this as well and have really shrunk his number the last two weeks compared to what his baseline metrics would suggest.
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
Half of these top-10 names on the odds board were also in the top 10 of the form fit rankings. Could we find value a little further down the board, though?
Finish Position Market
The outright markets are most common when looking at golf bets but there is plenty of value to be found in the other markets.
Troy Merritt Top 10 Finish
Best available: +600 (BetRivers)
Worst available: +450
Merritt is a straight shooter with strong around-the-green skills. His finishes are spotty as a result. His game doesn’t suit most PGA Tour venues. This week should, though.
He leads the field in strong-finish rate on coastal courses in the last two years and he’s second in the field in that metric when it comes to short-course performance. It’s a perfect match this week as Port Royal is a coastal course and one of the shortest, at that.
He sports a top-10 rate of 11 percent over the last five years but that includes all majors, strong field events, and events on courses that don’t suit his game. Looking at just what I bucket as “weak field events” in the last two years he is sitting at 19 percent in terms of top-10 rates. That would imply a +425 price so +600 is nice value from that point of view.
Adding to his case, he is 119th in the FedEx Cup race so ultra motivated to stay inside of the top 125 with just two events remaining. Also, looking at comp courses he has a pair of top 10s at Pebble Beach and one of his Tour wins came at Keene Trace which is always one of the softest courses they play. We should see very soft conditions this week, as well.
Add it all up and we have some nice boom-or-bust value that could pay off in a big.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the discord to get those bet alerts.
The fall has been good to us with recent outright hits of Ryo Hisatsune in France and Erik van Rooyen in Mexico. Use promo code CULP when signing up for FTNBets and FTNDaily to get a 10% discount while staying sharp in the fall. I think it will continue to be a very fun finish to 2023 with so much of the competition having their attention stolen away by NFL.
