RADIO
Brooks Koepka is the PGA Championship winner. He is cementing himself as one of the greatest big game hunters to ever walk the planet. He has more major wins (5) than he has regular PGA Tour events (4), which is the definition of big game hunting. If you took the WM Phoenix Open out the mix, he would have only 2 PGA Tour wins. An incredible feat and an incredible comeback from what seemed like a very dark place emotionally over the last few years dealing with poor play and injuries.
Jon Rahm just could not get it going on a course that really fit his game. Frustrating stuff to have the world No. 1 finishing T50, almost missing the cut, after we put all our eggs in his basket at 8-1. Such is the nature of the beast, but we still had a really good week, hitting 3 of 4 placement bets and cashing our only matchup! Lets keep that momentum going, shall we?
But before we do, for those of you who are new to the article, Breaking $100 is a comprehensive PGA betting guide on how to squeeze every cent out of your $100. We will be breaking $100 into a betting card of outrights, first-round leaders, placings, and a "farewell fiver," all in an attempt to turn a structured betting strategy into a profitable and entertaining Sunday sweat. $100 is easily divided or multiplied, so please only bet amounts that you can afford to lose. You can find me on Twitter an unhealthy amount of the time @TheModelManiac, if you have any questions, compliments, or insults for me.
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Outrights ($10)
We are adjusting our outright strategy a little to be much passive and cautious with how we go about investing in this market. Considering we haven't hit an outright since the Shriners we probably want to reduce our unit exposure in this area until we start hitting a few more winners. Yes, the more horses we have in the race, the better our chances are, but this week there is a silky stallion called Scottie Scheffler, and his odds to win this week are shorter than Harry Higgs to finish top-40. We are picking and choosing our battles and this week are discount shopping.
Justin Rose ($4.49 @ +3300 on FanDuel)
Now, although we are not spending that much in the outright market, it doesn't mean we can't go hunting down a few guys with shorter odds. Justin Rose has enjoyed success at shorter more positional courses, which makes sense as he is 91st in a field of 120 in driving distance, but 9th in good drives gained and 22nd in accuracy off the tee. He already has a win this season, at Pebble Beach, a short positional track, with a T6 at the Players Championship (shorter course) and is coming into the week with a T9 at the PGA Championship last week.
The course history correlations at Colonial Country Club are 13th highest on tour, with guys having played well here in the past, often doing so again. Rose has a win, a T3 and a T20 in his last 5 appearances here, which is a very appealing part of his stat portfolio. His putting on Bentgrass greens is 5th in the field and his last 24 rounds he has gained the 7th most strokes on approach, which are two less thorns on the stem of Justin Rose that we will have to be worried about when he tees it up in search of that Royal Tartan Plaid jacket. The winner also receives a restored 1973 Ford Bronco this year, which seems a little out of the Englishman's tea-drinking wheelhouse, but we will take the jacket and a W nonetheless.
Brendon Todd ($1.69 @ +9000 on BetRivers)
We have Brendon Todd ranked 10th in our model with three key areas of his game contributing to this. First, we mentioned course history playing a large role in our handicapping process and The Todfather has a 3rd and T8 in his last two stops here. He most likely has found success here, because he is the 3rd-best Bentgrass putter in the field and actually leads the field in SG Putt + ARG in the last two dozen rounds.
Finally, only 5 golfers in the field drive the ball more accurately than Todd, which helps keep his ball out the trees, leaving him stress free approach shots. The combination of his accuracy and sharp short game has him making the 16th least amount of bogeys in the field, which will come in very handy if we see scores in the -9 ball park once again. His medium course scoring also ranks 16th which will hopefully play a role in Todd's pursuit of that Ford Bronco.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout ($1.69 @ +9000 on BetRivers)
My favorite outright on the card comes in the form of somebody I grew up playing high school golf with back home in South Africa. Christiaan Bezuidenhout changed coaches at the Players Championship and since then he has been sensational on approach, averaging +1.16 strokes per round with his irons, which has him as the fifth best approach player in the field over the last 24 rounds. The guys ahead of him? Tony, Scottie, Viktor, and Collin. I intentionally left out their last names just to emphasize that they are very popular and very accomplished golfers and ball strikers, who Bezuidenhout is now matching on approach recently.
Outside of his missed cut on the number at the PGA Championship, losing -4 on Bentgrass greens in R2, he has finished T13, T28, T19, and T23 in the four other events since the coaching change, hitting 70% of his fairways along the way. But wait, there is more, as Bezzy is the best Bentgrass putter in the field! We have a perfect storm of incredible iron play, elite putting, arousing accuracy and to make things even more steamy, he finished T15 at this event last year, with his putter and irons gaining 9 strokes on the field. At 90-1, it would be awesome to see him add a PGA Tour win to his 3 DPWT shiny objects sitting in his trophy case already.
Hayden Buckley ($1.50 @ +10000 on FanDuel)
Although SG Off The Tee isn't that much of a predictor of success, we saw Jason Kokrak dismantle this course with booming, accurate drives, which is what Hayden Buckley is absolutely capable of. He is 24th in both distance and accuracy off the tee which combines to make him the 2nd-best driver of the ball, behind only Scottie Scheffler. Buckley is 6th in approach over the last 16 rounds, with his approach play blossoming once he left the Florida swing behind him.
Buckley has a small sample of tour starts, but he leads the field in strokes gained on comp courses with a 2nd at Waialae Country Club in January and a T5 at Harbour Town in April gaining +0.88 OTT and hitting 77% of his fairways on those two courses. We will take our chances with Buckley on Bentgrass greens, as he typically struggles on them, but he did just gain +2.65 putting at the PGA Championship (Bentgrass), where he finished T26 in only his 3rd major appearance. A lot of confidence and a monumental amount of ball striking momentum will be behind Buckley when he challenges the other 119 dudes for that Ford Bronco pink slip.
Akshay Bhatia ($0.62@ +25000 on BetRivers)
We like a lot about Akshay this week and he is a 250-1 longshot, largely because he has been really poor in the short game area. However, with scores barely creeping into double digits, his 2nd-ranked weighted SG gained on approach is very ideal and although it is only the smallest of sample sizes, Bhatia gained over a stroke off the tee in each of his two rounds at Harbour Town, hitting 86% of his fairways on route to a short game induced missed cut. We saw a little life on the greens in Mexico and with ball striking like his, we will take a gamble that the short game pops and Akshay leaves Texas in a Ford Bronco that was built 29 years before he was born.
Did you know RotoBaller has a Premium DFS PGA subscription? Like what you read today? You can show your support for Byron by using the discount code MANIAC when purchasing a PGA Premium Pass. You get 10% off and full access to all of our Premium PGA articles, DFS tools, models, projections and Lineup Optimizer! You also get access to weekly betting picks from Spencer Aguiar, one of the top betting minds in the industry.
End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod
2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 UnitsTotal Winnings: +311.229 Units
Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36
H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE
— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022
Placings ($58.60)
"This year has straight up sucked. I have zero confidence in the model to produce winners in the placement market anymore and my "maniac overrides" are now starting to get the better of me too. We went 0-5 last week which was super disappointing. Tom Hoge at +210 felt really good and to sum up his performance, in round three he made 7 birdies, yet shot -2 on a course that saw seven golfers get to -20 or better. Frustrating stuff. Onwards and upwards!" - PGA Championship article, in response to getting swept at the Byron Nelson.
Que the mini comeback, as we were a Seamus Power outage away from sweeping the bookies at the PGA Championship.
This week we have ourselves a quartet of T20s and a pair of T40s, with a few spicy odds alongside one or two names. The black and gold odds are BetMGM where ties are paid in full. I typically opt for the ties paid in full if that number can get within 30 points of the FD number.
*We are NOT playing Aaron Rai. We just can't get behind his recent form and lack of T40s despite what the model is suggesting, especially at that number.
- $10 Justin Rose T20 +150 on FanDuel - He has been T20 in half of his 10 starts this year and heads to a course where he has great course history, great form, and a juicy +150 price tag.
- $10 Brendon Todd T20 +240 on BetMGM - Todd only T20s about 1 in every 5 events, but with a T21 at the Sony, T2 at Pebble, T27 at the Players, he suits shorter courses. Not to mention his last two starts here were top 10 finishes.
- $5 Akshay Bhatia T20 +500 on FanDuel - His T20 rate is reflective of his price point, but we like him on a shorter track where he can lean on his iron play off the tee and into the greens. Hope and pray for a short game spike week.
- $10 Christiaan Bezuidenhout T20 +320 on FanDuel - Remember he has recently changed coaches and since then he has finished T13, T28, T19, T23, and MC. A T15 here last year is another reason to jump on Bezzy at +320.
- $13.60 Taylor Moore T40 -125 @BetMGM: NINE of his 12 starts this year have been T40 and you can get him with ties paid in full for -125. FanDuel has a +100 which is not enough of an edge to get away from ties paid in full.
- $10 Nate Lashley T40 +160 @ BetMGM: His last four starts have been T40s, which is largely due to his iron play ranking as the 17th best in the field from a weighted SG standpoint. His bogey avoidance rate is also inside the top-25.
Matchups ($26.40)
Matchups are my favorite golf bet to place, as it is one of the safer bets as you can still cash in on a matchup even if our guy misses the cut.
PGA Championship Recap
$15 Cameron Davis -108 over Min Woo Lee: Cash it for $13.89
"This is more so a Min Woo fade, as he has lost insane amounts of strokes on approach in five consecutive starts, missing the cut in his last three. Davis got off to a rough start to the season, but has made three of his last four cuts, finishing T6 and T7 in two of them. The reliability is there from Davis since he declared he was finally healthy at the Players Championship, missing 5 consecutive cuts before that. Davis is also a really good bunker player and has the length to handle this beast of a course." - PGA Cha
Charles Schwab Challenge $40
We have two matchups this week with one of them against the guy we took on last week. We are NOT betting the Si Woo bet, but if you don't have FD then that bet would be the way to go.
$10 Rickie Fowler +100 over Sam Burns
Rickie Fowler has made 90% of his cuts and 60% of his starts have been top 20s, giving him a Safety + T20 of 150%. Meanwhile, Sam Burns has only made 60% of his cuts with a 40% T20 rate. Yes, we are taking on Burns at a course that he is defending champion, but he enters the week off back-to-back missed cuts and an approach ranking of 67th over the last 24 rounds. With his around the green game also giving him a tough time (78th) an iron game that is iffy with that kind of recovery ability is a recipe to miss a cut. Rickie has also been really solid lately, playing great, consistent golf. We get even money on the much better golfer right now because his opponent is the defending champ that gained 4 strokes putting in the final round before the wind picked up.
$16.40 Denny McCarthy (-164) over Min Woo Lee
We are picking on Min Woo Lee again. Denny is 10th in bogey avoidance and enters the week with 82% made cuts and 45% top 20 rate. He is a solid Bentgrass putter and has a been rattling top-30s in each of his last 6 stroke play starts. Min Woo Lee relies entirely on his short game to save him as the 4th worst iron player in the field over the last 24 rounds. He has only made 3 of his 7 cuts so far and his extreme distance off the tee may not be as much of a factor here, as it was last week. We are hoping to take advantage of Lee's inconsistency on the ball striking front, with a missed cut looming large.
The Farewell Fiver ($5 - duh!)
Christiaan Bezuidenhout Top 10 +750: $5
We cashed the top 20 Cantlay but his T9 was not good enough to get to the window for a Top 5 +350. However, this week, we get an even juicier number of +750 on a top 10 for our boy Bezzy, who we think is due for a big result in Texas. Good luck this week, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!
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