RADIO
Jason Day and his small village of a family broke into the winner's circle for the first time in a few thousand days. He has been trending really nicely with a top-20 finish in almost every non-Vertigo ridden event he played in this year. The crazy part about the whole scenario is that he missed the cut at the Wells Fargo the week before after a disastrous weekend at the Masters, leaving a lot of us wondering where his game had gone to. Now that he has had a taste of victory, with his second-best approach performance of the season, does he rattle off a few more like he did in 2015? It sure would be cool for Scottie and Rahm to have a rival to their time share at the top of the world rankings.
The PGA Championship is upon us in a cold, New York state of mind. The beast of a course that is the new look Oak Hill Country Club will attempt to present the 2023 PGA Champion with a grueling test of his skill in all areas of the game. After the AT&T Birdie Festival, the abundance of double bogeys and frustration that we will witness on our TVs will make the millions of dollars these very deserving superstars make each tournament, a little more worth it this week. I for one, am VERY excited to see what takes place over the next few days. Let's get right into it!
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
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For our 2nd major of the year, we are rolling out a squad of golfers at an exposure ratio of 6.5-1 (meaning if we did this each week, we would need to hit a winner once every 6 events to break even), which is something I typically do not advocate for but there are two reasons we find ourselves in this scenario. The first being that the last two events (Wells Fargo and Byron Nelson) we had exposure ratios of 13 and 25 as we probably subconsciously knew this was the week we wanted to attack the board. It is a major after all so having a little extra invested IS something I enjoy doing. We also slightly boxed ourselves into a corner with a Max Homa future of 50-1 when he was tearing up the west coast a few months ago. Let's meet our soldiers who will hopefully help us win "The Battle of Oak Hill".
Jon "Long Jon" Rahm ($16.25 @ +800 on BetRivers/BetMGM)
*DraftKings has him priced at +750 but if you have not already used the +300 boost they have as a promo, that would get you to +1050 which is a very fair number.
With weather hardly expected to eclipse 50 degrees most of the week, no better warrior to begin the card with than Long Jon! Unlike the warm and comforting modern marvel that are Long Johns, our Jon has no "H" and is a bona fide, cold-blooded killer on the golf course. His body count currently stands at 4 through only 4 short months of battle, conquering Augusta the Great in April for arguably his greatest triumph yet. Since 2017 he has emerged victorious 19 times and now sits atop the golfing world as the most fearsome of the game's elites.
Long Jon gets his name from his massive length off the tee, ranking 5th in distance. And unlike the other 12 dudes with the longest swords on tour, Long Jon's is by far the straightest, ranking 42nd in accuracy off the tee with the other dirty dozen all boasting worse than field average accuracy. This week in particular, a long, straight weapon is going to be a massive advantage if in pursuit of victory, which is the sole ambition of our Spanish spear head!
Once the blows have been struck off the tee, the battle is far from over with about two thirds of approach combat taking place from 150 yards out, often from the very thick rough alongside the fairways. Nobody is a more skillful wielder of these necessary weapons than Long Jon, as he leads the field in weighted good shot %, meaning that from each prorated proximity bucket matching the layout of Oak Hill, nobody is better at gaining +0.5 strokes on approach than him. The 18 shields of Oak Hill are the 4th smallest throughout the PGA realm, making them extremely difficult to hit due to their size, the average distance of attack coming from roughly 175 yards, and most importantly, out the thick cabbage that runs alongside the fairways of this lengthy Par 70. When in these treacherous positions, his brute force through impact has him ranked 8th in GIR% out of the rough from 150+ yards. A very necessary weapon that he adds to his loaded arsenal.
After projectiles are caromed away from their intended target, the battle will be waged on the many steep-faced beaches making recovery shots from greenside bunkers more difficult than usual. Although our warrior is not necessarily the very best from this position, he still only has 39 others ahead of him in sand proximity averages. But, as Long Jon is of Spanish heritage, he is capable of conjuring "the Spirit of Seve" which gives him the ability to execute precise strikes from even the trickiest of positions around the green, gaining over 3 strokes against Augusta the Great three battles ago.
Once penetration of each shield has been accomplished, Bentgrass infused chainmail is the final form of defense to be navigated. The undulating nature of the greens will require strategic position to attack from the flattest of areas, a feat which may prove to be futile due to the circumstances mentioned above. Rahmbo is 11th in strokes gained on Bentgrass and 16th from 5-15 feet, which is more than enough precision to land the fatal final blows against the Oak Hill 18.
Finally, this battle is unlike most, as it is a major battle, particularly one taking place in the United States with thick rough posing a different, yet still difficult challenge compared to that of Augusta and The Open. Since 2017 Long Jon has fared extremely well in US Opens and PGA Championships, conquering Torrey the Terrible in the 2021 US Open and gaining the 6th most strokes in these two events over the last half a decade. With net fatal blows expected to land somewhere between -5 and -10 by the end of the week, our guy ranks 5th in hard course scoring. We have all the weapons needed to emerge victorious once more, it is now simply a matter of executing each blow with poise and precision, as the 3rd leg of the "major slam" is now within reach.
Max "Maximus" Homa ($2.75 @ +5000 future - currently +4000 most places)
We placed this future shortly after Maximus went toe-to-toe with Long Jon at the Genesis Invitational, as we believed this number would plumet leading up to the 2nd Major of the year. Yet, Maximus morphed into Minimus after the Players, with his ball striking losing strokes since Augusta and his game lacking any sign of ambition. However, the Wells Fargo Championship saw flashes of his silky swing returning, gaining 3.5 strokes ball striking, but it is not nearly in the same realm as the +1.3 he averaged per round this year leading into the Masters. His driver seemed to be the biggest culprit for his misfortunes over the last month or so, having lost sizably in the three stroke play events leading up to Wells Fargo, where he gained over 3 strokes off the tee. A much better result of T8 and a glimmer of hope heading into this week.
When his driver is dialed, he has the distance and accuracy to dominate long courses, ranking 19th in SG Off The Tee on courses over 7,400 yards. He has displayed competency with the driver at courses like Bay Hill, Torrey Pines, and most recently, Quail Hollow, which would have been a badass battle ground name had I continued that theme from the Rahm writeup (I think we both have had enough medieval imagery to last us until season two of House of the Dragon premiers next year). Homa has had some absolute scorching weeks with his irons this year, with over 10 true strokes gained at the Farmers and 9 at the API. He also has another three events where he gained over 5 strokes which assures us he is capable of being an elite ball striker any given week.
He is easily the most comfortable on Poa greens, and with this week's surface being Bent, he will need an outlier performance with the putter if his ball striking doesn't show up. At 50-1 the Bent putting deficiency wouldn't be a problem had Homa continued to strike the ball as well as he was when we placed the bet and although he rattled off four top-6s in a half dozen starts during that period, this is the risk you run with a future. Homa is a solid bunker player with a ranking of 24th in proximity from the greenside sand and also tends to play well on harder courses sitting inside the top-20 in that stat with his bogey avoidance not far behind. Ideally, we would have liked a little more momentum heading into the week from Maximus, but maybe with expectations relatively low he might play freely and give us an all-time performance winning his first major.
Seamus Power ($1 @ +19000 on FanDuel)
The thought process here is simple as Power has these stretches where he goes on a top-20 tear, recording 8 top-21s during a 9 event stretch last year and then 8 top-25s in a row from the Bermuda Championship to the Genesis Invitational this season. He also has an affinity for Major golf, making the cut in 4 of his first 5 majors so far with a T9 at the PGA and T12 at the US Open. His bogey avoidance is 16th in the field and his Bentgrass putting is also inside the top 20. He has finishes of T18 and T19 in his two most recent starts and may be looking to rip another run of consecutive T20s. The chances he lands up winning this thing are slim, but I would not say there are "190-1 slim", especially with his major track record being really appealing so far. >Insert Bruce Almighty "I've got the Power" scene<
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
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!
I think part of the reason for my placement failures so far this year, has to do with oddsmakers giving ridiculous lines that lead to desperation and forcing bets that have no edge. We only have one top 20 bet that kicked out as value with three top-40 bets coming in to give us a total of 4 placements. Corey Conners' US Open and PGA track record scares me off his bet despite his solid form entering the week.
- $15 Patrick Cantlay Top 20 +100 FanDuel
- $15 Shane Lowry Top 40 +135 FanDuel
- $15 Chris Kirk Top 40 +200 FanDuel
- $15 Seamus Power Top 40 +240 FanDuel
Matchups
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. After struggling to find a matchup last week, we finally have something that kicked out for us at reasonable odds.
$15 Cameron Davis -108 over Min Woo Lee
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.
The Farewell Fiver
Patrick Cantlay +350 Top 5: $5
We made our money back on Scottie last week cashing his top-5 at -110. This week are going to try and grab Patrick Cantlay for a top-5 at BetMGM +350 by cashing his top-20 and top-5 this week. Good luck this week, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!
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