Flag Hunting: PGA Betting Picks - 2024 3M Open

Between Monday's Course Preview piece (found right here on RotoBaller), and last night's podcast (currently posted on our X page), we've given all of you every possible trend, key stat, and player take needed to make the most educated betting decisions possible this week at the TPC Twin Cities. This Wednesday article will now serve as a final bow to wrap up a jam-packed week of PGA content at Flag Hunting. No fluff, no rants or superfluous soliloquies, just the entirety of our 2024 3M Open outright betting card.

The four names on this betting card are aimed at returning about six times our investment. Because of the inflated odds associated with the outright market, it becomes even more imperative to remain disciplined when setting your unit allocations from this article's picks. Golf outright betting is a notoriously fickle beast, and multiple month-long droughts are very much within the range of outcomes. However, at these prices, one single hit can pay off many weeks of poor decision-making.

In the over two-year history at Flag Hunting, we've been fortunate enough to cash a total of 24 outright winners (a 19.6% hit rate) for a profit of nearly $14,000 (betting roughly $350 per week) and an aggregate ROI of 31.6%. The volatility of the sport means I can't promise you a winner in any given tournament. But if you're willing to bet methodically and stick with the process, outright golf betting has the potential to be one of the most profitable (and enjoyable) betting sweats in the business. But I suppose I'd better keep my word about the necessary rants, so with no further ado, here's every bet I've made for the 2024 3M Open!

3M Open Betting Card

Tony Finau (12-1)

Utah's Tony Finau just sank a long birdie on 12 and is now tied for 2nd place at 4-under at the U.S. Open. pic.twitter.com/ASDqZ0wSJx

— Dana Greene (@dana_greene) June 14, 2024

Although Tony's ball-striking splits have made him a trendy pick to capture one of the game's marquee championships this summer, his recent history would tell us he's a far better investment at the depressed odds we're likely to see in a beleaguered field this week. Over the last two seasons, Tony has accrued four PGA Tour victories: one in a Fall Swing event at Memorial Park, one in Mexico's National Open -- which included just two players inside of the OWGR Top 50, and two right here in the Midwest in back-to-back weeks: running away with the 2022 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic by a combined eight shots. His average odds over those four wins? 12.8/1.

This season, Finau comes into the Twin Cities in decidedly better form than two years ago: logging five straight top 20 finishes from the PGA Championship to the Travelers, including a third-place finish in last month's U.S. Open. In that time, Tony has lapped this field with his iron play, gaining an average of 5.2 strokes per tournament on Approach -- beating the next best approach player in this field, Keith Mitchell, by nearly two shots per start.

Finau also holds a decided advantage when we hone in specifically on mid/long iron play from beyond 175 yards (a range that accounted for 48% of approach shots here last season). He ranks 2nd in my modeling in Weighted Proximity, and in five career starts here in Minneapolis, Tony has recorded two of the best five approach weeks of his entire career, averaging 5.0 shots per start with his iron play in that time.

Finau also leads this field in Par 5 scoring, he ranks inside the top 20 in Good Drive Percentage, and has gained strokes with both off-the-tee and on the greens here in the Twin Cities in four straight starts. As a past champion and the second-highest-ranked player in this field, we clearly won't be seeing much value in the Finau number this week. But if recent history is anything to go off of, these sub-20 prices are exactly the spots in which you want to target Big Tone.

Luke Clanton (33-1)

Luke Clanton is a STUD. pic.twitter.com/jkfXXqmlxJ

— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) July 6, 2024

We've seen our fair share of wunderkinds come through the amateur ranks in recent years, and if strokes gained splits are anything to go off of, Florida State sophomore Luke Clanton looks like the next in line to join the Hovland/Morikawa/Aberg class of debutante superstars. The 20-year-old from Hialeah, Florida has made four starts on the PGA Tour since qualifying for last month's U.S. Open, and in that time, he's put together one of the more impressive ball-striking runs in the sport.

In four starts from Pinehurst, Detroit GC, TPC Deere Run, and Keene Trace, Clanton has found a whopping 74% of his fairways (ranking 3rd in Good Drive Percentage), while logging an average driving distance of 319 yards -- a figure that is only currently matched by Rory McIlroy and Cameron Champ's season-long average. From a strokes gained standpoint, Clanton is on pace for a historic beginning to his professional career: gaining no less than 3.9 strokes off the tee in any of his first four appearances.

The iron play hasn't been far behind in terms of impressiveness, as Luke ranks fifth in this field in Birdie Chances Created, 12th in Strokes Gained: Approach, and fourth in Green in Regulation rate. He's also a top 40 putter in this field (gaining 1.6 strokes per start), and sits inside the top 10 in Par 5 scoring and Birdie or Better Percentage.

A small sample of fairly benign layouts could easily be pulling the wool over our eyes here, but everything we've seen to this point of Clanton's career points to an ascendant talent who once again gets a dream spot for his elite tools to shine. TPC Twin Cities has been very friendly to elite drivers over the course of its five-year history on Tour, and at prices >30-1, I'm more than happy to buy into the red-hot recent form.

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Final 2023 Golf Betting Results:
(Individual breakdowns of all sections in thread) @RotoBaller

2023 (+16.634 Units)
2022 (+67.485 Units)
2021 (+68.846 Units)
2020 (+37.015 Units)
2019 (+27.743 Units)
2018 (+55.88 Units)
2017 (+54.26 Units)

Overall: (+327.863 Units) pic.twitter.com/tuaDfwFXlo

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) November 21, 2023

Keith Mitchell (37-1)

🚨⛳️🦅 CASHMERE KEITH MITCHELL EAGLE. SOLO LEAD! ☢️

pic.twitter.com/9OznYLkzid

— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) March 23, 2024

The Barracuda Championship last week produced a rare 2024 dud for Keith Mitchell, but in spite of that missed cut, I feel 37-1 is more than a bridge too far on one of the only comparable statistical commodities to Finau and Clanton. Mitchell has put together one of the most impressive ball-striking runs of the PGA Tour campaign through six months -- ranking either first or second in this field in Total Ball Striking, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Birdie Chances Created,  and Strokes Gained: Approach.

In particular, Mitchell has shone brightest on the Tour's most driver/long-iron intensive venues: gaining 9.2 and 8.1 strokes on Approach at the Valspar Championship and Mexico Open's (the two best iron weeks of his entire career), and his best weighed driving totals at 7,400-yard TPC San Antonio and 7,500-yard Valhalla.

His course fit on these treacherous confines isn't simply a projection based on recent strokes gained splits, either, as Mitchell has recorded two fifth-place finishes in Minnesota over his last two appearances (2023 & 2021). The putter has been the biggest liability for the UGA alumni to this point in 2024, but perhaps the benign greens of TPC Twin Cities will provide the perfect tonic for his putting woes. After all, Mitchell has recorded three of the best 10 putting weeks of his entire career here in four career starts (+7.2, +6.1, and +5.1). If he sees even a fraction of this historic success this week, I have no doubts that his tee-to-green prowess will be enough to deliver a finish even better than 12 months ago.

Rico Hoey (80-1)

SHOT OF THE DAY. RICO HOEY. #BarstoolNV5 pic.twitter.com/RGB0NvKmNA

— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) July 28, 2023

Although we've had a few wins-by-proxy with the likes of Jason Day and J.J. Spaun in my lifetime, perhaps nobody in the history of the sport has come closer to capturing the Philippines' first PGA Tour title than Richard "Rico" Hoey. The Manila-native has found himself on a heater as the calendar has flipped into the summer months: logging finishes of sixth, second, and eighth in three of his last four starts.

An alumni of Southern Cal, Rico has long been known for his elite driving prowess: even earning the nickname "WGD," or "World's Greatest Driver" from his teammates and coaches at USC. In his debut season on the sport's highest level, he's shown they weren't far off in their calculations: ranking inside the top eight on the PGA Tour this season in both Total Driving and Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee.

The driver has been an evergreen commodity throughout Rico's career, but it has been the developments in the rest of his game that have made him a regular sight on the first page of leaderboards this summer. In this four-stretch since the Rocket Mortgage Classic, Rico has gained an average of 3.15 shots to the field with his iron play, he ranks ninth in this field in Birdie Chances Created, and has gained strokes with his putter in five consecutive starts.

Notably, Rico's two best finishes on the Korn Ferry Tour last season came on bentgrass greens, including a win at Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville. Perhaps, then, it shouldn't be a surprise that we're seeing a similar run of form through the PGA Tour's summer swing in the Midwest 14 months later. Sunday's haven't yet been kind enough to the 28-year-old to grant him his maiden victory at the top level, but there are few players in this field that should be coming in with his level of confidence. In a week with so much uncertainty between trans-Atlantic travel, varying barometers of recent field strengths, weather waves, and even styles of golf, I'm willing to ride the hot hand here at this generous price.

Jhonattan Vegas (85-1)

Wow. What a shot.

Jhonattan Vegas is now tied for the lead. pic.twitter.com/7P4KVw2K7r

— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) July 30, 2017

In a similar vein to past champions Matthew Wolff, Cameron Champ, and Tony Finau, Jhonattan Vegas presents the tantalizing profile of elite driving, trending approach play, and past pedigree at both TPC Twin Cities and in similar bentgrass birdie fests.

A two-time winner at Glen Abbey GC (a similarly waterlogged, bentgrass golf course with easier scoring conditions), and a runner-up here in Minnesota three seasons ago, Vegas has proven that very capable on contending on this stage when his game is in order -- and after fighting a nagging shoulder injury for much of last year, the ball-striking splits have found a semblance of normalcy for the Venezuelan this summer.

Vegas has always counted himself as one of the game's premier power players, but over the last few months, he's added a deadly amount of precision into his driving profile. In fact, over his last 36 rounds, Jhonny ranks 17th in this field in Good Drive Percentage and second on the entire PGA Tour in Total Driving.

Vegas has also gained a combined seven strokes on approach over his last two starts (John Deere & Rocket Mortgage), and recently recorded the best putting week of his season on the pure bentgrass greens of Hamilton GC. I think there's more than enough recent life to a justify an 85-1 price-tag in this field.

Best of luck, guys, and happy hunting!

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