2024-25 College Basketball Power Rankings (March 3)
Mike Randle
The PGA Tour stays in Florida this week as they ready for the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. This event has always been an exclusive invite-only event, but the current running of the tournament has it labeled as a signature event with only 72 golfers teeing it up.
When you get a field this small, you inevitably get controversy on which golfers are allowed in and which are excluded. This week that came in the form of sponsor’s invites as Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler both got their exemption requests denied while names like Rafa Campos and Mackenzie Hughes got tickets instead.
That’s a topic for another day, but for now, let’s dive in to dissect the course at Bay Hill and see what splits stats are worth targeting this week.
Course Fit
Bay Hill Club & Club is a par 72 that plays to nearly 7,500 yards. The raw yardage isn’t what we focus on, because it’s all about how the course allows you to play. Here at Bay Hill, it’s not a bomb-and-gouge track and there is a ton of water in play.
The result of how the course is set up gives the golfers a lot of long iron approach shots. In fact, we’ve seen 29% of approach shots coming from outside of 200 yards here while the Tour average is around 23% in that regard. So, while the driver gets muted at times around here, it’s still needed to score on the par 5s which are the only avenue to consistent scoring and distance comes in handy when it comes to long approach performance.
That’s a long-winded way of saying that our first split stat to target will be performance on long courses.
For turf, it’s similar to last week where we see overseed from tee-to-green and bermudagrass on the greens. Unlike last week, this is a turf profile that has been consistent for years, so we shouldn’t expect to see such easy scoring as last week. In fact, another angle we want to lean on is past performance on tough courses.
When looking at the last five years, the bogey rates were the same or higher than birdie rates in all five years so this is definitely a track where bogey trains can pile up quickly when watching on Shot Tracker.
I touched on it briefly already, but the greens here are bermudagrass and they are typically prepped to run around 12 feet on the stimp. They tilt toward the speedy side of the spectrum but sometimes they are just average.
So for our split stat search let’s look at top-heavy finish history on long courses, courses with bermuda greens, and courses with tough scoring. Here are the names that outperform their baseline rates.
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Akshay Bhatia
- Corey Conners
- Jacob Bridgeman
- Shane Lowry
- Tony Finau
- Andrew Novak
- Collin Morikawa
- Patrick Cantlay
- J.J. Spaun
The majority of this list is shaded to elite iron play while short games are all over the place.
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:
Schauffele is returning from injury this week, and the books are acting as if it’s business as usual. He’s been sidelined for roughly two months while the rest of the field has been playing their way into mid-season form. I’d be incredibly surprised if he found himself in contention this weekend. I’m a little surprised to see Scottie such a large favorite over Rory. I’ve talked about how I don’t see his 2024 win rate being sustainable but the markets are thinking otherwise.
You can see that his +320 outright price implies a 24% win rate, but what does FTN”’s PGA Betting Model say? Spoiler: Not that high. At the same time, Scottie has found himself in the mix since returning from injury and that’s while claiming to be rusty. It will be interesting to see if he’s shaken off all that rust or if sloppy mistakes continue to bite him this year. Or maybe he’ll just continue holing out bunker shots at an insane rate all year.
Arnold Palmer Invitational Free Golf Bets
Akshay Bhatia Top-10 Finish (+550)
The youngster has fully found his groove on the PGA Tour. He’s been the third-best putter in the field over the last six months while also gaining off-the-tee as well as approach. Most importantly, he’s in the top 15th percentile in long iron play across the Tour.
J.J. Spaun to Win (75-1, one-fourth each-way for 5 places)
The stocky striker just oozes confidence and to paraphrase he once called himself the best iron player in the world. While that’s far from true in terms of consistency, he does actually grade out as one of the 10 best iron players over the last two years when it comes to long approach shots from outside of 200 yards.
He has three podium finishes since August and all three came on courses with bermudagrass greens. Let’s see if he can add another this week in Orlando.
Tony Finau Top-20 Finish (+175)
He shook off the post-injury rust and now has back-to-back top 15s in the lead-up to the API. Over the course of his career, I’ve generally been against Finau on bermuda but I think his move to Arizona a few years back actually helped him a lot in that regard. I’ve seen his bermuda splits gradually increase to where they are pretty in line with his baseline now. In five previous trips to Bay Hill he has nothing better than a T24 finish but with improved confidence on bermuda and one of the best long-iron profiles on the planet, I think he’s ready to post a new personal best at Arnie’s House.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays.
