Free PGA Betting Picks - Breaking $100 Golf Best Bets for the 2023 Shriners Childrens Open

These fall swing events have been the achilles in my betting career. I did, however, believe that things would be a little different this time around as most of the golfers teeing it up had season long data, with the usual data-less Korn Ferry Tour influx only tour bound in 2024. But, as luck would have it, for the first time in my betting career, every bet I placed for the Sanderson Farms Championship ... lost ... I sit here in utter disbelief having just typed that. And to those of you who follow along, I don't know what to say other than I am sorry, and I lost all of my own hard-earned dollars too.

Sam Ryder made a double on his second-last hole to go from winning his matchup by 1, to losing it by 1, a $30 swing. Ryan Palmer shot a 78 in round 4, ejecting himself out of the top-40. Had he shot a 72, which still would have lost strokes to the field, a T35 would have cashed our T40 bet. Three of our 6 placements missed the cut, with all three of those guys averaging 67% made cut rates. Eric Cole had his worst putting performance since May and finished T35 instead of inside the top 20 had he gained his usual handful of strokes on the greens. Sam Ryder's T20 chances looked amazing after making 10 birdies in round 1, only to follow that up with a total of 11 birdies for the rest of the tournament... I typed this all out not to make excuses, but to show how close we were from actually turning around a profit, in the same week we never won a bet. BUT, it literally CANNOT get worse than last week, so off we go to the Shriners Children's Open.

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 ($20)

We will get to a point where our card shortens a little, and the return for a single golfer finding his way into the top 5 is greater. The top-5 market with ties paid in full is being a little stingy right now, but one of our 7 golfers finding themselves in the top-5 just about breaks even for us in the outright market. IF we could get two of them in there somehow, then we are cooking with gas.

Ideally, we want to double our exposure we have in the outright market with our T5 bets, so that we can make a tiny bit of profit in this section of the article when our card succeeds but does not win. We are rolling out seven golfers at the Shriners Children's Open this week.

Eric Cole +3500 @ DraftKings

After a close call at the Forntinet, Eric Cole failed to gain strokes with the putter for a second consecutive week, failing to even finish inside the top-20. However, we are optimistic that his putter will return to its baseline of a top-10, with his Bentgrass putting grading out as the third best in this field. His around the green play will be a reliable crutch for him on the odd occasion he misses a green with how well he is hitting his irons. Cole is seventh on approach over the last 24 rounds and leads the field in strokes gained out the rough inside 150 yards. This is essential to his success as he is not a very accurate driver of the ball.

Cole's scoring stats are phenomenal, grading fourth on easy courses and 2nd in recent birdie rate, which will be necessary to get close to -20 that will land him a chance to win this thing. Heading back to a shorter course, Cole should find a bit more success off the tee not having to step on it to gain a few extra yards. He also gained four strokes putting here in his missed cut in 2022 which is appealing considering that has been the missing element of his game in the fall.

Adam Schenk +4000 @ DraftKings

Adam Schenk has been really good around TPC Summerlin, with finishes of T12, T3, T27, T18, MC, T20 in his last six appearances. Despite being rather neutral off the tee over that period, the rest of his game, particularly his irons and putter have been very impressive on this course, averaging roughly +1.5 strokes when combining those two metrics over his 22 rounds here. Let's rattle off a few more finishing positions for Schenk with his last few non-majors resulting in T9, T34, T6, T64, T4 7, T7, 2. With that kind of recent form along with his super steady course history, we can expect him to be a contender this week.

Schenk has accumulated those high-end finishes by becoming one of the top iron players in the field, with his putter not much further behind grading out as 16th in the last two-dozen rounds. Because of Schenk's boom or bust nature, his stats can be a little skewed when using an average, as he misses cuts more than you would like, but when he makes the weekend, he is typically right in the mix. With so many shot gun weddings taking place in Vegas, this could be an ideal scenario for Schenk to grab a fake Elvis and get hitched to the Shriners Children's Open.

Emiliano Grillo +4500 @ DraftKings

We are experiencing our annual bout of Grillolitus, a sickness of betting this guy, missing the cut at 25-1 last week and nuking our top-20 and DFS lineups with 1% owned Troy Merrit. Grillo finds his number dropping 20 points all the way to 45-1 which doesn't hurt our outright capital as much as it did last week. Grillo leads the field in strokes gained from 150-200 while remaining one of the better drivers of the ball. Our expectations for Grillo are rather low despite four top-20 finishes in his last seven, but maybe that helps him get across the line while on our card.

Sam Ryder +7500 on DraftKings

If you read last week's article, we were thrilled about his approach play entering the week, which continued to gain strokes now making him the 2nd best iron player in the field. The putter went Ghost-Ryder scorched earth on the greens on Thursday, gaining +3.25 strokes putting, while giving back all those strokes over the course of the tournament, but Ryder has gained strokes putting at TPC Summerlin in his last four appearances. He also lost -3.25 strokes off the tee, one of his worst driving performances recently, falling out the top-20 and losing to Nicholas Lindheim in a matchup at +100 ... we are salty about Ryder's collapse and its time for redemption, Sam!

Aaron Rai +5500 @ FanDuel

Aaron Rai finished T20 here last year with his putter gaining +3.5 strokes in R2 and R3, while losing -4.1 strokes in R1 and R4. His iron play gained 7 strokes the last time he played this course, hardly missing a green all week, averaging 90% GIR rate which is 20% more than the average around this course. Rai also has some sneaky DPWT form, almost finding himself in a playoff against Ryan Fox at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, with his eagle putt lipping out on the 72nd hole.

Rai's putter has typically been debilitating, but he has been gaining +0.2 strokes putting in the 20 rounds since the Travellers, which saw him with recent finishes of T3, T24, T9, MC, T20, MC, T49 over that stretch. If we can continue to hit greens in regulation like he did last year, with a bit of help from the flat stick, we could expect his game to get NSYNC with the Vegas conditions once more!

Nick Taylor +9500 @ FanDuel (now 60-1)

This is a scenario where following me on twitter will have helped secure a much better line, as Taylor's price has plummeted from the 90-1 that was out there on Monday. He has some really high finishes over the course of his career, with his win at the RBC Canadian Open arguably his most memorable one. Taylor has a lot of missed cuts on his resume, but when he makes the cut he has the ability to charge up any leaderboard and go unconscious with his wedges and putter, which we will see a lot of here at TPC Summerlin. If Taylor can avoid disaster on Friday, as he averageds -0.75 strokes lost in the 19 Friday's he played this year, his

If he survives his Freaky Fridays, chalk him up to average +1.87 strokes per round over the weekend. That is such a ridiculous shift in play, it almost would make sense to wait and see if he makes the weekend and then bet him if you missed out on the 95-1.

Troy Merrit 110-1 @ FanDuel

Troy Merrit is a very unique situation, as he unexpectedly replied to me on Twitter about him having the YIPS!!! Once you are done reading this article, come back to this tweet and check out the interaction we had, as he sheds some light on how he has tried to work through it all and the mental toll it took to try fight through it all. He has lost -0.7 strokes per round in the 40 rounds heading into the fall swing, but, it appears there is light at the end of the tunnel based off his last two starts.

Well, folks, I don't want to jump to conclusions just yet, but in Troy Merritt's last eight rounds of golf, he has gained a stroke per round and only lost strokes twice on the greens in his last 8 tournament rounds, never more than -0.95 strokes, which is just a normal unlucky day on the greens for any pro. His recent form off the tee and on approach has been rather impressive, averaging a stroke per round in those two areas collectively this fall swing. His short game has been super steady as well, averaging +0.64 ARG in his last 7 rounds, with -1.67 in R1 of the Fortinet a little bit of rust off the ol Vokey. I am really excited for our Troyjan Horse to sneak through the gates of FanDuel Sportsbook and leave with winnings at 110-1!

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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

Placings ($40)

Last Week's Placements ... well, it was not good... L's across the board ...

• $10 Eric Cole T20 +100 @ BetMGM (ties paid in full!)
• $7.50 Sam Ryder T20 +188 @ BetMGM
• $10 Emiliano Grillo T20 +110 @ BetMGM
• $10 Ryan Palmer T40 +130 @ BetMGM
• $10 Andrew Novak T40 +120 @ BetMGM
• $12.50 Dylan Wu T40 -125 @ BetMGM

This Week's Placements

We are bouncing back this week!!!

• $6 Eric Cole T20 +170 @ Bet365
• $6 J.T. Poston T20 +150 @ Bet365
• $5 Alex Smalley T20 +210 @ Bet365
• $5 Aaron Rai T20 +240 @ Bet365
• $7 Adam Svensson T40 -130 @ Bet365
• $6 Dylan Wu T40 +130 @ Bet365
• $5 Si Woo Kim + Andrew Putnam T40 PARLAY +150 @ Bet365

Matchups ($35)

Last week: -$15 ... Sam Ryder's Sunday double on 17 was a brutal $30 swing for us...

This week

$10 Aaron Rai over J.J. Spaun +125

$13.5 Andrew Putnam over Lucas Herbert -134

$11.50 Christiaan Bezuidenhout over Lucas Herbert -105

The Farewell Fiver ($5)

J.T. Poston FOMO $5 +550 Top 5 (BetMGM ties paid in full!!!)

We are not exposed to JT in the outright market and despite having on the card for a T20, we want more checks in the mail, and hopefully the Postman can deliver for us! Good luck this week, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!! If you are looking for more reasoning to each bet, check out my podcast here:

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