Byron Nelson Picks, Pick'em, Weather Splits

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BETS

Min Woo Lee — I used my 30% boost to take him up to 40/1 and I look at the course and it seems perfect for Lee. Long irons and big drives are the skeleton key to this course and those are the two things he actually does at an elite level. Just pray the putter shows up.

Mac Hughes — Very sneakily playing solid golf the last month. 

Adam Schenk — Schenk’s atypical chipping and putting performance at Heritage threw the books off the scent early in the week and the masses have pushed the number steadily down since the open. Despite a T49 in a limited field, no cut event (albeit against the TOUR’s best talent), Schenk dropping an incredible 7.7 strokes to the field on and slightly off the green. Two aspects of his game where he’s been in the positives for well over two years. Both totals ranks in the bottom five performance in his career in both SG: ATG and SG: PUTT. He either lost it overnight or it’s an aberration. I’ll bet him thinking it’s an aberration as he gained off the tee for the fifth consecutive events and third with his irons. Overall, he’s finished Top 15 in two of of his past three starts. While he’s never played particularly well at Craig Ranch (he as gained on the greens in all three starts fwiw), he’s picked up some solid results at the Tom Weiskopf design in Phoenix. Schenk’s been T17 and T23 the last two years at TPC Scottsdale. 

Ryan Fox — Le renard, as he’s known I Paris talk, has been completely out of sorts in 2024. He doesn’t carry enough status on the PGA TOUR to get into the Signature Events and has been middling, to be kind, in his other starts. However, the Kiwi does his best work in clusters. Last year he went T3/Win/MC/T2 during the post FedEx Cup Euro Swing on the DP World Tour against strong fields who were preparing of the Ryder Cup. In 2022, he did a similar thing through the back half of the DP fall schedule Win/MC/T4/2nd with the victory coming at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Twice, earlier that year, he did a similar cluster Win/T15/T9/T8/T2 followed by 2nd/MC/3rd/2nd. Now, most of those clusters came against weaker Euro fields, but this field doesn’t look markedly different. While it doses’t seem like he’s getting hot as of yet, he (along with Garrick Higgo) surged to a T4 at the Zurich last week, and the Kiwi was very much in the mix for 2.5 days at Augusta before some second nine issues absolutely blew up his week. Fox is closer to peaking than you may notice; get on the wave early. 

Kevin Yu — The only player in the field who rates Top 10 in the field in driving and approach over the past 12 rounds. That includes sitting No. 1 in proximity from 200 yards and up, where a plurality of approach shots will come from at the Bunny Ranch. If he just putts like an average PGA TOUR player he’s live to be near the top of the leaderboard. 

Andrew Novak — The short game has slipped with his past few results, yet the ball striking remains in form. Novak reeled off a streak of three Top 10 finishes earlier this year, two of which  came at the two courses I’m looking at the closest for crossover success: Phoenix and PGA National. 

Lanto Griffin — Last 12 rounds Lanto sits 6th in this field in ball striking. He hasn’t made a putt since LBJ was in office, but plenty of terrible putter have corrected themselves on these days greens. 

Tosti and Brehm — Nothing but a hunch. 

THURSDAY PICK’EM

I decided to pick on Jason Day with a worth adversary in Alex Noren in Round One. Ditto with Hossler over List. List is coming off a great week at Zurich, but I’ll lean with the consistently great putter over the awful putter with inconsistent ball striking. If List ins’t top tier with his irons on Thursday he’s not making enough putts to keep his head above water. Then there’s Spieth. Lower than 6 birdies in a round felt like an auto play. I wanted to consult the Fantasy National Over/Under to confirm I wasn’t making things up in my head. As it turns out, I wasn’t. Plus, if there’s no rain delay, the am wave Thursday gets the worst of the conditions.

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Kentucky Derby

One of my (and you good people’s) favorite shows of the year drops Thursdays morning — DERBY PICKS WITH CAM AND RASA!!!!!!!! But since you were kind enough to sub to this newsletter, you get an early link to the show. If you’re not subbed, please do that now. It’s free.

SECRET LINK: Kentucky Derby Picks, Bets, Trifecta/Super | Kentucky Oaks Picks

BETS

• Derby: Catching Freedom 10/1 | Sstronghold 14/1

• Oaks: Ways and Means 7/1

Trifecta Box: 4/11/15/17/18

Of note, we did record the show before Encino had been scratched. We didn’t really talk about him so I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

WEATHER

Depending on how much rain falls over night there could be lift, clean, and replace in play for every round this week. But the current forecast doesn’t appear like it will cause any delays to the am wave as originally expected. Meaning, the AM Thursday is getting hit with the most wind while the PM wave may just go fire at pins. That same wave that appears to get it easy on Thursday may find themselves with the advantage again Friday mornings especially if the rain kick back start time and hour or so. Now, a massive wrench can get thrown into the equation if there’s any sort of thunder storm delay, but it looks like PM/AM get an advantage the first two rounds. I’ve stacked both sides of the draw, but made far more lineups with the PM/AM side. 

WIND TOWER: McKinney Texas

That’s something to keep in mind for showdown contests, firsts rounds leader bets, and rating in the PME Classic on Underdog. It’s about 50% full right now. And if we want out 10K of RAKE FREE money every week, we gotta fill it up. So get in there NOW

Use code “MAYO” at underdog for a deposit match up to $100

If you’re wondering how to separate the waves, I got you covered. This is simple on Fantasy National if you look at the tee times next the players’ names, or just consult this list!

PGA NATIONAL

After reviewing the highlights and leaderboards from the first three years one thing stuck out to me. A lot of guys how play well at PGA National have done well at Craig Ranch. Why? No clue. But KH Lee almost won the Honda in 2019, Day has taken it down in the past, even to scan the top of some leaderboards from the past few years you’ll see CT Pan, Austin Eckroat, Berger, An, Adam Scott, and Noren pop up on both leaderboard. Could be nothing, but I’ve gone in on players or less. Here’s a list of the average SG: Total per round at PGA National over the past 12 rounds from Fantasy National. 

JOIN: 20% OFF Tools and Stats at FantasyNational.com

DraftKings

After hand building lineups, then talking it through with Tambo, it became clear how most will be building lineups this week. Either 3 $9K players (maybe 2 with a mid-to-high $8K), most of those builds, like if you start Si Woo/Noren/Schenk will drop you into the mid-$7Ks which has most congregating around Novak/Schmid/Yu/Kuest/Lower/Ghim. If you can commit and feel good about some of the names between 6700 and 7100 then you can pepper that range and use all the upper end you chalk you please and still be different. 

WATCH: Byron Nelson DraftKings Picks, Lineups, Final Bets, Weather

Ownership Guesses

1. Hoge 

2. Noren

3. Si Woo

4. An

5. Mitchell

6. Spieth

7. Lower

8. Novak

9. Scott

UFC 301

Paul Shaughnessy and Fight Network’s Cody Saftic make their UFC 301 Picks. The card goes down Saturday May 4th in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The guys make their UFC picks, give their favorite bets and props for each fight.

WATCH: UFC 301 Picks, Bets, Props | Pantoja vs Erceg Fight Previews, Predictions

— PM