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Picks Show
Since there was a Monday finish, Geoff and I went LIVEEEEEE on Monday afternoon for instant reactions to Eckroat’s win along with a LIV/Anthony Kim review from Jeddah. Then into bets and preview for Arnold Palmer Inv, Puetro Rico & LIV Hong Kong, which I thought was LIV Singapore for like 45 minutes. It happens. We also discussed the Top 5 players in the world. Who are those 5?
WATCH: Arnold Palmer Inv Picks, One and Done | Puerto Rico, LIV Hong Kong Bets | Best Player in World?
READ: API + PRO Research and Quick Notes
You can tell I was super fired up for the Eckroat win at the begining of the show, as his Monday performance (combined with Lowry’s double on 15) won me a 4th GPP in PGA for 2024. Basically, the moment Moose revamped the tools at Fantasy National, I started cleaning up. I give a big assist to Tambo for helping me with strategy and tournament selection too. Anyway, you should become a FN member if you aren’t already.
JOIN: 20% OFF Tools and Stats at FantasyNational.com
2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational
Field: 70 Players
Cut: Top 50 and Ties
Lineup Lock: Thursday, March 7
Defending Champ: Kurt Kitayama
Only Tony Finau is skipping the event of eligible players.
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: Approach
Proximity 200+ Yards
Opportunities Gained
Par 3s Gained 200-225 Yards
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Course
Course: Bay Hill
Yardage: 7,466
Par: 72
Greens: Bermuda
9 Holes With Water
84 Sand Bunkers
Par 3s
Average length (217 yards), the shortest is 199 with the other three all checking in at 215 yards or longer
These are four of the six toughest holes in terms of birdie rate (all under 11%), with Hole 2 being the most difficult in that category (7.8%)
Four of the top-9 finishers last season lost strokes on the Par 3's
Par 4s
Average length (437 yards), while the average length is what you’d expect, there are three holes measuring 400 or fewer yards and three that top 460.
Par 4s at the end of each nine take back strokes (Hole 18 is the toughest; Hole 8 is second — both notching a bogey-or-worse rate north of 25%).
Kitayama is the defending champion ... he had 10 birdies across Rounds 1 and 4, only two came on Par 4’s.
Par 5s
Average length (558 yards), the shortest is 511 with the other three all checking in at 555 yards or longer
The four easiest holes on the course, all carrying a birdie rate over 30% a season ago (Hole 16 had a crazy 5% eagle rate, nearly matching the 6.4% bogey rate).
The top four in SG:Par 5's all cashed top 15 checks (three of them finished with at least a share of 4th)
DraftKings Streak
Going front-to-back doesn't create a great streak opportunity by any means (0.2%), but that's the side to take if you're breaking ties in showdown (back-to-front: 0.01%). If you're going for this streak, you need to get #9, a hole that 2023 winner Kurt Kitayama played at +5 (the "better" path to a streak doesn't mean a "good" look at one).
Past Winners
2023: Kurt Kitayama -9
2022: Scottie Scheffler -5
2021: Bryson DeChambeau -11
2020: Tyrrell Hatton -4
2019: Francesco Molinari -12
2018: Rory McIlroy -18
2017: Marc Leishman -11
2016: Jason Day -17
2015: Matt Every -19
2014: Matt Every -13
2013: Tiger Woods -13
2023: Kurt Kitayama (-9, one clear of Rory McIlroy and Harris English)
- His best round came on Thursday (67, second best on the course that day) and that carried him (two shots better than English and six better than McIlroy)
- Kitayama and English were the top-2 on the leaderboard and the top-2 putters for the week (neither was top-35 in SG:OTT)
- 11 of the top 13 finishers gained distance off the tee (McIlroy and Cam Young were the two that cut it loose and paced the field easily in distance: both lost Fairways, but still cashed top 10 pay checks)
2022: Scottie Scheffler (-5, one clear of Tyrell Hatton, Vikto Hovland, and Billy Horschel)
- His 68 on moving day was the best of Saturday and his only round in the 60's. Three of the top-6 finishers carded a round of 75 or worse (you don't have to be perfect!)
- The top seven putters all cashed top-20 pay checks, four of them finishing with at least a share of 10th
- Seven of the top-8 finishers gained SGP:25+.
17 of the top-19 finishers gained strokes on the par 5’s
2021: Bryson DeChambeau (-11, one clear of Lee Westwood)
- His best round came on Thursday (67, three top 3 on the leaderboard after Thursday all finished top-10 for the week). He was the only player to go under par in all four days
- Bryson won and led the field in distance, but five of the next six on the final leaderboard lost distance.
- Four of the top-6 finishers lost Proximity from 75-100 AND 100-125. (three of those four gained in a significant way from 200+)
2020: Tyrell Hatton (-4, one clear of Marc Leishman)
-He progressively got worse (68-69-73-74), but so did the conditions. Hatton did enough down the stretch on Sunday by closing with seven consecutive pars
- The top three in SG: APP for the week all finished inside the top-10 (Collin Morikawa and Joel Dahmen joined Hatton on that list, with the two of them bleeding over 1.5 strokes with the flat stick)
The top six in Prox SG:200+ all finished with a share of 18th or better (Hatton didn't excel here, but he and Sungjae Im thrived in the 175-200 bucket, allowing them to cashe top 5's without much success with the real deep irons)
Note: Matt Every went full Keegan (65 in Round 1 with an 83 in Round 2). Of note, 11 of the top-12 finishers gained on proximity in that 100-125 yard bucket (nine of them lost in either the 175-200 or 200+ range)
2019: Francesco Molinari (-12, two clear of Matt Fitzpatrick)
- Molinari fired the round of the tournament on Sunday (64, nine shots better than his Saturday and seven better than Fitzpatrick)
- Each of the top nine finishers gained strokes putting from either 20-25 feet or 25+ (Molinari was a plus in both buckets)
13 of the top 14 finishers gained Good Drives on the field (four of them lost in distance and four of them lost fairways)
Six of the top-7 for the week in SG:OTT cashed top-10 paychecks when all was said and done.
2018: Rory McIlroy (-18, three clear of Bryson DeChambeau)
- His 64 on Sunday matched the best of the tournament and was four better than Bryson. Rory was the only golfer in the field that shot 70 or better in all four rounds
- Rory and Bryson were the top two at the end of the week and they were the two best in Prox:200+
McIlroy road a red-hot putter (+10 strokes on the field), and four of the top-5 putters for the week finished T7 or better on the final leaderboard.
Notes
This is your yearly reminder to consult the weather report before submitting lineups or making any wagers. A clear wave stack due to wind may emerge and you’ll want to take advantage of that. If the gusts are up, that will dramatically change the type of player you may want to target this week. The wind is up at this course as a default and it may not be too big of a deal.
Then there was 2020. Weekend wind made the course a scoring death trap for the field. Matthew Fitzpatrick (69 in Round 4) was the only player to crack 70 on the weekend. Tyrrell Hatton was the first player since Geoff Ogilvy at the 2006 U.S. Open to fire two rounds over par on a weekend and still win. The early forecast appears like it may be not be as bad as 2020 but potentially quite a difference between Thursday/Friday and Saturday/Sunday in terms of wind.
Two years ago, Scottie Scheffler charged from the pack Saturday when the leaders started to get dealt treacherous conditions. Rory McIlroy and Francesco Molinari both staged at least six-stroke Sunday comebacks in 2018 and 2019, so no one is ever dead at Bay Hill. This can provide an excellent live betting opportunity if you have the guts to believe in a massive comeback from someone not necessarily showing the form in the moment.
Water ripples in the eye line of almost every shot and sand is ubiquitous (84 bunkers), not to mention that the rough tends to be longer than the opening in Deer Hunter. That wedding scene makes The Neverending Story feel like a pulp novella.
Similar to Riviera a few weeks back, Bay Hill actually plays longer than its 7,466 yards. With the prevalent water and series of doglegs, the holes have more distance to carry than they are actually measured on the scorecard. More so when you consider the average drive is over five yards shorter than the average PGA TOUR event (277 yards to 283 yards). While there are only nine officially listed water hazards, the wetness directly affects those nine holes in an impactful way. Fortunately, the greenside bunkers at Bay Hill are some of the easiest on the PGA TOUR annually, so bailing out to the non-water side of the greens is the preferred option on the longer approaches.
Players are forced to lay up off the tee to keep dry or set themselves up for a clean look at the green, the reason driving accuracy at Bay Hill (64%) is slightly higher than PGA TOUR average (62%). Do that, or risk paying the price — like on the Par 5 sixth hole. You can take the water on to save some distance (RIP Bryson DeChambeau in this event) and try to get on the green in two, or you can end up carding an 18 like John Daly in 1998. Since 1983, No. 6 has produced 23 scores in the double-digits. That’s the most on PGA TOUR by a large margin.
Second lowest made putt percentage between 10-15 feet (Harbour Town No. 1). Likely why so many statistically poor putters have spike gains at Bay Hill.
With the wind playing a factor, there has been an inordinate amount of international players who’ve succeeded over the years at Bay Hill. That may be less so in 2024 now that the API is a signature event featuring all the best PGA players, but the ability to navigate the wind and scramble from all over have proven to be valuable skills which are simply more practiced on DP World Tour courses.
Strokes Gained: Approach has been over two times as influential on the Top 5 finishers as SG: Off The Tee, and three times more impactful than SG: Around The Green. The gap between each of the SG stats shrinks if expanded to the Top 20 finishers. Looking at winners only, SG: APP is 2.7 times more impactful than SG: OTT and 4.2 times against SG: ATG. Yes, SG: APP is always the most important stat to look at, however it tends to be more pronounced this week with so many approaches coming from beyond 200 yards. Historically, around 30% of approaches will come from that distance, one of the largest distributions of approach shots from 200+ yards of any course on the PGA TOUR.
Much of that has to do with the Par 3s, as they average over 215 yards in length. Ludvig Aberg, Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, Tom Kim and Luke List are the top players on holes from this length over the past 36 rounds.
The greens at Bay Hill have annually played extremely quick in comparison to most courses. The players with the most Strokes Gained: Putting per round on fast + LIGHTNING greens per round over their past 36 rounds are: Denny McCarthy, Wyndham Clark, JT Poston, Harris English, Sahith Theegala, Brendon Todd, Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott, and Matt Fitzpatrick. Mattieu Pavon and Jake Knapp are actually ranked the two best per round but only have five and seven rounds respectively; the rest of those names have the full 36 rounds.
Isolating those fast and lightning greens to just Bermuda putting surfaces:
Marc Leishman and Jason Day have won both at Bay Hill and Torrey Pines in the past seven years. Other Farmers champs Justin Rose, Luke List and Max Homa have multiple Top-10 results at Bay Hill as well. Tiger Woods historically dominates both courses. That’s everywhere but Riviera, though.
Rory McIlroy, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Sungjae Im, Scottie Scheffler, and Chis Kirk Strokes Gained: Total in the past five years at Bay Hill.
Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Keegan Bradley, Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick, Max Homa, and Cam Young have posted Top 20 finishes in each of their past two starts at API. Kurt Kitayama (Win) and Patrick Cantlay (T4) only have one starts in the past five years.
Puerto Rico Open Quick Info
Course: Grand Reserve Golf Club (Coco Beach)
Yardage: 7,506
Par: 72
Greens: Paspalum
12 Holes with Water in Play
63 Sand Traps
Winners
2023: Nico Echavarria -21 (By 2 over Akshay)
2022: Ryan Brehm -20 (By 6 over Max McGreevy)
2021: Branden Grace -19 (1 over Jhonny Vegas)
2020: Viktor Hovland -20 (By 1 over Josh Teater)
Bomb away and hope not to get caught in the palm trees. It’s a completely flat coastal course, so wind can affect the field if it picks up. Slow paspalum greens. Check out yesterday’s newsletter post to see which players have done the best in the “Paspalum Swing”
LIV Hong Kong Quick Info
Course: HONG KONG GOLF CLUB
PAR: 70
YARDAGE: 6,710
A short and tight golf course. It actually plays a composite of the two courses on the grounds. Kinda like Detroit GC for Rocket Mortgage and what they did at Oakdale a year ago for the Canadian Open. The Euro Tour/Asian Tour have been runnning events here for years.
This was the Top 15 as an Asian Tour event a year ago
As you can see, members of the Commonwealth have done well here over the years. Looks like there’s some Wentworth success with these names too
PICKS/BET
API
Ludvig Aberg 25/1 — At a course which priories long iron play over wedges, Aberg is almost an auto play at this point. Although he’s posted quality results almost everywhere, he’s gained the most strokes this season on approach at Torrey Pines and RIV as opposed to Pebble and Sony. Plus, his prodigious driving alleviates a lot of the pressures at Bay Hill. Over the past 24 rounds he sits Top 3 in this field in Par 4s gained, Opportunities gained, and Par 3s gained from 200+ yard, where all four happen to land at Bay Hill. The numbers love him. Geoff loves him. He passes the eye test. So, I’m in. Problem is, then all those three things align (aka VIK) it takes much longer for the breakthrough win against an elite than you’d hope.
Use code “MAYO” at underdog for a deposit match up to $100
Wyndham Clark 55/1 — It’s the principle of the matter. I’m not especially in love with Wyndy C this week, but I don’t quite understand how his odds can be longer than the likes of JT Poston and Eric Cole. I know I bet on him also, but what’s really separating Clark and Aberg at the moment? You know, except two wins in elevated events and a major championship.
Corey Conners 80/1 — Conners was Top 20 T2G at PGA National, and that was driving the ball worse than his weekly baseline. He’s now gained more than three strokes on approach in consecutive events now now gets to tackle a course which plays against his weaknesses. Usually you’d say “into his strengths”, but that’s not really true. The longer rough is a bit of an equalizer for lousy short game, something which Conners overcomes a lot by simply hitting greens in regulation. And, like at Augusta, the Bay Hill greens are some of the handful which don’t seem to give him constant fits. He’s gained putting two of the last three years. Not a ton, but that’s better than his usual -3.2 SG: PUTT per week. Sort of like low-rent Zalatoris, Conners game seems far more suited for courses and tournaments with a higher winning score in tougher conditions. Valero notwithstanding.
Tom Hoge 100/1 — Look, I get it feels like fools’ gold with Hoge in a big event like this, but I just gotta do it. Triple digits have been winning all year, and every short term metric loves him
And it’s not like he’s been an abject failure at Bay Hill over the years. He’s actually had some decent runs…
If we can get that ball striking from 2020 again we may be in business this time around if he can catch a hot putter.
Puerto Rico
Chris Gotterup 28/1 — Was T7 a year ago at the PRO and just lead the field in approach at the Cognizant. Plus, he followed around Eckroat Monday in the gallery to support him. All vibes.
Chan Kim — Bet him last week, and he was fine. He made a critical par save on the Saturday restart to make the cut, which ended up winning me a ton of cash. So, I can pay it back again in a weaker field. He dropped strokes at PGA National off the tee which was the first time that happened in a measured event for him sine Pebble Beach in 2022. Granted, he doesn’t have all that many measured starts in career. Still, if he can get that back to normal, continue with his solid iron play, and can keep that putter HOT, it’s the perfect mix to ascend to the top of the leaderboard this week.
Robert MacIntyre — Best player in the field on Par 5s and proximity from beyond 200 yards in the PRO field over the last 24 rounds. Issue is, dude legit can putt. In three of past four starts (Torrey, Phoenix, Cognizant) he’s losing an average of 2 strokes PER ROUND putting. That seems like you’re trying to miss. However, on the slow paspalum greens in Mexico two weeks ago, he was able to come out slightly ahead. If he can do that again, his ball striking numbers point to someone who can win.
Rico Hoey 110/1 (5 Places) — Nope. This is not a create-a-player. If he was, then someone put his putting skill level at zero. He gained 3.2 ball striking in Mexico, and followed it up with a more impressive +7.24 ball striking at Honda. Unfortunately, he lost almost 10 strokes putting in those events. That’s somehow worse than Bobby Mac. But hey, maybe he can get lucky here. Longshots have been the play in Puerto Rico over the years and this one makes a ton of sense if he has his one good putting week of the year.
LIV Hong Kong
Cam Smith 20/1 — First off, Cam is 18/1 to win the Masters and 20/1 to win this tournament. So, that was good enough for me. Additionally, Aussies won four of the past five events at this venue on the Asian/Euro Tour before becoming a LIV track. Last last of which, in 2023, where Smith finished second.
Lucas Herbert 65/1 — Not exactly lighting up LIV since moving over this year, but was able to spike a T10 in Oman in an Asian event two weeks ago. And since he’s an Aussie, I’ll roll with him.
— PM