RADIO
The Jordan Spieth experiment ended with us looking like an electrocuted Einstein, as the electricity that Spieth brings to the table should never be mixed with water, which he did with three holes left while sharing the lead of the tournament. It was a one of the most turbulent emotional experiences I have had watching a pick try close out an event (this is a regular occurrence with Jordan, but we haven't bet him much).
Taylor Moore landed up winning the Valspar without leading a single hole while on the course. He managed to post a number in the clubhouse after going nuclear on the back nine and then watched the leaders get bit in the snake pit on their way home. A big congratulations to @TeeOffSports who went full Burger King and enjoyed himself a "Taylor Moore Quad Stacker" cashing a Moore outright, T5, T10, and T20. If it were not to be with Spieth, I am happy that my RotoBaller colleague managed to pull it off for us. Let's dive into this week's betting card.
But before we do that, 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.
Outrights
If you are interested in tailing along as soon as I place my bets, join our discord, where I share my picks as I make them, along with entertaining any other questions and conversations taking place there throughout the week. By the time I get to writing this article, odds have often shortened to varying degrees, so if you are interested in following along with the best numbers, jump into that discord.
It is match play week and we are rolling out the dogs, just like we did last year, engaging eight golfers to try blitz each of their octets and somehow get one of them into the Championship match, just like we did last year with Kisner. We have made an outright bet on a golfer from each Octet with a theoretical chance that all eight of them make it out their pod and into the elite eight, which would guarantee us a win (this won't happen), but we are doing our best to cover all our bases in such a volatile tournament.
Below is a graphic to show the thought process of the above paragraph. We don't want to bet anyone who has the same color (dark + light orange etc) on the same side (left and right) of the bracket. This approach needs to also be adhered to when making your DFS lineups as you don't want your guys running into each other before they mathematically can no longer avoid each other. It's a big-picture math problem this week. We are betting $15 to return $123+ depending on who wins.
Max Homa ($5.50 @ +2500 on BetRivers)
Max Homa has to go up against three opponents who average 95-1 odds to win the event. Homa ranks 7th in a pod with Hideki Matsuyama, Kevin Kisner, and Justin Suh ranking 17th, 64th, and 46th respectively. Homa has been playing sensational golf of late and to grab a 25-1, which is three times better than Scottie Scheffler's odds was a delightful number for the World No. 6. I would argue Max should be priced at 20-1 or high teens.
He played well here last year, losing to Dustin Johnson, who is a tough match for anybody. He is also a remarkably improved golfer since he last played this event a year ago. Once he escapes his pod he will have to duel Spieth, Lowry, Montgomery, or Hughes, who all rank 19th or worse in my model. He seems to have a reasonable path to the Elite 8, which is needed if he wants to win this event.
Sahith Theegala ($1.84 @ +7500 on DraftKings)
Sahith Theegala leads the world in good shot rates from 100-150 yards in the fairway in 2023. This means that 18.3% of the time Sahith is gaining over half a stroke on approach from this range by hitting his ball inside 6 feet. About 1 in every 5 shots he hits with a wedge result in a birdie look from less than 6 feet. In match play, I want my golfer to give himself as many birdie opportunities as possible, and Sahith does just that.
He is also a super scrappy golfer, who is capable of chipping in from anywhere, rolling in long putts to save par, and sticking an approach stiff from way off the fairway. These are all traits that can be incredibly frustrating to opponents. 75-1 for the best fairway wedge player in the world is something I would bet every week. He is in a pod with Matt Fitzpatrick, Min Woo Lee, and J.J. Spaun who present Sahith with the 13th easiest path out his pod based off his opponent's odds to win the event which averages 115-1.
Corey Conners ($1.54 @ +8000 on DraftKings)
Corey Conners finished 3rd at this event last year and presents an intriguing conundrum when determining how his game translates to match play. Connors is one of the steadiest ball strikers on tour, but often struggles to make the necessary putts to get into contention. Maybe knowing that he doesn't need to make the 5-foot come backer for bogey, needing only a par to halve the hole, frees up his putter to perform how it did last year. We love an 80-1 on a golfer who has opponents that average 113-1 to win the event.
Matt Kuchar ($1.23 @ +10000 on BetRivers)
All you need to know about Matt Kuchar is that you should not be fooled by his age, as he is still extremely competitive and will be teeing it up at a golf course that won't punish is lack of length off the tee, while giving him ample opportunity to put his seasoned short game to the test hole after hole. Kuchar has a bit of a tough pod, though, with average odds to win of 64-1. But, we trust the old fox at these odds!
Maverick McNealy ($1.12 @ +11000 on FanDuel)
Maverick McNealy is the best putter in the field over the last 50 rounds. We are engaging in match play this week and we want good putters. Six of our eight outrights have averaged at least +0.25 strokes per round on the greens over the last 50, if you were looking for a theme to our card. McNealy has yet to lose a match at Austin Country Club, going 2-0-1 last year, losing in a sudden death playoff. At 110-1 we like his chances to out putt Sungjae Im, Tommy Fleetwood, and J.T. Poston.
Seamus Power ($1.12 @ +11000 on BetRivers)
Seamus Power has to beat a Sam and two Adams to advance from his group. Power has a match play record of 3-2, which is misleading as he managed to get himself to the elite 8 last year. Power had an "outage" once he headed to Florida a few weeks ago, breaking a streak of 9 consecutive events gaining strokes. He is a scrappy golfer and a repeat performance of last year would be glorious at 110-1.
Harris English ($1.12 @ +11000 on DraftKings)
Harris English has been hot and cold lately, missing two cuts and finishing T2 at the API and T12 at the Genesis Invitational. Those two top-12s were on the back of a putter that gained over 2 strokes per round, which is exactly what we are looking for from a 110-1 longshot looking to make some waves this week.
Only 8 other golfers in the field of 64 have an easier path out of their pod, with English's opponents averaging 123-1 to win the event. Will Zalatoris is the best golfer out of Ryan Fox and Andrew Putnam, but he isn't near his best right now since returning from a back injury. Harris has a great chance to get out this pod and potentially make a run on a course that suits his short game precision.
Lucas Herbert ($0.70 @ +17500 on BetRivers)
Lucas Herbert had a Florida swing that is to be forgotten, which we will do. He went 2-1 in his pod last year and should have a decent shot at beating Ben Griffin and Russell Henley with his biggest challenge being a surging Tyrrell Hatton, who can spontaneously combust into a million pieces of misery and mayhem at any moment. Hopefully this happens against Herbert after our 11th best putter in the field drops some dagger putts on the greens. Despite having Hatton in his pod, Herbert's opponents have average odds of 99-1 which could definitely be worse.
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
After gaining some momentum in the last few events, we had 5 of 12 golfers make the cut, with two of them ejecting out of the top-40 on Sunday. Fun times. We keep slugging away.
Last week's results -$25.87:
- Matt Fitzpatrick T20 +110: -$6.25 (MC... puke)
- Tommy Fleetwood T20 +150: +$9.38
- Adam Hadwin T20 +150: -$6.25 (MC)
- Robby Shelton T20 +360 -$6.25
- Ben Griffin T40 +100 -$5 (-3.34 on App in R4...)
- Joel Dahmen T40 +130 -$5 (lost -4.65 strokes putting in R3...)
- Mark Hubbard T40 +160 -$5 (R2 meltdown to MC)
- Nick Taylor T40 +130 +$6.5
- Eric Cole T40 +175 -$5
- Sam Ryder T40 +140 +$7
- Ben Taylor T40 +188 -$5 (Got married the week before...)
- Austin Eckroat T40 +355 -$5
This week we are going to be betting all 8 of our golfers to escape their pod to total $80 of our $100 budget. With so many long shots on our card we only need 3 of our 8 golfers to advance to make a profit. All of these bets are at BetMGM except for Harris English (FanDuel).
- Max Homa +140 $16.03
- Corey Conners +225 $11.84
- Sahith Theegala +250 $10.99
- Seamus Power +280 $10.12
- Matt Kuchar +350 $$8.55
- Harris English +360 $8.36
- Maverick McNealy +400 $7.69
- Lucas Herbert +500 $6.41
Matchups
Matchups are my favorite golf bet to place, as it is one of the safer bets that can be placed, and you can still cash in on a matchup even if our guy misses the cut. Last week we cashed Tommy Fleetwood over Gary Woodland $5 @ -126, with Tommy establishing a clear lead over Woodland early on and coasting to a comfortable victory in the matchup market.
No matchups this week as nobody plays another golfer for more than a single round.
A Look Into The Future
With all the majors behind us, we now have an opportunity to identify odds for majors, which may be drastically shorter by the time the week of the event rolls into our lives. We are going to give ourselves a budget of $12 to spend on futures for each major to return $200, which is double our usual return, but we are investing double the capital (futures + week of) to have double the fun in major weeks.
The Masters
Max Homa ($2.80 @ +8000 on PointsBet)
If you take a look at the odds board, the players around Max Homa at 80-1 are relics, who have either fled to LIV, required some sort of exemption to remain on tour, or are just straight-up bad at golf. Homa has won four times in the last two years and just proved that he can handle immense pressure on the biggest of stages, sinking clutch putts at the Presidents Cup a week after winning at the Fortinet.
His game translates incredibly well to what Augusta requires from its past winners. Golfers with distance off the tee, impeccable iron play and imagination, and touch on and around the greens have had success at one of golf's most treasured venues. Max does all three of those really well and after making his first cut in three tries last year, he should be a serious contender when he returns there next year.
(I probably should have time stamped this, but this piece was written for the Sanderson Farms article, 6 months ago: Free PGA Betting Picks - Golf Best Bets for the 2022 Sanderson Farms Championship | Fantasy News (rotoballer.com))
The Farewell Fiver
Scottie Scheffler Winner $5 +1100 (8-1 +300 boost on DK)
Sam Ryder double-bogeyed his final hole to fall from T10 to T19, nuking our +700 T10 bet. So close. This week is going to be a weird one, as we are simply rolling out Scottie Scheffler to win this event at +1100. If one of our guys makes it to the final and he is facing Scheffler, we have our bases covered. If our guys bomb out then we still have our wagon hitched to the favorite of the event to give us a little sweat. Good luck this week, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!
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