On today’s show, Ryan goes over the model for the Valspar Championship and explains why there are so few fits and horses for courses at Innisbrook. Which players were already bet down, and where is there still value?
Hi everybody Welcome to the Press welcome to the second show of our week here getting you ready for the valpar championship I’m Ryan bingie thanks for listening I appreciate it we’re going to go over the top end of the model here for the valpar championship we’ll talk a
Little bit about horses for courses what a course fit looks like current form spoiler alert there’s not a whole lot of that to be honest with you it’s a weird week and I’ll explain a little bit about that here in today’s show and then tomorrow we will go over the other
Remaining events of the week we have the LPGA in the Los Angeles area for the SE Pac Championship we have the hog Classic on the champions tour in Newport Beach and we’ve got the Singapore classic in as you guessed it Singapore on the DP World Tour but today we focus again on
The valpar championship inisbrook Resort Copperhead course Palm Harbor Florida basically the Tampa area this is again a golf course Larry Packard design Larry Packard lived to basically be hundred years old and his architecture is very much like this which is primarily about trying to create a golf course that
Really makes you do everything it’s fair it’s an eminently Fair Golf Course and kind of like TPC Sawgrass it really doesn’t seem to favor anyone in particular and part of that is because if you look at the data for course fit and we won’t go all the way through it
Here yet we’ll do the model first but if you look at the course fit data you see that it really places an emphasis on putting that very few courses otherwise on the PGA tort do and so that leads itself to more random outcomes because as it turns out the greens are tough to
Putt and if you don’t putt them well then it doesn’t really matter how well you play tto Green and in that sense that means any kind of quality tto green game can work but you got to be able to roll your rock here and if you can’t do
That you’re kind of done before you start so we’ll come back to that in a minute but let’s talk about the long-term model that we do for our members of golfnet.com it’s $40 a year to be a member it’s very easy to get involved like I said 40 bucks is is not
Much for a Year’s worth of this stuff and access to all of our tools but each week we go over the top 10ish parts of the model just so you can kind of get a sense of the field and who I’m looking that why and what I’m seeing this week
Based on the data so here’s our top 10 Xander shley is number one by a significant margin over Justin Thomas who is number two Sam Burns two-time back-to-back Champion 2122 is third Jordan spe is fourth Sun JM is fifth Doug gim has rocketed up the rankings he
Is sixth this week he’s just playing Great Golf and it’s starting to catch up Matthew NE Smith has a very good finish here that’s why he is seventh and that’s you know in recent memory Tony fenal is eighth Nick Taylor’s ninth Cameron Young’s 10th Keegan Bradley’s 11th Keith
Mitchell’s 12th Brian Harmon’s 13th Matt McNeil’s 14th Billy hell 15th Brendan Todd 16th Andrew Novak I want to point out because we’ve talked about him in the show the last couple of weeks really he’s 19th in the model and he’s he’s playing good golf Victor perz is up
There Al Al be it with a limited data set Eric Cole’s kind of starting to fall down the rankings a little bit because he’s starting to kind of come back to earth to a degree and I don’t know what the reason for that is but but he is
Coming back to Earth a little bit so Point him out as well and then a former Champion Adam hadwin is 24th in the ranking and I realize for someone who’s selling access to this model that telling you golfers down to like 24 and 25 isn’t necessarily the best thing to
Do financially but hey we do it anyway now that all said let’s try to pair these guys up on a short-term model where we’re looking at the last 10 events played and we’re looking for players who are gaining more than 1.2 Strokes in total per round over those last 10 events we
Do not have many of them in this field uh Hayden Springer’s up there he’s play been playing some great golf lately but that’s really because of his chipping I mean he’s saving himself with chipping and putting otherwise it’s not very good torbjorn olison is on that list he’s
Been playing good golf he’s been playing good golf everywhere really and he does it off the te and on the approach I think you got to like him this week Doug gim same thing playing well on the approach and in total Keith Mitchell on the approach and in
Total and I don’t really mind so much that they’re not gaining huge on putting gim is actually gim is gaining quite a bit putting wise Keith Mitchell not so much you know 027 Strokes per round torj on ol and right in that same range they’re practically the same guy at this point
But that’s I’m fine with that that is good golf I am fine with all of that Nick Taylor is not gaining as much on the approaches I’d like to see and the putting is eh but he is doing well overall in Strokes gained same with Billy horel
Who he’s almost kind of out of sight out of mind for me but he is playing well and again part of a big portion of that is his ability to save Strokes around the greens and I kind of diminish the value of Strokes gained around the green because
It is variable and if you’re gaining Strokes around the green that means you’re hitting it like junk otherwise so I I don’t take as much from Hayden Springer or Billy horel for that matter based on their their breakdown the only other person in the field that would pop
To me on this list is Ben Silverman and that’s because he is gaining pretty significantly on the approach 615 Strokes per round on the approach in the last 10 events that’s a good number but a stroke gained putting he’s losing about .17 that’s canceled out by what he’s
Gaining off the te so the uh round the green game’s pretty good maybe a guy worth looking out for I probably will not place any action on him uh for the week but you do you it’s up to you so there you again short term we don’t
Really have a lot to work with really much at all and that makes it an awkward week because you’re you’re playing with people who and we’ll talk about this in second when we look at the current form plays so if you’re looking at current form plays we like to look for players
Who have had multiple top 15 finishes on the PGA tour in the last five events U well we’re really looking at the last six Puerto Rico and we only have three players in the field and the only two I really care about are Andrew Novak and Cameron young so you know I I
Don’t want to bet Cameron young at the price he’s at because he’s never won and I’m willing to lose that he won or it maybe catch him later in the week like I did at the players and at API where he just went okay well you kind of have to bet the
Winner now and it just turned out to be Scotty Sheffer if it turns out to be Cameron young plays really great first two rounds then maybe you get involved you sacrifice some of the price get 10 to1 8 to1 something like that I’m willing to live with that especially because it’s a weird
Week then you’re looking at event finish history we don’t really have many players in this field with good event finish history Sam Burns and Justin Thomas they have three top 15s each Sam’s got two wins in a sixth JT’s got some close calls everyone else might
Have one like spe’s got a win Adam hwi’s got a win Gary Will’s got a win but not in the last five years but you know they’ve got wins but they don’t really have much else to show for it and that to me makes it uh pretty tricky to try
To find golfers that you like because you want to kind of have a little of each you want to have some good current form you want to have some good JuJu at this golf course and you put them together and you make that an easy pick
Well that’s not what we have here and then you look at the course fit again we talked about this before but 38% of The Strokes gain among the top 25 come on putting which means 62% comes from ta to green and the difference between off the
Te and on the approach is probably the smallest I’ve seen on the PGA T you really kind of have to just do it t to green and then because it’s a tough golf course because there’s usually a good amount of rough and it’s usually pretty hard to advance you’ve got to gain
Strokes around the green because you’re going to miss greens that’s just the way it’s going to work if you finish in the top 25 if if we just did this for the top five I would assume the percentage would look a lot different that that’s just my
Thinking but the way I like to do with course fit I like to look at the top 25 because I think that’s a great week if you finished in the top 25 out of 144 or 156 player starting field then you were in the top 20% and
If you’re in the top 20% you had a great week you may not get paid completely like that but you had a great week so that all said the a couple course fits seem to strike my fancy Keith Mitchell Sam Burns Bud collie who I had I should have
Thought about a little bit more uh yesterday day but again out of sight kind of out of mind but he is in the field this week he did play well at PJ National Taylor Moore is the defending Champion his game kind of matches sep straa matches here and he may be worth a
Look I I have kind of gotten away from sep straa and I think that’s in part because I it just H he’s so erratic and I really wanted this to be a year where he would become more consistent and follow up on what he did to make the Ryder Cup team
And that has just not happened yet so you kind of put him on the back burner he’s kind of gotten replaced in my brain space with Nick Taylor well I still think the data shows that se strak is worth a look this week and Brian Haron
Appears on this course fits list who I love this week and if you want to bet him pre- tournament I’m fine with that so that that’s kind of all the tools that we have based on the overall history of the tournament what the data tells us about the
Tournament holistically but I do want to talk a little bit about Strokes gained by round in this tournament it’s not again not a tremendously long history because most players aren’t in this tournament very long but I want to talk about it for the specific reason of trying to think about
A first round leader sep sta did great here in the opener last year and then kind of struggled the rest of the way matth mcney same thing struggled in the middle rounds did well in the end mcney may be an interesting pick for first- round leader Keegan Bradley gains a lot
Of Strokes here in the first round tends to come out hot now he’s done the full Keegan also where he’s gained a ton of Strokes in the first round and then missed the cut so that tampers that Sam Burns is right up there Ben Griffin had
A good year last year David lipsky has done well Lucas Glover has done well here Stuart sink has historically done well here sunj M Scott Stallings has done well here Joel Damon that might be a got to think about Victor Perez did well here last year in the opening round and then
Struggled in the third round he is playing pretty good golf I think he is worth a look here as well in that first round uh leader Market maybe not to win the tournament but first round leader Market I wanted to point that out that’s a tool available to our members at
Golfnet.com I think it’s extremely helpful when you’re trying to think about first- round leader plays for one but also as you get toward the weekend and you start to look at Players now when you’re thinking about rounds three and four maybe look at the halfway marking all right someone who’s kind of
Well backed that might be able to do something might be able to make a move you want to look at this tool you know The Strokes game by round by tournament and then also just Strokes game on rounds three and four in general because then if you could put that together and
You see double overlap that’s someone you might want to think about pretty strongly going into the weekend but that’s come the weekend so that all said I I don’t feel like I need to change a whole lot of my perspective about the week I feel like the data kind
Of confirms a lot of my suspicions I like Brian Haron I like Doug gam I like matth mcney I like Andrew Novak I like Jimmy Stanger that’s a little bit more of an outside shot I do like like an Alex Bor here because he’s a good ball Striker and because he seems
Pretty adaptable to any kind of environment on the PGA tour where he can take his game with the quality of his ball striking and pretty much play any golf course and if it’s working it’s going to it doesn’t really matter what it is so I think that’s a good play
Harmon’s down to 20 to1 I think I’ve seen him 25 other places sep’s 35 to1 which is the same price as Nick Taylor the the Nick Taylor numbers around putting are concerning given the way this golf course plays but that would be the same concern with sep sta
So both of those are a worry maybe instead I a lot of people put money on Doug gim he’s now 40 to1 so you missed that train Keith Mitchell 40 to1 might be a decent pivot some people have bet Baden Hoy I think I still want to stick
With him he’s now 45 he was 55 McNeely I think he opened closer to 70 now he’s 55 so a lot of the names that that we’ve put out there have already been bet and it’s not hard to see why Brendan Todd as well they they’re people who move
Markets they listen to this show so when we talk about this stuff I mean I’m not betting in those kinds of increments I’m I’m betting in$ 25 to $50 increments I mean those are those are my half unit unit plays so that’s where I’m thinking about it so I’m not putting the
Financial interest in move the market but the people who listen to the show yeah they they can they can put a whole lot more money up than I can uh doing this so I think you should take their advice but we we should have taken it yesterday Billy horel has been bet down
A little bit he’s 80 to1 Matt NE Smith is 100 to1 still maybe a decent value Novak’s down from I think he was 130 he’s 110 now bork’s bet down a little bit I think he was 150 now 130 Jimmy Stanger still in there so still a
Little value there and then the other guy want my super mega long shot of the week uh Adrien Damon chessar still still out there 300 to1 still out there going to get him if you would like to kind of have a super super weird sweat on a guy
Who’s had a horrible year but did show some signs of life in his last start maybe just throwing this out there maybe steuart sink at 400 to1 is worth a consideration he’s been playing well on the PJ tour Champions he’s probably got some red ass in him because he blew a
Lead in the last PJ tour Champions event the colard classic he was up big he should have won and then he stunk it up one Sunday and let it get away from him 400 to1 he would not be priced anywhere near this if you were playing the 50
Plus tour this week playing the hog classic but on this he is getting that kind of number that could be interesting to me even if for five bucks it could get destroyed right away but I think he is a guy worth looking at he still has plenty of strength still plenty of pop
In the bat he’s probably not hitting at 310 320 you don’t have to around here you can just play your game and it’ll work out okay so maybe another super mega long shot for the week but I did want to point him out because the
Numbers did come out well for him as it looked in the course fit and the history uh in terms of first round Strokes gain if he gets off to a good start he got off to a good start for two rounds in the last PJ tour Champions event if he
Gets off to a good start you never know impulses can kick in Adrenaline kicks in you start hitting it farther start playing kind of like you were young something crazy could happen here we’ve had two weeks of the most predictable outcome possible happen the number one player in the world beat
Everybody two weeks in a row maybe we are due for regression back toward the way this season has been or the exact opposite is going to happen and the the person you expect to win this tournament is going to win for me that’s Brian Harmon for some people that’s maybe
Cameron young or Sam Burns maybe it’s Justin Thomas but I think it’s at least worth having something like that in your pocket I think that can happen here and it’s not that far out of the realm of possibility so just couple names to throw out there if you’re
Thinking something super deep for the week that all said I I haven’t talked about this in a few weeks and I want to do the uh the tournament props and that is winning margin one stroke exactly plus 200 playoff plus 330 I think we’re going to get a close
One here that’s just my thought about it I would look at one stroke or a playoff this this tournament tends to be close it just it has a way about it of doing that kind of you make bogeys down the stretch and couple guys make birdies
And I think one or one or two strokes or excuse me one stroke or a play off is probably the way to go and then you get four strokes exactly or two strokes exactly for plus 350 uh I I think if you’re going to try and do that try and bet three things
Then you’re going to do playoff four and two you try to just barely come out ahead if you want to do that again I I don’t think that’s worth it I think you’d pick maybe two Max but have a little fun with it that’s up to you and then round
Finishing position first round leader bet we did talk about I mean the odds aren’t all that different honestly I mean they’re inflated for some of the shorter shots but first round leader play but you maybe you look at a Taylor Mor at 71 70 to1 maybe you look at sep
Straa Doug gim as is out there Maverick mcney certainly is a play I think is is worth looking at at 60 to1 he does tend to kind of get out the gate hot Andrew Novak 90 to1 worth getting out the gate hot I I tend to kind of wait on those
First round leader plays do it live I don’t I don’t need to lock up my money when I don’t know anything that’s happening the weather can change the golf course could be different than I expect let let’s see some data before you do that that that was always my
Recommendation around the first R leader play and then get someone in the early wave who starts out pretty well see if that kind of lines up with your your assessment of the tournament and the field and then maybe you kind of get in halfway through the day is the the
Afternoon wave starting and you take your chance on whether the afternoon wave can can do better than the morning wave and typically I the splits are pretty even you can get winners out of both but I I tend to favor the morning wave personally all right that’s going
To do it for us today on the show I appreciate you listening if you have any comments for me Ryan at theol newws net.com on Twitter threadx Instagram at Blue Sky Ryan bingy Facebook and YouTube Ryan bingy golf golf newws nets on all those Services the handle golf Newsnet
You can join golf Newsnet for $40 a year at golfnet.com very easy to get involved get access to all of our tools even more than what we talk about on the show tomorrow we will go over the fur Hills saac Championship the hog classic and the Singapore classic just for a couple
Minutes on each and then we’re going to spend some time talking at the Masters because the Champions dinner menu is out at the Press conf Winter’s press conference today the preview press conference it’s it’s right here it’s right at our doorstep the master so we need to be getting ready and thinking
About it so we’ll we’ll have some conversation about that tomorrow thanks again for listening we will talk to you tomorrow on the Press
