PGA Outrights and Best Bets for the 2025 CJ Cup Byron Nelson

In this week’s edition of great PGA Tour tournament titles, we have the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Similar to some of the Tour’s other masterpieces, they’ve just jammed together a sponsor (CJ Group) and a famous golf great (Byron Nelson). 

This Dallas event has seen a rotating door of host courses in the last decade with the current host, TPC Craig Ranch, hosting for the fifth time. With four years of course data we have a good take on what style of play works here and what doesn’t. Let’s talk about that course fit. 

Course Fit

TPC Craig Ranch is a par 71 that stretches nearly to 7,600 yards. That’s from the tips while actual yardage typically sits around 7,300 yards. Still, this is a beefy layout with seven of the par 4s able to play over 460 yards. 

More importantly, more than 33% of approach shots come from outside of 200 yards at TPC Craig Ranch. That is a huge over-index compared to PGA Tour average. When approaching from that range, expected landing ranges often fall about 50 feet from the hole. Sure, there will be much better long approaches throughout the week but in general you have to rely on your distance and short game around here. 

We shouldn’t confuse length with difficulty, though. The birdie rate across all Tour venues is 21% while TPC Craig Ranch yields birdies on 26% of holes played. The same is true for bogey rates as golfers card bogey or worse just 12% of the time at TPC Craig Ranch while the normal PGA Tour average is closer to 17%. 

Why is the course play so easy? The fairways are generous, which allows a lot of drivers to be hit and the overseeded rough is not too penal. When you look at the penalty for missing the fairway across the entire PGA Tour you’ll notice most of the easiest rough comes on weeks where the course is overseeded, which is what they’ll see this week at TPC Craig Ranch. 

Sticking with turf, they’ll see bentgrass on the putting surfaces. These greens can get speedy at times but usually sit pretty average around 12 on the stimp. 

Combining all we just learned about TPC Craig Ranch, we would want to find a golfer who excels on courses that let him hit a lot of drivers, plays well on courses that don’t heavily punish missed fairways, and plays well on courses with a lot of long approaches. 

Using our Splits Stats data over the last two years we can look at driver-heavy, fairway penalty low, and long course performance. Here are the names that overperform most when playing courses like TPC Craig Ranch. 

• Justin Lower
• Sami Valimaki
• Kevin Yu
• Taylor Moore
• Kristoffer Ventura
• Nicolai Hojgaard
• Dylan Wu
• Alejandro Tosti
• Cam Davis
• Hayden Springer

This week I used the “extreme splits” method which is when I compare long course performance versus short course performance. I compare driver-heavy stats with less-than-driver stats. 

Head over to the FTN PGA 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:

Scheffler is the big fish this week, but is his price inflated as a result? At +280 he would need to win more than 27% of the time to be good value. The FTN Betting Model has him right at 25%, so I think at the very best he’s efficiently priced, but I would say he’s overpriced. 

This hasn’t been the type of event where he’s won, either, even during his hot streak of winning in recent years. Over the last two years, Scheffler has been at least 2 shots better than a full field in terms of baseline performance, on 16 occasions. He’s won just one of those (7%). He’s 0-for-6 in terms of winning when he’s entered at least 3 shots better than the field average in baseline which is where he falls this week. Scheffler has done his damage more in strong field events with smaller fields and tougher scoring environments. 

So, I prefer to look down the board when looking for outrights. 

Free Golf Bets for the 2025 CJ Cup Bryon Nelson

Taylor Moore Top 20 Finish (+300)

He shows extreme improvement when playing driver-heavy courses and courses with a small penalty for missing the fairway. That is what he’ll get this week at TPC Craig Ranch. 

We saw him miss a few events recently with a rib injury, but he returned to action last week to shake off some rust. If he’s healthy this is supreme value. 

Alejandro Tosti to Win (80-1, one-fourth each way for 5 places)

He’s an FTN favorite and also on the record for wanting to hit driver as much as possible. TPC Craig Ranch allows him to use that favorite club of his. 

He missed the cut in the team event last week but has top-fives in two of his last three solo events. 

I want to strike while the iron is hot here with Tosti. 

Cam Davis to Win (80-1, one-fourth each way for 5 places)

He has the highest week-to-week volatility of anyone in the field over the last two years. That kind of variance is not ideal for consistent results, but it means his spike weeks are really good. 

We saw that on full display last year when he won in Detroit. He arrived with seven straight finishes outside of the top 35 heading into that week. So, I’m not overly concerned with his form but do like that he’s one of the best around-the-green players in the field. With a lot of long approaches this week, that scrambling skill will be put to good use. 

Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays throughout the week from myself and Alex Blickle. I already have a fourth play that I will load in there now.