2024 College Basketball Power Rankings (Dec. 16)
Mike Randle
Black Desert Resort proved to be a dazzling backdrop for golf last week in Utah. The PGA Tour stays out West as they head to Las Vegas for the Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin.
Unlike last week, we have a lot more historical course data at TPC Summerlin, so let’s dig in to that data and see what stands out.
Course Fit
This week’s host course is a Bobby Weed design, laid out in the early 1990s. One of his other notable courses used on Tour is TPC River Highlands. That course happens to show up on my correlated course list this week.
From a course-fit standpoint, I like to look at split stats that pass the eye and stat test.
This week we have a par 71 that stretches to 7,255 yards but typically plays under 7,100. Add in warm weather and a touch of altitude, and this falls into the short course bucket.
Looking at approach buckets, it heavily over-indexes on shots inside of 150 yards, so it’s ideal to be handy with a wedge when targeting players this week.
As you might expect from a wedge-heavy courses, birdies are bagged in bunches around TPC Summerlin. The field averages around 24% birdie or better while swallowing bogey or worse just 14% of the time. That plus-10 differential makes it one of the easier scoring environments we see all season.
The last thing that stands out is grass as we have Dominator bentgrass on the greens so golfers who are comfortable on bent could enjoy the putting surfaces here.
Here are the names who show the biggest increase in performance when playing courses with similar splits (easy courses, short courses, bentgrass greens), relative to their baseline.
- Rickie Fowler
- Emiliano Grillo
- Gary Woodland
- Chez Reavie
- Alex Smalley
- Nick Hardy
- Mark Hubbard
- K.H. Lee
- Greyson Sigg
- Nick Taylor
Head over to the Split Stats page to see who the top performers are in these split stat categories.
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
Last week’s winner, Matt McCarty is just below this, priced at 35/1 to go back-to-back. We saw Keith Mitchell as the betting favorite last week but now he slips to fifth on the board after a missed cut in Utah.
Shriners Children’s Open Free Golf Bets
Emiliano Grillo Top 20 Finish (+320)
The Argentine has gained on approach in 12 of his last 13 starts. He’s ninth in the field over the last year when it comes to approach play from 100 to 150 yards. That exact stat is not what’s important, but it is notable that the approach shots TPC Summerlin puts in his hands are right up his wheelhouse.
He’s yet to piece it all together at TPC Summerlin with nothing better than a T34 in six tries, but his stat profile suggests a top-20 is well within his range of outcomes.
Nick Taylor Top 10 Finish (+650)
He’s 10th on the split stat overperformance list above and also ranks sixth in approach shot performance from 100 to 150 yards over the last year.
Taylor is a four-time winner on Tour with his most recent coming this year at TPC Scottsdale. Add a top 25 last week at Black Desert, and he’s proven he can do well on desert terrain.
Another one of his wins came at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, played on short courses out West, putting an emphasis on great wedge play.
Taylor Pendrith to Win 25-1 (one-fourth each-way for 5 places)
He ended the season on a real hot streak, posting a win and nine other top 25s in his last 13 starts.
Then he went to Royal Montreal and played all five matches, a testament to the captain seeing how well he’s playing this season.
He ranks first in the field in six-month baseline performance and wouldn’t look out of place if he were the betting favorite. Instead, he’s 13 points lower than Tom Kim and we get +625 for the top-5 portion of this each way which is better than the market consensus of +525.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the Discord to get those bet alerts.
