Flag Hunting: PGA Betting Picks - Charles Schwab Challenge

Like our trip to Harbour Town after last month’s Masters, the PGA Tour is once again taking a throwback approach to the week after a Major Championship. Unlike the 7500-plus yard behemoths we’ve become accustomed to during Major Championship season, Colonial Country Club presents a far different challenge for its 120-man field. 

A classic case of brains vs. brawn, this week could well be a chance for some of golf's scrappers and plodders to get one back on the brutes that dominated the top of the PGA Championship leaderboard.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Charles Schwab Challenge from Colonial Country Club.

The Golf Course

Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas is one of the more historic venues on the PGA Tour. We’ve been coming here under one sponsor or another since 1946, and the layout could easily be mistaken for something you’d see on ESPN Classic.

At just over 7,200 yards, Colonial is more of a strategic test of positional play than the bomb and gouge tactics we saw at Oak Hill last week. Tight and treelined, with some of the smallest landing areas on Tour, you could very easily draw throughlines to other historic venues like Harbour Town, Pebble Beach, Innisbrook, or Waialae than anything we saw at the PGA Championship a week ago.

In Colonial’s two most recent iterations, we’ve seen elite power players like Jason Kokrak, Sam Burns, and Scottie Scheffler climb to the top of leaderboards and help throw off the scent of who you’d expect at a 7,200-yard track. However, zoom out another few years, you’d see players like Daniel Berger, Kevin Na, Kevin Kisner, Chris Kirk, and even Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose who all fit more into the mold of a classical, short course design. 

Colonial really does a good job of opening up possibilities to nearly every skill set, but that doesn’t mean that all profiles are created equal. Let’s get into the metrics I believe are most important when handicapping this week:

Like Harbour Town/Innisbrook/Pebble/etc, Colonial ranks as one of the most difficult courses on Tour to gain strokes off the tee. As opposed to Oak Hill or Winged Foot, which rely on sheer length and gnarled rough to cause players stress, Colonial employs a combination of sharp doglegs, narrow fairways (fourth smallest landing zones on Tour), and some of the trickiest rough we’ll see all year (#5 in rough penalty).

As a result, many players will choose to club down and play for position off the tee. I don’t believe elite driving is nearly as big of a separator here as it was last week, but if you do want to project OTT splits this week, I’d recommend looking at players who have consistently proven they can handle the rigors of similarly constructed venues (Harbour Town, Innisbrook, Sedgefield, etc).

With the course design forcing many players to play from the same spots in the fairway, iron play becomes an even greater factor this week. Winners on average here have gained 5.5 Strokes to the field on Approach (as opposed to just 2.3 OTT), and only 2 players since 2019 have managed to finish better than 10th whilst losing strokes to the field with their irons.

In terms of specific proximity ranges to look for, Colonial is very much a short/mid-iron course. Nearly 2/3s of all approach shots have come from 125-200 yards, and with only two holes over 485 yards, Colonial is one of the few spots we’ve seen recently that doesn’t place a particularly heavy emphasis on long-iron play (shots from >200 yards account for just 14.6% of historic approaches).

Colonial does feature some of the easiest around the green complexes of the season, with Colonial’s green side bunkers, in particular, being some of the easiest up-and-downs on Tour. In general, short game isn’t a metric I’m weighing very heavily this week, but the importance of scrambling does scale up with the threat of heavy winds (see: Rds 3-4, 2022).

The greens at Colonial are pure bentgrass and tend to play on the faster side (12.5-13 on the Stimp), but they also lack a significant amount of undulation. As I said earlier, the primary defense of Colonial is in its small landing zones, so if you can consistently generate looks inside 20 feet, guys have proven they can hole an above-average percentage of putts from all ranges here.

Statistically, putting is the second most important metric of the week (winners have gained ~0.81 strokes/round), and if you wanted to go as bare-bones as possible in your modeling, a roughly 60-40 split between approach and putting metrics would work just fine. We’ve seen top five finishers (and even winners), lose strokes to the field off-the-tee and around the greens, but Colonial is a very tough venue to compete at if your iron play and flat stick aren’t at their best.

Scouting the Routing

For those looking to dabble in the live market this week, it will be important to contextualize a player’s position on the leaderboard alongside the holes he still has left to play. At Colonial, however, there aren’t many clear red or green flags within the 18-hole routing. 

11 of the 18 holes this week have historically played within a tenth of a stroke of par, and only one hole on the entire property is one I’d consider a “Bogey-Avoidance Opportunity,” where par would cut the field by over two-tenths of a stroke. That hole (the 5th), lies right in the middle of Colonial’s most notorious stretch: The Horrible Horseshoe. 

Holes 3, 4, and 5 at Colonial Country Club represent far and away the most treacherous segment in a player’s round. This combination of 483 and 481-yard Par 4’s and a Par 3 measuring in at 247 yards are the only holes on the golf course that present a bit of a callback to last week's scorecard at Oak Hill.

However, it should be noted that although the Horrible Horseshoe will receive its fair amount of press on the broadcast this week, it is nowhere near as impregnable as some of the PGA Tour’s other famous 3-hole stretches. The Green Mile (Quail Hollow), Snake Pit (Copperhead Course at Innisbrook), and the Bear Trap (PGA National), all rate out substantially harder historically than holes 3, 4, and 5 at Colonial.

Advancements in modern technology have also taken some of the sting out of these holes - as players like Jason Kokrak and Mito Pereira have proven by driving the ball right over the corner, turning 3 and 5 into a wedge opportunity. As a result, I would proceed with far less caution than at some of the aforementioned venues, as the Horrible Horseshoe is much less likely to tank a player's entire tournament when stacked up against other, more volatile stretches.

On the flip side of the coin, Colonial does present a few clear birdie opportunities over the course of the round. The first hole (565-yard Par 5), is far-and-away the easiest hole on the course - playing to a 4.58 scoring average with a birdie or better rate of 47%. Five other holes (2, 6, 11, 17, and 18), have conceded birdies at a >20% rate.

Given the close proximity between Colonial's easiest and most difficult holes, there isn't a distinct advantage in the live market for players starting on the front side or the back. I'd recommend keeping tabs on a player's live strokes gained statistics rather than paying a ton of attention to which holes they have left to play. If a player is striking the ball well around this place, there isn't really a hole worth worrying about.

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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 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

The Betting Card

Jordan Spieth (16-1)

From Harbour Town to Innisbrook, Sedgefield, and Pebble Beach, it’s hard to find a corollary course that Jordan Spieth hasn’t found some success at over the course of his career. Colonial Country Club, however, remains far and away Spieth’s most successful stomping ground on the PGA Tour Schedule. 

In 10 starts here in Fort Worth, the UT alum has finished no worse than 32nd and has racked up a mind-blowing eight top-ten finishes; including a win in 2016 and three runner-ups (2015, 2017, 2021). Spieth laps this field in all relevant course history metrics: ranking first in SG: Total, SG: T2G, and SG: Putting around Colonial since 2013. 

While Spieth’s comfort at Colonial has remained a constant throughout his career, the ball-striking display he’s put on in 2023 has been a welcome sight after a volatile few seasons with the long game. Outside of an injury-riddled start at Quail Hollow, Spieth has consistently gained over a stroke per round with his irons since the WM Phoenix Open in February, and is just one week removed from the best driving performance of his career at the PGA Championship (+5.7 SG: OTT).

Although Scottie is objectively the better overall player right now, I don’t think anyone has been as consistently dominant at these shorter, positional venues over the last few seasons. At 16-1, I think we’re getting a gift from the odds makers this week - Spieth should clearly be the second name on the board after Scheffler.

Justin Rose (33-1)

From Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, and now Brooks Koepka, 2023 has truly been the year of resurgences from some of the 2010’s biggest stars. Much like he’s done for most of his career, however, Justin Rose has quietly been the best of the bunch in the race for 2023’s Comeback Player of the Year.

When it comes to iron play and putting, nobody in this field can claim to have been as consistently prolific as the Englishman in 2023. Rose rates out inside the top 20 in all four of my key metrics (SG: APP, Opportunities Gained, Birdie or Better %, SG: Putting), and has paired a win at comp. course Pebble Beach with three other top finishes at Innisbrook, Harbour Town, and TPC Sawgrass. 

With a win here in 2018 and a 3rd place finish in 2020, Rose has proven he has the game to contend around these tight, tricky confines. He comes into this week with as complete of an arsenal as we’ve seen in years, and a 33-1 price tag that makes him an easy fit onto my pre-tournament card. 

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (90-1)

Bezuidenhout’s profile isn’t one you normally see me tout on a weekly basis (below-average ball-strikers who rely on their short games to keep pace), but the good news with these types of players is when you do start to see progression in the ball-striking, the built-in baseline with their short games give them a really enticing floor/ceiling combination.

This progression is exactly what we’ve been seeing from Bezuidenhout over the last two months, as CBez has gained at an average of 4.3 Strokes on Approach per tournament over his last five starts and currently sits in the top 40 in Driving Accuracy on Tour. 

Christiaan is never going to overpower a golf course like some of the more physically imposing players on Tour (Rahm, Koepka, DJ, etc), but the strides he’s made in the accuracy department have turned him into a real threat at courses like Colonial. Bezuidenhout is also the second-best Bentgrass putter over the last 4 seasons: gaining an average of 0.8 shots/round on this surface since the start of 2020. 

Despite finishing 15th, Christiaan actually started last year's final round just 3 shots off of Harold Varner’s lead. If the ball-striking can continue to generate birdie looks inside 15-20 feet, don’t be surprised if he takes another step closer to that maiden PGA Tour victory.

Emiliano Grillo (100-1)

Now Grillo, on the other hand, is a profile that y’all will be very familiar with me touting. Very much in the Collin Morikawa/Corey Conners mold of elite ball-striking forever neutered by a balky putter, Grillo looks like he’s found a similar formula on the greens that netted him so many near-misses through the back half of 2022.

He’s gained strokes putting in 5 of his last 6 starts, gained 19 shots on approach in 3 starts prior to the PGA Championship (6.33/tournament), and now comes to a venue that should be tailor-made for his precision-based play style. 

Grillo had a 7th-place finish last month at Colonial’s #1 comp. Track in Harbour Town and has come close twice over his last 5 starts at the Schwab (8th in 2021; 3rd in 2018). Six Top 7s over the last 11 months on Tour proves he’s capable of finding his way into the mix late on Sunday, at 100-1, I’m willing to roll the dice one more time on the Argentinian vet.

Ryan Palmer (120-1)

One of Colonial Country Club’s most famous members, Palmer has been very candid about how much a win at his home course would mean: “It’s my fifth major… the one tournament I look forward to the most and it’s hard to put into words what it would mean to win it.”\

And with Major Championships off the docket for Palmer thus far in 2023, it seems as if he’s done exactly what he’s needed to peak for his favorite event. Palmer comes into this week on the back of an 8th-place finish at the Byron Nelson, and the best ball-striking week we’ve seen from him in nearly three years (+3.4 SG: OTT, +5.3 SG: APP).

Palmer’s now gained strokes ball-striking in six straight events dating back to the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, and comes into the Schwab in the most consistent form we’ve seen since he was a mainstay in the Top 30 of the World Rankings.

By his own accounts, he’s hitting the ball as well as he has in years and has the clear upside to take it deep around this venue: four finishes of sixth or better since 2012. At 120-1, I’m more than comfortable backing Palmer in his 20th attempt at capturing this elusive title. 

Carson Young (350-1)

At 350-1, this is more of a fun punt than anything else, but Carson Young has sneakily registered 3 T20 finishes over his last 4 PGA Starts (gaining an average of 2.8 Strokes on Approach and 1.5 Putting in the process). He also possesses some elite driving accuracy: rating out 18th in Fairways Gained, but the thing that really caught my attention this week was his performance at the U.S. Open Qualifier an hour down the road in Northwood. 

Carson went 63-62 in two rounds to smash a field that included Tour regulars like Sergio Garcia, Austin Eckroat, Brandon Wu, Doug Ghim, Will Gordon, Ryan Palmer, Brent Grant, C.T. Pan, and many more. It’s a long shot to see if he can carry that momentum into competition this week, but I guarantee there aren’t many players on that range feeling better about their games heading into the week. Stay hot Carson, Stay hot.

Best of luck guys, and Happy Hunting!

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