2025 BMW Championship Preview – PGA Tour Betting & DFS Preview – Hold The Green

Steve Schirmer opens the video with a personal update about his day spent at the NASCAR race at Watkins Glen. He then transitions to discussing the BMW Championship and the Case Valley course. Steve provides insights into course changes made since 2021, particularly aimed at increasing course difficulty. These changes include lengthening holes, redesigning hazards, and altering tee box positions to bring more natural hazards into play. Steve emphasizes that while these changes might add some difficulty, the overall play style for the course remains the same, focusing on long drivers and good putters. He analyzes the leaderboard from the previous tournament held at this course, discussing how several top players performed, and he identifies potential bets and strategies for the upcoming BMW Championship.

Oh, we’re going live right now. There’s no intro. Ha. Okay. Hi, everybody. Happy Sunday evening. Just me tonight, Steve Shurmer. Uh, absolutely glistening as I look at myself in the camera right now. Um, it is hot up in Rochester, New York. It’s hot in Western New York. I actually was in the sun all day. Uh, every year I go to the NASCAR race at Watkins Glenn. Uh, and I was there all day today. It was 9 million degrees in aluminum bleachers. Um, not the most interesting race. Uh, I think I left some comments in the Discord about, uh, some of my thoughts about what they’ve done to turn 11 or uh, turn one at Watkins Glenn. Uh, very similar takes like, you know, as far as like track setup and like how I feel about like with golf course setup. Um, you know, they definitely dumbed down a couple turns at Watkins Glenn. It’s not as good as what it used to be, but um, yeah, I am uh, pretty baked uh, coming to this this show. The good news though is that we’re going to talk about the BMW championship. We’re going to talk about Case Valley uh tonight. Not that complicated of a handicap in my opinion. Uh Andy had done his show uh earlier today and I’m going to guess I’m probably going to repeat a lot of what he said. So there were some changes though to the golf course since you saw in 2021. So I am going to go over some of those. Uh they kind of downplayed I think a little bit what they did. They did a little more uh changes the course that I thought they were going to do. So, we’ll go over some of those changes and if those maybe want to change how you want to look at this tournament or do you want to just run back what we saw back in 2021? We’ll see about that. Um I did end up though leave the race early enough. Well, not leave the race early enough. The the race ended very quickly. Let’s put it that way. Uh the Exfinity race the previous day went till like 7 o’clock. There was a red flag. There was wrecks. Great race. Uh, this one though because the cars handled so good and there was maybe only one caution the entire time ended very quickly. I ended up getting out of the track I think by 4:30. The race started at 2. So that was actually plenty of time for me to drive back from the track to Rochester and enjoy the back nine of uh the FedEx St. Jude and that was a tremendous back nump on Southwind a lot uh because of the architecture. Look, I I like I think I like it a little better than most people. It at least rewards good ball striking. There is a penalty for miss fairways there. You know, there’s plenty of penalty areas for loose shots. And we saw when guys were missing fairways or missing greens, you know, and and I think it definitely helped that the greens were very firm coming into this golf course being brand new, even though it got an inch of rain uh overnight on Friday. um you know it still played pretty firm through the weekend so I think that definitely helped but you know there’s worse courses and usually does deliver a pretty exciting finish there. We’ve seen a lot of playoffs happen at the uh St. Jude over the last couple years and this week was no exception. I think the biggest takeaway though uh congratulations Justin Rose, you have secured your Ryder Cup spot uh for team Europe. Going to be interesting to see what they do for that 12th spot. Uh 11 guys I think are basically locked up at this point. Uh and then we’ll see who’s number 12. Um will they just run back the entire team and just bring back Hoygard, Nikolai Hygard? Will they add someone new? You know, we’ll see. Um US spot though, you know, we’re starting, I think, see a little bit in the focus who’s really going to uh be on the team. Obviously JJ Spawn was going to be on the team. I loved him this week. I was really really regretting not betting him outright as I saw him make a charge in the back nine. Um, thankfully he didn’t win because I probably wouldn’t be doing this show tonight based on how the summer has gone with my outright bets if he ended up winning. I just had a measly little top 20. But good call on him. Uh, sorry for anybody who had him outright. That was a pretty brutal beat. Uh, especially when it looked like Justin Rose was going to hit it in the water on the first playoff hole. I would have lost my [ __ ] mind uh if uh I was on him for an hour right there. Um, more sad though, Tommy Fleetwood once again coming up short. Same situation too. Up two in the back nine with I think four to play. It looked like he was going to really hold it together. He made some birdies in a row and then just made an absolute mess in the par five which basically was a bogey. part that hole and you just can’t do that with, you know, some hard charging opponents and too many mistakes down the back nine or uh over the last couple holes. I mean, I did admire him get up there and actually taking the interview with uh uh Golf Channel there or well with NBC. I know he you could definitely tell he didn’t want to talk. uh he was trying to collect his thoughts at that point, but he faced the music uh unlike some other golfers who can definitely dodge the microphone when bad things happen. So, another close call for Tommy. Um maybe run him back. I think a lot of things that we saw at Southwind today, we can probably look again to East Lake in a couple weeks. Uh so maybe keep some of these guys in mind who did pretty well uh this week. We’re definitely coming to a different golf course though uh this week with K’s Valley rewards, different strategies. Uh I don’t think this show is going to be very long tonight, but we’ll get through it. Uh so why don’t we start with K’s Valley here. So I did want to include this photo. This is K’s Valley. This is I think the eighth hole here, you know, and I always like picking out the cover photo for uh the PowerPoint that I use uh for uh the previous shows. And I saw this one and I love fall golf. I mean anyone I think it was in the northeast. Um loves fall golf. You get the foliage that turns, you know, like I personally love playing when temperatures are in like high 50s, low 60s. Um you know, you get the nice late afternoon sun hitting the fescue here. You got some purple grasses right in front of it here. You got the the leaves turning, you know, and and this is definitely going to be a golf course that probably is going to have uh an unfavorable view on ISN uh and probably across, you know, anybody who studies, you know, golf architecture. It’s just a reminder that, you know what, it’s on a good piece of land. Be very pretty to play on sometimes. There’s a lot of uh natural land movement that is at this place. Um, you know, it definitely doesn’t feel like, you know, you’re playing through the woods, you know, for the most part. So, at least has that going for it. It’s in great condition for the members, too. There’s I think there’s uh 600 members in total at AK’s Valley. This uh golf course is a Tom Fazio. It was built in 2001. And this is the last time they played this in 2021. This was again around COVID. And there was a lot of tournaments that got cancelled. And one of the things that I thought was funny was because we only had seen two golf courses of Fazios usually on the PG tour. One is Corales and the other is uh Quail Hollow and those are the only two really on the regular schedule. And with all these cancellations of tournaments and the reshuffleling of schedules for about two years during the pandemic there, Fazio kind of used that or whoever was in charge of these golf course. It just it was I don’t think it was a coincidence that a lot of Fazio courses started to pop up on the PJ tour schedule. You had Congeri, you had Shadow Creek, you had Summit Club. Uh basically the CJ Cup became the Fazio Cup for a little bit. Uh you also had Kasumi Gasaki which was the site of the uh the Olympics. He redid that golf course there too. Uh and then so this was number seven Fazio course that we had seen in about two years by the time this uh golf course rolled around. So, this is what we’re going to do for this. We’re going to recap 2021 because it’s only the only bullet point that we have uh for this place. And I’ll show you how the leaderboard shook out. I’ll show you what mattered there, what did matter, I think most more importantly, and then we’ll get to some of the changes uh to the golf course that we had uh leading up to this tournament, and then we’ll just figure out is it really going to change your handicap at all. So, let’s get to the GCSA report. Uh, this is from 2021 because the 2025 one is not out yet. I don’t know if they were at the race with me today just d drinking a bunch of bat blues uh under the hot sun. So maybe uh my boy Mike will uh put out his uh GCSA fact sheet tomorrow and we can go over it. But um just the general specs of this tournament back in 2021 uh it was a par 72 back then 7,542 yards average green about 5200 feet about you know a little smaller than average than PG tour at that point. bankrass uh greens um rough tall fescue ryrass bluegrass mix about three inches and that I think will come into play a little bit when we talk about the miss fairway penalty for this place. Now there was a part of the changes that they made to this golf course. Apparently they replaced all the grass with a new type of grass. Uh I have not been able to gather what grass exactly that is. I would imagine it’s bent grass still. Maybe they changed the type of bent grass that uh is on the greens because they also redid all the greens. Now they some greens are completely new where they shifted them. Other they just resurfaced them because they put uh uh I forget precision air. Uh it’s a type of subair system under each screen. So they had to rebuild each screen back in 2023 is when they did the renovation. Um the difference I think between what we saw this week or last week at St. Jude with all new greens redesign which come to find out they basically flatten the greens at St. Jude. That was kind of disappointing if they’re going to redo all the greens uh to just to flatten them. But those had no traffic and no play on them. So those had quite a nice little hop to them once you uh hit the uh green there. If you were hitting out the rough, you probably couldn’t stop the ball. Here though, now we have about two years worth of foot traffic on this. And generally takes about two years for new greens to kind of settle in. So don’t expect even though these are new greens that we’re going to see this week, don’t expect unless I I’ll have to look at what the weather’s been because it’s very it’s been very dry in New York. Uh, I’ll have to check if they’ve had similar drought conditions in Maryland as well, but if they’ve had a, you know, don’t expect them to be firm, uh, just because they’re new. Uh, they’ll be firm if there hasn’t been a lot of rain. So, something to look for this week. Um, you’ll hear new greens may not be as firm as what we saw last week there. So, that’s part of the change that they did uh to this golf course and some of the changes here. I I will follow up with the uh changing grass uh for the Tuesday show. I’m sure I will be able to hunt that down there. All right, so let’s talk about what happened in 2021 uh as far as the difficulty of this golf course. And if you remember, uh you had the winning score at 27 under. I think seven other guys finish 20 under or better. And pretty much it was defenseless that week. Almost every single category was bottom five in difficulty on the PGA Tour in 2021 as far as driving, approach play, putting just not a lot of defenses for the place. It was hot, it was humid, it was muggy. Course played very soft. I’ll show you some of the holes, what they looked like in 2021. Just not a lot of defenses for it. Uh, and that reflected in the scoring. The average score that week is minus 2.8. Round four, minus three and a half scoring for a 7500 yard golf course. That’s a lot of birdies. And it just was a very, very easy soft test that week. um specifically with driving. That is something that I’m sure Andy uh gloss on this week. The overall lack uh no pun intended of penalty at this place. Bottom across the board. Miss fairway penalty. Rough penalty. I said there was only three tall fescue uh rough there. That’s not all that deep for uh ryrass and fescue rough. Only three inches. Ball can kind of sit up pretty nice. you still get good club head on, especially some of these bigger hitters who sprayed it everywhere and got away with it without much penalty. Non-ruff penalty, that’s basically your fairway bunkers. I’ll show you a little bit. They’re very big and you wouldn’t have a lot of lip issues if you found yourself in them. Um, and there’s just not a lot of natural hazards to incur a penalty if you spray it very very offline. It takes a giant gigantic miss to probably incur a penalty if you hit it into the woods. And so it just pretty much was bombs away. The average driving distance, it was only about 290 on the week, but that could be attributed to there’s some uphill holes and play a little soft that week. Uh there are a couple um shorter par4s as well that you probably will pull less than driver. Maybe that knocked down the driving distance a little bit, but it’s very driver heavy. They’re definitely I’ll show you some holes in a little bit. Was an advantage to having length to being able to carry certain bunkers off the tee. And even the driving axi rates, 65% uh on the week, too. Just no adversity. And here’s kind of what I’m talking about. This was the opening hole back in 2021. As you see here, there’s an elevated TBO. You got a couple fairway bunkers, you know, pretty far out. You know, it takes about 312 to get to this first one. 325 to the one behind that over on the right. 328 to the middle over on the left. But again though, just right out in front of you, your team from an elevated T- box, you have a big bomber. probably can take some of these bunkers over on the right out of play. Relatively generous um landing zone even if you are in the rough only 3-in fescue rough. Just not a lot of adversity and nothing to really scare these guys uh off the tea back in 2021. Here is number five. This is back up the hill again just straight ahead. Relatively generous fairway here. This is one of the holes where length definitely could help you out here because it’s about 295 to carry this far bunker over on the left and then it kind of widens a little bit the farther you hit it. So if you were able to take this bunker out of play, hello Bryson, that’s why we all bet you that week. Um, you definitely were at an advantage on this hole to carry all this stuff. Same thing with a couple of the bunkers over here. You know, kind of narrowed in the driving zone. If you carried everything, you took it out of play and actually rewarded you a little more with a little more room. uh in the landing zone here. And then same thing number six here. Again, just where is the true adversity off the tea to really scare and tim these tim. Yeah, big fairway bunker over on the right here. But again, just if you’re right in the middle of it, yes, it’s a longer approach out into the green, but you’re not going to have a lot of lip issues here. You know, it’s just not a lot of toughness and a lot of teeth to this. Again, a pretty relatively generous flanning zone here. If you really going to were going to incur penalty, you’d have to spray it really far right into the woods over here to really get you in trouble. These guys just aren’t doing that here. So, that’s a big reason just looking at how it was in 2021 why these guys were just not intimidated and scared of this place. They just wailed away with the driver and it didn’t really matter where it went because even if you found the rough, there just wasn’t a big penalty uh as we saw that week. So, as far as proximity buckets go, this was relatively straightforward. It was a short iron fest. There definitely were some uh shorter par4s uh on the golf course where you would hit from under 100 yards, but it was mostly because the 7500 yard golf course. Lot of shots from over 175. Higher percentage across the board from 175, 200, 200, 225, 250 plus. So, wedges and long irons, nothing really between like 125 and 175. kind of what I would think more of like your where your classic like ball strikers would do pretty well. You know, like some of the short to the mid irons like we saw like Southwind like this was a popular range to look for this week as far as your number approach shots. Here it’s short and long. So that was the proximity buckets. They did add a little bit of length that I’ll show you those golf course. I would not expect much change to this approach shot distribution chart this week. So you’re basically focusing on under 125 performance. like don’t go overboard with it. Even though it’s higher than PG2 average, it’s only accounting for roughly about 20% of your shots in a round. Mostly everything is going to be over 175, it accounts for 34, 40, like about 58% of your shots are coming from over 175. That’s the biggest range you’re going to look for uh this week as far as proximity buckets, stroke gains, stats. But as maybe we’ll get to in a little bit, coach play, you don’t necessarily have to hit your irons all that great uh to do really well here uh based on what the 2021 leaderboard uh shook out. Here’s the comp courses. So I I want to say this because there was I think a little bit of an argument that ensued about the comp courses on data golf uh and what kind of what this stuff suggests. All this suggests, and this is how I interpret it, is it just gives you a list of it just compiles basically who’s done well at the tournaments and what their skill sets are. That’s just what is supposed to be predictive about it. And then it basically spits data all spits out a list of courses that just have similar scatter plots to it. So, and sometimes it makes a lot of sense. Like I generally think a lot of the, you know, with a couple exceptions, I think a lot of the courses on Southwind, uh, their scatter plot chart makes sense or like when you look at Windom or like Memorial, like things like that. And when you get to kind of these golf courses with not like, you know, kind of rewards length and not a big miss fairway penalty. Generally, I see some of these courses that spits out over the left. I’ll get to in a little bit and makes sense. But it’s your job at that point to look at the skill set chart and then look at the list and either say is it just coincidental or maybe there’s if there’s something and then it’s up to you to pick and choose which ones you think make sense or not. And you know there’s a couple on this list you probably wouldn’t think um that would be a comp course but it mostly might be just because of how it rewards certain driving attributes. for example, Oill, which uh I think uh Andy would uh would be disgusted the fact that this is on this list as a comp course um given how difficult it is, how given how the architecture is better, ever being compared to Case Valley. Um, OILL though was a golf course that had a pretty it had a lower miss fairway penalty because just the approach shots in general were very difficult uh at the golf course and it rewarded you for just hitting it as far as you can. The farther you hit it, the better off you were. Kind of like it we saw at K’s Valley. So, no surprise that’s it spit out a similar comp or uh skill set profile at that place as us here even though it’s way harder golf course and a better golf course. Um that’s why they appear on this list. Same thing with like a wingoot similar uh situation there. Pinehurst it rewarded length and there was not a very big miss fairway penalty. why this is on the list here. Again, better golf course by nurse than this place. That was mostly because of the driving attributes. That’s why it’s on here. And then you see place like Vdant Viarta. I think pretty much everybody would think that’s a comp course this place. Just long driver rewards length. Tory Pines. I think that’s actually a great comp because they’re just kind of two boring vanilla golf courses. Um rewards driver long and straight. That’s, you know, on there too. Corales, a fellow Fazio course. Valhalla, I think, is going to be one that people look at this week. Just not a very exciting golf course. Kind of thoughtless. I think that’s going to be thrown around this week. Um, I really have a lot of push back. The Liberty National one, that’s number one as far as a similar profile. I don’t love that comp because there’s way more water on that golf course. Um, it might also just be too there was only one tournament played or well I guess there’s been a couple so maybe it doesn’t totally hold water but um it might just be small sample size why it’s on there. Uh Memorial Park though again just not a big miss fairway penalty long driver heavy makes sense. Dunes Golf and Beach Club you think guys like Ryan Fox has won there. Uh Chris God’s one there. I think God would be somebody you’re probably looking to bet this week. know, no surprise that golf course shows up there. Um, yeah, like I mean I think a lot of these courses based on who did well there and how those skill sets kind of match this place. No big surprise in my opinion. All right, let’s talk about this gross leaderboard. Um, I hate looking at this leaderboard for a lot of different reasons. one like everybody that week I was on Bryson and this was off the heels of a hellacious month where I had to sit through uh I had Bryson at Southwind and he completely vomited all over himself on the back nine. I had Russell Henley at Windham and he vomited all over himself uh at that tournament. Also had Kevin Na in the playoff. He blew it there too. So that was great. Double blowing it there. Uh had Cam Smith in Northern Trust who got in a playoff. It ended on Monday and he immediately hit it out of bounds on the first playoff hole. That was fun. Uh to lose to uh Tony Fen now who can’t win. That was great. So, but I was feeling pretty good. We all hit the 35 to1 Bryson number. All feeling great that week. Um and it looked like he was going to win. And um then Kentlay uh hits uh a bomb putt I think on 18 uh to tie it. And then Kantlay just continued to hit putt after putt after putt. And this is where the moniker of Patty Ice came to play. And Bryson looked like he had Klay dead to rights a couple times in the playoff. Uh could never put him away. And then finally Kantlay hit I think a 18-footer or so. Uh on the sixth playoff hole, Bryson I think had 12 feet. Couldn’t hit that. So that was all she wrote. And this just continued the uh painful summer 21 for outright betting for uh your boy here. So um but wins at 27 under beats Bryson. Um Sunj finished third at 23 under. I want to save like some of the maybe maybe we’ll talk a little bit about Sunj and like some of the shorter hitters like cuz there’s definitely going to be a type everyone wants to bet this week and for the most part it shows up in this leaderboard. basically your driver putters. Guys who just hit it far, can gain a lot of strokes off the tea and then can get hot with a putter. And that’s really how most of the top 10 played out here. Like obviously you have Bryson who gained two strokes off the tea that that week. But even so, a lot of the driving leaders for the week ended up in the top 10. Like Rory Maroy, DJ, like Sergio, Sam Burns. Like Sam Burns is a type that I think probably doesn’t play very refined golf. Sorry if there’s Sam Burns. Uh, I think we have one guy who uh is very sensitive when we criticize Sam Burns. Uh, Sam Burns is the typical kind of driver putter. I would think that drives a pretty good drives. Sometimes doesn’t really matter where he hits it. Um, iron play has never really been his strong suit. Uh, he can get hot sometimes, but he’s mostly I wouldn’t say one of the leaders. Uh, but he can get hot with a putter. Basically a Sam Burns type of golf course this week uh with K’s Valley. So, no surprise he’s eighth. John Rom is on the list here. So, a lot of guys with a lot of length were very good drivers, did very well, can get high with the putter. Um, accuracy pretty much did not matter on the weekend. You can kind of see with the within event correlations here. Just off the tea in general, harder to separate yourself uh from the field, although Bryson did a very good job separating himself on the week. Um, but distance, usually you don’t see when distance makes up more of your stroing off the tea than accuracy on the week, at least in tournaments. And that was not the case. Distance far outweighed the the need to hit fairways on the week. And you can see in the skill set chart here, um, iron play was about what you would expect as far as like importance in tournament as other PG tour um, stops. But you look at some what the stats of people put up in the top 10. I mean, Kent Lake gained like 1.2 strokes total with his irons. Bryson lost strokes with his irons. Rory watch lost strokes with his irons. DJ lost strokes with their his irons. Norin lost strokes with his armor irons. Burn didn’t gain anything. So, while it suggests that it’s just as important as other tournaments, uh, intermittent iron play, I mean, look at this top 10 here. Just didn’t really matter all that much. There’s a lot of volatility. I think a lot of it is Eric Vanroy and Sunj had massive weeks with their irons. That probably helps boost it a little bit. But overall though, I mean, you can’t tell me that the best ball strikers with their irons like it mattered on the week. It definitely didn’t when you look at this leaderboard here. St. um around the green definitely didn’t matter at all. You have a lot of guys lose around the green. A couple guys gain, but um definitely a mismatch across the board. You can see that with within event correlations, too. way less important in tournament around the green performance than compared to your other golf courses. And then putting, this is where you see a giant skew over to the right and you see all these guys that gained a billion strokes putting on the week, including Patrick Cat gained 3.6 strokes per round putting on the week. That’s ridiculous. But also lost in that, Bryson gained 2.3 putting that week. He also had a mol hot putter on the week. And you see a bunch of guys have huge weeks. Sunj had a huge week putting. Rory has huge week putting. DJ Sergio even has huge week putting. John Rom like giant weeks putting. And that was why this turned into essentially a putting contest on the week. You have a golf course that rewards length and I’ll grant you that but just isn’t a very stern ball striking test. And the best putter is basically separating theelves in turn which is can be kind of a nightmare scenario. uh for us handicappers because putting is volatile and random and it’s hard to predict sometimes. But that turns out to be the most important in tournament stat uh that separates yourself is putting on the week. Now I mean everybody’s going to go for the driver putter narrative this week and I grant you like a lot of guys like that show up in this leaderboard and uh I’ll show you the changes in a little bit to see if that maybe still holds water. But you did have some shorter hitters that still finish in the top 10. That’s probably where we’re going to be where your leverage is going to come from this week in DFS cuz everybody’s going to load up on bombers. We all remember that tournament very fondly. But you have your Sun Jays who didn’t hit it very far, but he hit a lot of fairways and just had a great iron week and a great putting week. You got your, you know, um, Norins and Abecers, two very short hitters, but again, just were hitting for the fairway a lot. And because it’s not the most complicated ball striker golf course, at least through the irons, they were able to just get in good position off the off the tea, you know, maybe avoid some of the rough because they are short uh, and there’s a lot of long iron approach shots there. They were able to put put themselves in good position to just hit a lot of putts on the week. So that could be an area where maybe for DF, this is not a DFS show, but you could be find some leverage and low ownership on some of those types of guys. Um, so that’s something to look at. But overall though, like everybody’s going to say driver, putter, length, those types. Like I have absolutely no push back to any of that based on what the golf course is, how this leaderboard shook shook out, and as we’ll get to in a little bit, the changes that they made, which probably didn’t really do much, but let’s go over some of those changes that they made. So, back in, just to refresh, back in 2023, they heard player feedback of this place and they decided to make some tweaks in order to toughen it up a little bit. And they wanted to basically do two things. One, they wanted to bring more hazards into play. And here’s an example here. This was the second hole in 2021. So short par4 around the lake here. Um from the T- box over to the left here. I mean you could some guys I think did because it’s only about 295 to clear the water. Some guys did try and drive the green or just try and get in this front bunker right here. A lot of guys though just hit to the middle of the fairway here. Had about a hundred in for a very easy look too. Um, and if you’re hitting from, you know, this T- box over on the right here, you’re pretty much taking all the water out of play because you’re just not even aiming at it. So, water, unless you’re going for the green, and with the length of these guys, they cleared it very easily. This water hazard just wasn’t really in play all that much. So, here’s what they did here. So, they took away this right T- box here. So, now everybody’s going to be teeing from the left T boxes, which were always there, but I think now everybody’s going to be teeing back over there. And now the water is actually in play because you got to hit a straight shot if you want to take it on. Um, you’re probably not, in fact, actually, you’re not going to be able to drive the green anymore because they pushed it back a little bit and there’s these two tree these couple of trees over here that basically blocks anything any attempts to drive the green um over the lake here. So, everybody’s going to have to play it the same way now. It’s going to have to be just put a less than driver into the middle of the fairway here, hit a short iron in. It’s gonna make it kind of boring. But if you had a bad shot, now the water is more in play. If it leaks a little more, right, maybe some more penalty strokes for the guys who just are not as accurate with uh holding like a 3-wood or a sevenwood or whatever club they want to use the club down uh on this hole. But that’s one of the time uh changes they made to try and bring the water hazard more into play for these guys is um removing the bunker here, pushing the green back a little bit, and then forcing everybody to tee up over on the left here. So, here’s another example, too. This is the long par uh 38. This is the cover photo that I showed you earlier with all the very nice foliage. Uh again, your teen offer me uh elevated T- box 215 asks you to hit a nice, you know, left to right uh fade as well. You do have water green side, but again, it just isn’t really in play all that much. Like, there’s a lot of room to bail out uh left here. Like unless you just hit a really foul ball for a lot of these guys, this water hazard wasn’t really coming into play. Or if you got uber aggressive with like a back like right pin, you could do that. But it just it just wasn’t in play uh that much in that tournament here though. So they lengthened it. They also expanded the lake to now it’s a bigger carry over the water to even like the front portion of the green. So, that’s how they changed this hole to bring water more into play and maybe penalize a worse shot, especially one that leaps a little too far right. You know, you’re going to lose some distance if you flare it out a little right. It’s probably going to find the water. You’re probably going to see more penalty strokes uh and bigger scores on this hole than previously. So, and it’s a longer approach shot now. Now, it’s 244 yards. Like, that’s fairly long even though it is downhill. and you got a water hazard to contend with. So, this could be a hole now that definitely can uh create some havoc at least on the leaderboard and guys just making doubles or triples or whatever to really shake things up. So, as before where you know play downhill, water wasn’t really in play. Uh now it’s very much in play on this hole um with the new configuration here. So, and two they also redesigned some holes uh a couple where they lengthened them. Uh so, this is where this is the tenth here. this uh I so I I remember watching PJ live and this was the first whole we all saw because uh feature groups had everybody start on the back uh there and just very nothing hole. Everybody took less than driver put in the middle of the fairway here had a flip wedge in only 364 yards down the hill. like you had a couple guys maybe hook it a little or push it a little too far right. They had some trouble, but overall though, everybody was making birdie. This is when I think we all figured out like, oh man, like they are going to eat this place up. Um the 10th hole, the old 10th hole was definitely a uh telltale sign of what was to come. Big change though, they lengthened it pretty significantly. They took out a lot more fairway bunkers. Now it’s 477 yards. So a longer par4, but uh you know this you have this bunker is about 325 out now. So this used to have um previously they had uh three bunker or two bunkers over on the right here. Now just a singular bunker over on the left. But again though, like just not a difficult hole key to green. Not a lot of adversity as far as hazards or having to shape the ball. You basically can just hit it just long and straight all the way down to set up a little bit longer approach shot downhill too. Like yes, they added some length here, but it looks very similar to a lot of other holes that did not get altered at K’s Valley that I kind of showed you earlier. Just so while this is definitely longer and will play harder on at least scoring wise because you’re turning it from a 364 yard thoughtless par4 into a 477 yard thoughtless par4. Um, you know, the scoring is going to be worse here, but it’s not really changing the calculus of what you’re looking for. Guys are still going to pull driver. There’s still not a big fair penalty for missing fairways here. Um, you know, they just made the hole longer here. So, and then the 11th hole. So, this T- box used to be over on the left and it was, you know, downhill, but 600 yards. So, a pretty long par five here. I’m not sure now it it’s shortened to 520 now. They didn’t change the green though. It’s still where it is. They just shortened the hole. They just pushed all so the T- boss is over to the right. So, it’s a slightly different look and angle off the T. Um, you know, you got to hit a nice left to right shot. Maybe bring this bunker to play here. There’s still a lot of room to kind of bail out right here. Uh, I don’t know if this is like native fescue or anything to really get you in trouble, but I’m not sure if it’s I would imagine they’re probably going to make this just another long par4. So, until I get the GCSA sheet to find out if this is now the 11th is now a par 4 instead of a par five. Um, we’ll see. Obviously, whenever you change the par to try and make it more difficult, uh, high PJ National, uh, that’s one way to do it. Instead of, you know, a score a hole playing 4.4, uh, instead of that being an underpar hole, now that’s suddenly magically overpar. and everybody thinks it’s more difficult and better hole. Um, that’s another story. In any event, we’ll find that out for the Tuesday show, but this was another change. The 11th is no longer 600 yard par five. It potentially could be a 520 yard par4. Um, so we’ll see. Stay tuned. But that’s another change that they made here. And then here’s 14 and 15 as well. So again, another shorter par4. Um, you know, it’s it’s kind of a it looks a lot like number two where a lot of guys would just play to the middle of the fairway and have like a 60 yard wedge into the green here. Green is surrounded by four front bunkers as well. You got some native fescue grasses over behind here. This is the old hole, by the way. And then 15 guys would tee off over on the right across the creek here to the green. Um that’s how 14 and 15 were designed. Now they wanted to bring this creek behind um that or that divided the 14- 15. They want to bring that more into play. So they shifted the the whole the green back a little bit. Now it’s the back edge is closer to this creek and native area here to where if you do fly the ball over the green, you could potentially land in this area. It’s a very narrow green as well. So definitely not a whole lot of room to navigate, but largely it’s pretty much the same hole. Um guys aren’t probably going to be trying to drive the green here. They’re probably going to have, you know, take less than driver, head to the fat part of the fairway here, and have a little wedge in. There just is not a whole lot of room to operate between the front and the back. Um, you know, because you do have the creek looming on the right. And then number 15 here, they did push the green back a little bit, but now everybody’s teeing off across the creek over on the right or uh a little bit right here. So they they basically have a different angle to this green. Still 187 yards, but uh you’re not hitting over the creek and over this front bunker here. You’re basically taking everything out straight on. So those are the significant changes uh to the golf course. Um I don’t think it’s going to change really what you’re looking for. Um, I think what embodies that is number 10 is yes, they lengthened it, but it looks like just every other par4 at Cage Valley at that point. So, that’s not really going to change the calculus here. I guess if anything change, you know, putting some of the greens closer to some of the water hazards, it’s probably going to lend itself to, you know, you could definitely screw up a little bit if you’re not sharp with your short irons on a couple of these holes or not sharp with, you know, especially on number eight, uh, a long iron there. So, I think it will add a little bit more difficulty. They did change a couple bunkers to kind of, I think, push him out a little farther into the driving zones as well on a couple holes. But overall though, fundamentally, this is pretty much the same golf course as we saw in 2021. Um, I would not expect much change to what you looked for in that tournament to what you’re looking for here, which pretty much is kind of night and day different than what you looked at at Southwind. I think you definitely got to change gears a little bit as far as your profile of what you’re looking for this week. So, that’s uh K’s Valley. Now, let’s look at the odds board a little bit. Um Oh, man. Why does this do this? I always have the odds up and then it just decides to disappear on me when I need it the most. So, got the spinning circle of death here as it thinks about give me the odds. Come on. Here we go. Okay, so this is first time me looking at the uh the odds board here. Scotty Sheffller plus 220. I mean, look, I think probably everyone was scared of Scotty this week at Southwind. You know, you go to a golf course with a high miss fairway penalty and awards good ball striking and, you know, tiff Eagle Greens and, you know, we’ve seen Scotty win at those places over and over and over and over. Um, and because he didn’t win, you know, and we’re coming to a driver putter golf course, a golf course that, you know, probably I wouldn’t say rewards the most skilled golf. It’s kind of just Trackman golf at this point. So maybe that might lull people into saying, “Well, I’m not really scared of Scotty this week. You know, I don’t think this is really a golf course.” Um, may I remind everybody that we said the same thing about Scotty at uh Byron Nelson at uh TBC Craig Ranch and he dog lapped the field. Uh, I would probably say that’s a driver putter golf course. Um, same thing at Quail Hollow. I think people are like, “Yeah, it’s kind of a dumb down golf course. A little bit more driver putter that week.” You know, we’re kind of looking for your Bryson’s. Uh, I don’t really love Scotty this week. and Scotty dominate the PGA. So, I just want to say that word of caution before we potentially just write off Scotty this week and maybe get a false sense of, oh, well, he didn’t win a south wind. I don’t think this is quite the course fit what we expect him. Maybe I’m not really looking to play him this week. May I remind you that he’s won twice at these types of golf courses this year, including Quail Hollow, which is a Tom Fazio. So, you know, fading beware. Uh Rory obviously would be a good fit for this week. uh fresh off of uh taking uh this week off, not wanting to go to Memphis, enraging the golf community by skipping this tournament and devaluing the FedEx Cup despite all the embarrassment the FedEx Cup has delivered on itself for the last two decades, but that’s another story. Um obviously Rory has done very well at Fazio Courses, dominated Quail Hollow during his career. Uh he won at Congre, he did well at Kasumi Gaseki, won at the Summit Club. just a lot of good, you know, he he’s it’s he’s a good cop, you know, he’s a good course fit for what Fosio, of course, has kind of asked from you. So, plus 650 did well at uh case value in 2021. Obviously, I think people are probably going to want to gravitate towards him this week given his success at both here and other Fazios. Xander, I mean, Xander disappointed a lot of people this week. Um, he’s won at a couple Fazios. Uh, I mean, well, he’s won at one. He won a Kasumi Gaseki. Um, Lada finishes a quail hollow. Maybe a flop lag spot for him this week. You know, we’ll have to look at how the driver is performing, how the putter’s heating up. Um, maybe that’s maybe we should be going back to Xander, especially because people just, you know, he disappointed a lot of people this week. Um, Levig, you know, Levik had a pretty good Sunday. You know, we throw around comps like Tory Pines, you know, he’s won there. Driver’s starting to heat up. We’ll have take a look at how the putter has been. Um, but I’m going to guess Levig is probably going to be a very popular pick this week. Um, same thing with like probably a Hoblin or Sam Burns. I can probably see myself betting Burns this week if he drifts. Um, I mean, just what this golf course kind of rewards from people. I mean, that’s if we’re looking for driver putter, it’s Sam Burns. So, if I He’s 35 to1 on DraftKings right now. We’ll see what some of the other pricing is, but if he drifts to like the 50man field, like 40 45 like, yeah, I could see myself putting birds on the betting card. Like, it’s pretty easy layup there. Same thing with a hob even maybe a flop like spot for him, but I don’t know. He looks he looks pretty bad this week. But not a lot of people are going to be on him. Um, so maybe someone to consider. Cam Young probably will be someone to consider this week. Man hits ball far, man hits a lot of putts. Cam Young. Uh, Chris Goddarup. Same thing. Probably a course we’re looking to use him this week. Um, what else? Yeah, I’m not really interested in ash. I’m not really This is not Shane Lowry course. just kind of out on Bobby Mack at the moment. Matt McNeely possibly, you know, I mean, he contended Tory Pines. He’s been playing all right lately. Um 60 to1 on him. I could get myself around to that as just a guy who has plus length and can hit a lot of putts. I could see that. Um, you know, Harry Hall playing all right golf, looking to secure that last RDER Cup spot. Uh, looking to vindicate our loyal fan Dave as well. 71. I don’t think he’s going to win, but I said that about JJ Spawn last week. He almost won. Um, Kirk Kittyama if he just continues to have good weeks with the putter. I mean he I mean Twin City Well Twin Cities was a birdief fest. Uh TBC Craig Ranch is a birdief fest. Maybe Kittyama can contend at those types of places. So that might be someone who might be kind of sneaky this week. Um Sam Stevens even driver putter if we’re looking at that. 120 to1. That’s probably going to be someone I’m looking for. Brian Fox, Thomas Dietri, Johnny Vegas, who just did pretty well at uh Quail Hall at the PGA and had a pretty good Sunday at St. Jude, maybe carry him some momentum. That could be somebody might be interested in this week. Here’s the thing, though. So, like if we throw around like a Vanta C comp and like, you know, drive or putter and all that stuff or even like uh well, John Deere’s got a higher miss fairway penalty, but uh that’d be hilarious if Brian Campbell took this one down when we’re all like every time it seems like we have talked about a golf course that just does not suit Brian Campbell’s game, he has thrown it right back in our face. And uh yeah, 300 to1 Brian Campbell this week at driver putter. Anything’s possible, guys. So, all right, that is it. Like I said, this was going to be a short and sweet show. Uh, thank you for watching. Thanks for listening. Um, Boss and Kapper will be back on Tuesday for the betting show. We will go over our cards this week. Um, I had a pretty good week this week. Uh, despite not even really being close in the outright, uh, positionals went very well. So, goal, I think, for me is to be up. I’m trying to get to over 40 units uh one this year. I’m at I think about 37 right now. So LA I’d like to get over the hump by East Lake. So we’ll see what we can do. Uh hopefully it’ll be a winner this week. Um maybe even the books will be napping and they set ridiculously stupid round scores and we can take advantage of them by pounding unders on Thursday, but we’ll see. Uh but yeah, thanks for watching. Um hope you enjoyed the show. So hopefully it was informative or at least a refresh of what you saw back in 2021 and kind of validating a little bit what you’re thinking this week. Uh we’ll be back with Boston Capper on Tuesday. Thank you very much. We’ll see you then.