MLB Best Bets – Free (Wednesday 5/15)
Josh Gross
Turning our attention to another limited-field, signature event, we have the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week at Bay Hill Club & Lodge.
There are just 69 golfers teeing it up this week in Orlando, and similar to what we saw at the Genesis, there will be a 36-hole cutline that trims the field to the top 50 and ties heading into the weekend. Anyone within 10 shots of the lead will also get a weekend tee time.
We have decades of data on this course so let’s dive in to dissect the layout and see if those course characteristics show us the path to any opportunities on the betting board.
Course Fit
Bay Hill Club & Lodge is a Dick Wilson design, laid out in the 1960s. Arnold Palmer put his stamp on the course in 2009. When we have an event with so much course history, the easy path is to just look at course history and pick and pluck from the top performers. However, that route will steer you away from any fresh faces or golfers that have only played the course once or twice.
So, in an attempt to pick up course horses before they establish themselves as such, we can look at course fit. My preferred method for this is the use of split stats.
There are quite a few split stats that prove relevant here when looking at past performance at Bay Hill. I’m going to focus on four of them. This course features speedy, bermuda greens so the first two splits we’ll look at is performance on fast greens and bermuda greens. Bay Hill is also a tough course that punishes missed fairways. Thick rough and water hazards can lead to some big numbers around here.
What names pop off the page when looking at those split stats (bermuda, fast greens, hard courses, fw penalty high)? Here are the top 10 in the field when it comes to overall split stat performance compared to their baseline:
Sungjae Im
Will Zalatoris
Andrew Putnam
Cameron Young
Chris Kirk
Shane Lowry
Tom Kim
Si Woo Kim
Justin Rose
Keegan Bradley
Lowry has a surprisingly awful record at Bay Hill but him and Rose are two of the first names that come to mind when I think of tough-course crushers. When you have five years of awful results in Lowry’s case, you have to think there is something about the design visually that doesn’t catch his eye.
Head over to the splits stats page to see how the entire field stacks up in these categories.
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
Scheffler is the class of the field when looking at one or two-year form while Rory brings the most robust resume when it comes to course history. It’s easy to see why they are priced at the top of the board but will the season of longshots continue?
Fit for a Winner
I typically lay out a finish-position bet here, but there was one outright that caught my eye after looking at a few of my course-fit metrics, so let’s go for the win this week.
Keegan Bradley to Win
Best available: 60/1 (BetRivers)
Worst available: 45/1
Longtime FTN readers likely associate Keegan with Alex Blickle as he’s hit on him a few times over the last couple of years. So it may be weird to get this bet from someone else but Bradley checks the boxes for me this week.
First, he shows up on the split stat over-performance list above and he backs that up with a long list of good results at Bay Hill. He has five finishes of T-11 or better at this Orlando track including a pair of podium finishes (2013, 2014).
Bay Hill forces golfers to hit a lot of longer irons and Bradley ranks 5th in the field over the last year when it comes to approach shot performance from outside of 200 yards.
He doesn’t “go for the green” as much as I’d prefer but he’s very efficient when he attacks, ranking 4th in going for the green GIR % over the last year. While I’d prefer quantity and quality at Bay Hill, I would much prefer quality when it comes to aggression because big numbers are lurking in the form of water balls for those who are too aggressive.
I’ve got his fair price closer to 33/1 this week so I will gladly take this 60 with an each-way (6 places) attached with it.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the Discord to get those bet alerts.
