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Heading across the pond for a few weeks, the PGA Tour joins forces with the DP World Tour for a co-sanctioned event this week in Scotland, ramping up to next week’s Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.
The host course this week is the Renaissance Club, which has played that role each of the last four years. My betting process always begins with an evaluation of the course and what skills are most likely to translate into success, so let’s start there.
Course Fit
There is just one year of co-sanctioned data at the course. Xander Schauffele won here last year in windy conditions, reaching just 7-under by week’s end.
Previous winners at the course have reached as low as 22-under, so weather will certainly play a role in the scoring environment.
If we look at lead-in form before last year’s edition, let’s see what stands out:
How do we read the chart above? Let’s start with driving distance. Entering the week, 56% of the field were gaining yards over the field with their drives. However, if we isolate the contenders (golfers that went on to finish inside of the top 15), we see that 80% of those contenders were longer than Tour average. Based on the Tour average, we would have expected that number to sit around 68%, so driving distance was certainly useful last year at the Renaissance Club.
Reading across the board it looks like power was a big advantage last year while accuracy almost didn’t matter one bit. From there, steady iron play and strong short-game skills were the recipe for success.
What golfers pop off the page if we take a look at those metrics (distance, GIR, short game) this week?
Wyndham Clark
Tommy Fleetwood
Jordan Spieth
Nicolai Hojgaard
Patrick Cantlay
Tyrrell Hatton
Michael Kim
Viktor Hovland
Xander Schauffele
Adam Scott
Rickie Fowler
Sam Burns
Matthew Fitzpatrick
Ryan Fox
Min Woo Lee
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
I was hoping to get a discount on Hatton, but the books are well aware of his links pedigree and made sure to hang a tough number.
Finish Position Markets
Outright betting gets most of the spotlight but there are so many other markets to explore when taking on golf betting.
The FTN Betting Model is a great tool to use for these markets. Alex runs his model and it spits out a price for each of the position markets (top 5, top 10, top 20, top 40, made cut).
Here is one play that stood out to me at first glance.
Wyndham Clark Top 20 Finish
Best available: +163 (BetRivers)
Worst available: +150
As you may have noticed in the section above, Clark is best in the field when looking at the recent stats that popped for last year’s contenders at this course.
He’s elevated his game with two wins since May while also snagging top 20s at the Memorial, Zurich Classic, Corales and Valspar. That is six top 20s in his last 10 starts.
Clark also posted a T16 at this event last year so we have more evidence that the course should suit his game.
The top-20 markets are slower to release (lazy books) but make sure you use our prop shop tool to make sure you get the best number available. Right now, BetRivers is offering the best price but that could always change by the time Wednesday night rolls around.
There are four events being played over the next two weeks, including next week’s Open Championship, so this is the perfect time to check out our PGA product at FTNBets and FTNDaily. Use promo code CULP for 20% off.
