PGA Betting Advice: Arnold Palmer Invitational - Head-To-Head Selections

Spencer Aguiar digs into the Vegas betting lines to find some of his best head-to-head plays for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Here at RotoBaller, we are always searching for ways to give our readers the best fantasy sports content possible. With that goal in mind, we are very proud to announce the arrival of our new column that will cover head-to-head plays for each PGA Tour stop.

If you are looking for a more in-depth breakdown, be sure to check out my PGA DFS: Vegas Report. There you will find my complete betting card, as well as my head-to-head play of the week. My premium head-to-head selections have gone an impressive (81-39-7), netting over 46 units of profit and a 67% success rate. On top of that, my outright wagers have yielded 18 winners since the inception of the article - including a 200/1 outright victor at the Valero Texas Open last season and back-to-back wins in Patrick Reed (50/1) and Sungjae Im (35/1), making it a must-read for gambling enthusiasts. If you would like to receive a discount on your order, be sure to use my checkout code TEEOFF.

In this feature, I will present a handful of head-to-head wagers that just missed out on being my best bet of the week for my Vegas Report article. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on Twitter @teeoffsports. Be sure to read all of our other top-notch weekly PGA DFS and betting articles to help you win big!

Head-to-Head Wagers To Consider

Full disclosure, some of these plays are bet by me weekly. I am extremely precise when it comes to my premium card of wagers and demand they meet a stringent set of criteria. If you were looking to play the entire board, these still yield long-term value, but they might present more volatility than I would care to have when releasing a condensed card.

*** We will have three selections on tap for this week's Invitational tournament, but I'd recommend shading your exposure to the side of caution. None of the selections exceed a four percent implied probability, and I don't see a reason to attack this card in an aggressive manner.

Bubba Watson -105 over Matthew Fitzpatrick -115

Reasons I Liked the Play: Bubba Watson is the kind of golfer that tells you how much he likes a facility by his results. Six straight made cuts here at Bay Hill should be all you need to know, but it doesn't hurt that four of those finishes have resulted in top-24 showings. A second-place effort for Matthew Fitzpatrick here last season will allow us to gain extra value when we do decide to oppose the Englishman in the market, and this feels like a decent spot when you consider the fact that Fitzpatrick has sputtered to miss two cuts in his previous five years at the event.

Reasons It Didn't Make the Premium Card: I really think the sportsbooks have done a nice job in how they have paired their matchups during the past three weeks. It has been difficult to find too many incongruities in pricing, and this head-to-head wager forces us to take on some risk on both sides of the aisle. Watson is never the easiest golfer to back when placed in a matchup situation, and Fitzpatrick does have three top-27 finishes here to go along with two missed cuts. I am willing to wager on Watson's longevity of results at Bay Hill over Fitzpatrick's current form that appears to be sliding in quality, but it would be naive to say we have a clear path to victory with only about a 2.5% edge in terms of win probability being offered.

0.75 Units to Win 0.71

Tony Finau -103 over Jason Day -113

Reasons I Liked the Play:  I can guarantee that this number is going to move towards Tony Finau before Thursday. Finau is often one of the most popular guys on tour for the public to wager on, and Jason Day's propensity to withdraw from events has turned him into a target weekly. None of those reasons are why I like the play, but I do believe we have a nice number grab spot in front of us. Day's inability to find the fairway off the tee could put him into trouble, and I don't think his success at Bay Hill will get a pass with his erratic nature as of late.

Reasons It Didn't Make the Premium Card: For all the uncertainty that Jason Day does bring to the table, it is hard to ignore four consecutive top-23 results at the Arnold Palmer. That level of career excellence is the reason why we are getting Finau at the price we are currently, but it is always dangerous to oppose someone that has consistently found a way to produce quality finishes year-after-year.

0.75 Units to Win 0.73

Sungjae Im +101 over Patrick Reed -118

Reasons I Liked the Play:  I am out on Patrick Reed this weekend. Yes, the ninth-ranked player in the world has found success with his irons during his past four starts, but for as much as I hate backing golfers after a win, I even more so despise going back down that road when the victory came from a hot putting performance. Putting can be hit-and-miss weekly, and his 11.8 strokes gained on an entirely different surface doesn't have me very eager to invest my money on him at a difficult venue. Reed only has one finish here inside the top 50 in his career, and I believe his victory in Mexico has placed him above his perceived range.

Reasons It Didn't Make the Premium Card: Both golfers are making their first start after their recent wins, and it is not as if Reed is grading out to have a ton of missed cut potential. In fairness, he does have more than any of his counterparts in this range, but the American is still a prohibitive favorite to make the weekend. None of the selections at the Arnold Palmer Invitational exceed over four percent of implied probability, but this does marginally eclipse our previous two choices recommended.

0.75 Units to Win 0.76

Last Week's Results

1-0-0 (+1.00 Units)

Another week without a massive separation in value between our premium and free head-to-head wagers has worked out favorably for this article. Gary Woodland (-110) over Justin Rose was able to experience smooth sailing after the Englishman failed to make the weekend. The result has now pushed our free plays to (+5.67) units on the year - nearly a half unit better than our premium article.

Year-To-Date Free Head-To-Head Results

12-8-0 (+5.67 Units)

2020 Premium Head-to-Head Record (9-4-1)

+5.09 Units Year-To-Date From H2H Bets

2020 Premium Outright Bets That Have Finished Inside the Top-10

Yearly Record:

2017 Golf Betting:
Head to Head Bets (10-2-2) +8.175 Units
Outright Winners (5)
Dustin Johnson Genesis Open (10/1)
Sergio Garcia Masters (50/1)
Brooks Koepka U.S. Open (45/1)
Justin Thomas PGA Championship (35/1)
Dustin Johnson Northern Trust (14/1)

2018 Golf Betting:
Head to Head Bets (46-24-2) +24.49 Units
Outright Winners (5)
Phil Mickelson WGC-Mexico (22/1)
Bubba Watson WGC- Match Play (45/1)
Brooks Koepka U.S. Open In-Play Wager (14/1)
Dustin Johnson RBC Canadian Open (7/1)
Justin Thomas WGC-Bridgestone (30/1)

2019 Golf Betting:
Head to Head Bets (16-9-2) +8.33 Units
Outright Winners (5)
Matt Kuchar Mayakoba Golf Classic (66/1)
Corey Conners Valero Texas Open (200/1)
Rory McIlroy RBC Canadian Open  (10/1)
Brooks Koepka WGC- St. Jude Classic (12/1)
Rory McIlroy Tour Championship (8/1)

Career Record (Excluding 2020 Season Results)

Head to Head Bets (72-35-6) +40.995 Units
Outright Winners (15)
Top 5s (Didn't Track in 2017)
2018 - 16
2019 - 26
Top 10s (Didn't Track in 2017)
2018 - 31
2019 - 41

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