Opinion & Analysis

A Study That Changed the Way Golfers Think About Wedges

Published

7 years ago

Jun 17, 2017

Ever wonder: What’s the difference between my wedges and the ones used on the PGA Tour? The DNA is identical, but the actual clubs on tour are normally unique to each player.

More than any other type of club, the modern wedge was borne of and by the best professional golfers in the world. Its place in design results from the demands and navigation of the most difficult competitions and courses. But the obvious question of whether “tour wedges” are necessary or even suitable for average golfers may help shed light on our clubs in everyday use.

Commercially available, or “stock” wedges, are sold as essentially the same tools that tour professionals use, however, professional golfers have customized their wedges forever. Tour heads are naturally heavier to allow for the extra shaping. Players grind them to their liking in terms of sole, head shape and leading edge shapes. Generally, measurements have less importance than how the club looks or how the wedge works with their game. Specifications get recorded after modifications have been made. Manufacturers use the tour prototypes to share with the public the same basic equipment as the best players in the world use, but often the modified “one-off” clubs aren’t exactly the same as the final products found on the shelves.

At the heart of the matter: THE BOUNCE, or the angle of the sole plane relative to the ground plane, has always been a source of disagreement and debate. It used to be a widely held belief that tour players used wedges with extremely low bounce values. The perception was that the better the player, the less bounce was required and vice versa. While that may have been true in a few limited cases, normally clubs with low bounce angles had wider soles. Another way of saying that is the distance from the leading edge to the trailing edge was longer.

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A wider sole acts like it has more bounce, and it does when the player opens the face. The leading edge of the club lifts higher off the ground when the sole is wider, acting like extra bounce. Another wedge contour called “camber,” the roundness of the sole from the leading edge to the back of the sole, can substitute for additional bounce.

Whether genius or completely misguided, wedge manufacturers regularly published bounce values that were substantially different from the absolute values found on the clubs themselves. Even as recent as 1998, conventional wisdom regarding the amount of bounce used by PGA Tour players in so-called lob wedges was about 3 degrees. We now know that this was laughable. Better players are steeper… yes? So why would they use wedges with knife-like leading edges and soles? They wouldn’t with the exceptions of a few very rare cases. It turned out to be urban legend.

Typically, a very low bounce angle would incorporate a wider sole and more camber (roundness) to counter the effects of a flatter bounce angle. Wider soles act like added bounce, especially with an open face. These features are commonly found in so-called “game improvement” wedges for average golfers like Callaway’s Sure Out or the XE-1… you know, the one from the infomercial on Golf Channel.

Early on in my career at Cleveland Golf (I worked for Cleveland as The Senior Designer from 1998-2004 and consulted with them until 2009), we discovered that our documentation (brochures and other collateral materials) reflected inaccurate wedge bounce specifications. This was true of both consumer and “tour-only” products. Upon learning of these discrepancies, Cleveland Golf CEO Greg Hopkins (founder and owner of Hopkins Golf) dispatched me, a Cleveland consultant at the time, to travel the U.S. professional tours to measure and document all of the sole properties of every wedge in use in American professional golf. This was a gigantic undertaking involving more than 1,000 golf clubs. Over the course of several months, I traveled to PGA, LPGA, Champions and Web.com tours to measure wedges and document everything in a master database. We considered anything north of 45 degrees loft to be a wedge.

My Measurements

Bounce Angle (in three places): Toe, heel and center.
Sole Width (in three places): Toe, heel and center.
Rocker Radius: The roundness from heel to toe.
Camber Radius: The rounded contour from the leading edge to the back flange.
Leading Edge Roll: The sharpness or dullness of the leading edge.
Every Player Was Asked the Question: “Which loft is your primary sand club?”

Before this study, the task of creating tour wedges was something of a “black art.” It was iterative and often wasteful. We often had to custom fabricate many wedges for a player to get one in their hands. The results of the study might well have been one of the most revealing research projects in the history of the game. As a company, we were no longer guessing; we knew what wedges professional golfers needed and used, and it made our job a lot easier. We now had a primmer and a robust template to go by.

Through the study, we discovered the average loft progression for three-wedge sets was a six-degree spread: 47, 53 and 59 degrees. Almost no one played with a stock 56-degree sand wedge unless it was part of a four-wedge set, which was rare. The 56-degree wedges were normally bent to 54 degrees, and usually much of their flanges had been ground off usually to make them narrower (it should be noted that doing that actually INCREASES the measured bounce angle). The most common four-wedge loft progression was 46, 51, 54-55 and 59-60 degrees. We also saw many “pitching wedges” that were not matched to the iron sets. These didn’t look like 10 irons, but more like real wedges.

Finally, we learned that the vast majority of PGA Tour players had one wedge with higher relative bounce and one with lower relative bounce.

RELATIVE BOUNCE DEFINITION: If two wedges have identical sole properties (bounce angle, sole width, leading edge roll, camber radius and so on), the higher-lofted wedge will dig more and the lower-lofted wedge will act as though it has more bounce potential.

And most EXPLOSIVE of all, we learned that the average lob wedge (58-60 degrees) had 12 degrees of bounce angle. At the time it was stunning, to put it mildly. These high-bounce lob wedges were being used as the go-to primary sand clubs for the best players in the world. The so-called “sand wedge” (a 56-degree wedge with about 14 degrees of bounce) had become all but a dinosaur. The modern primary sand club has about 59 degrees of loft and 12 degrees of bounce.

The results of the research effort gave birth to several new concepts and a complete cultural change in Cleveland’s wedge programs. I like to believe that this was a paradigm for the entire industry at large, and we had contributed to the game.

We rid wedges of letters SW, DW, PW, and LW in lieu of loft numbers.
We conceived, developed and documented the concept of “net bounce,” a mathematical algorithm that predicted and derived sole specifications (bounce angle, sole width, camber and so on) for new wedge products at any loft. That is a part of the wedge development doctrine at Cleveland Golf to present day.
We introduced the concept of multiple bounce options for any loft, known as the “Dot” system. Shortly afterwards, almost all other golf companies followed suit.
Internally, we started to use the vernacular “primary sand club” with all of our fitting programs and wedge packages. And this was the way we communicated that to the tour as well.

We essentially changed the definition of what a sand wedge was. The subliminal connotation was that there were several sand clubs, not one dedicated to the purpose. Of course, we all now view sand play as achieved by using several different wedges. Within the context of the wedge business at the time, this was a very disruptive and pioneering set of actions, but we were only following the lead of what the tour was already doing.

Interestingly, wedges never really fit into the concept of the matched set. While the design of a wood or iron set with a “family-like” progression of features seems pretty straightforward, wedges don’t fit that mold no matter how similar the shape to its iron siblings. Average golfers mistakenly identify wedges as the shorter end of the iron set, basically the 10-13 irons. Well, IRONS they’re not! Wedges are in a class all by themselves. They are definitely not irons in the same way that hybrids are not fairway woods. As a matter of fact, modern wedges share more in common with putters than irons.

In the first place, wedges are used in a tactical way. Think of the difference of “tactical” versus “strategic.” A driver, fairway wood or long iron deliver more strategic results…in other words, long-range targeting to a larger area. Tactical means close in targeting to a smaller area.

Wedges facilitate delicate distance control because of their weight, high loft values, low centers of gravity and deep faces. Because of the large surface area of the faces, wedges offer a diversity of points which to strike the ball and get varying results. Furthermore, with the roundness of their leading edges and often their little offset — or even onset faces — wedges allow their faces to be opened substantially without the hosel getting in the way. Opening the face increases the loft for higher short range shots and increases the bounce potential of the wedge. Complex geometry of the sole lets the user orient the wedge with a diversity of setups. Large cuts on the toe or heal called “shelving” facilitate a more vertical or flatter setup by the golfer depending on the need.

Wedges have been likened to an artists’ paint brush or knights on a chess board. Similar to an artist’s paint brush, wedges are used differently than other clubs and produce shots differently every single time they are used. These are the tools of skillful golfing artisans. And like the adept use of the knights in chess, wedges deliver an obscure and invented type of shot, yet deadly results that confound the competition who has limited understanding of this part of the game.

Indeed the wedge game has become the modern signature of the very best players in the world. And if you think about it, it makes total sense. The modern wedge was developed with professional golf in mind.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 2

Published

13 hours ago

May 9, 2024

Terry Koehler

In my last post, I explained the basic performance dynamics of “smash factor” and “gear effect” as they apply to your wedges and your wedge play success. If you missed that post, you can read it here.

At the end of that post, I promised “part 2” of this discussion of what makes a wedge work the way it does. So, let’s dive into the other two components of any wedge – the shaft and the grip.

It’s long been said that the shaft is “the engine of the golf club.” The shaft (and grip) are your only connection to all the technologies that are packed into the head of any golf club, whether it be a driver, fairway, hybrid, iron, wedge or even putter.

And you cannot ignore those two components of your wedges if your goal is optimizing your performance.

I’ve long been an advocate of what I call a “seamless transition” from your irons into your wedges, so that the feel and performance do not disconnect when you choose a gap wedge, for example, instead of your iron-set-matching “P-club.” In today’s golf equipment marketplace, more and more golfers are making the investment of time and money to experience an iron fitting, going through trial and error and launch monitor measuring to get just the right shaft in their irons.

But then so many of those same golfers just go into a store and choose wedges off the retail display, with no similar science involved at all. And that’s why I see so many golfers with a huge disconnect between their custom-fitted irons, often with lighter and/or softer graphite or light steel shafts . . . and their off-the-rack wedges with the stock stiff steel ‘wedge flex’ shaft common to those stock offerings.

If your wedge shafts are significantly heavier and stiffer than the shafts in your irons, it is physically impossible for you to make the same swing. Period.

To quickly improve your wedge play, one of the first things you can do is have your wedges re-shafted with the same or similar shaft that is in your irons.

There’s another side of that shaft weight equation; if you don’t have the forearm and hand strength of a PGA Tour professional, you simply cannot “handle” the same weight shaft that those guys play to master the myriad of ‘touch shots’ around the greens.

Now, let’s move on to the third and other key component of your wedges – the grips. If those are not similar in shape and feel to the grips on your irons, you have another disconnect. Have your grips checked by a qualified golf club professionals to make sure you are in sync there.

The one caveat to that advice is that I am a proponent of a reduced taper in your wedge grips – putting two to four more layers of tape under the lower hand, or selecting one of the many reduced taper grips on the market. That accomplishes two goals for your scoring.

First, it helps reduce overactive hands in your full and near-full wedge swings. Quiet hands are key to good wedge shots.

And secondly, it provides a more consistent feel of the wedge in your hands as you grip down for those shorter and more delicate shots around the greens. And you should always grip down as you get into those touch shots. I call it “getting closer to your work.”

So, if you will spend as much time selecting the shafts and grips for your wedges as you do choosing the brand, model, and loft of them, your scoring range performance will get better.

Vincenzi’s 2024 Wells Fargo Championship betting preview: Tommy Fleetwood ready to finally land maiden PGA Tour title

Published

3 days ago

May 6, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA Tour season ramps back up this week for another “signature event,” as golf fans look forward to the year’s second major championship next week.

After two weaker-field events in the Zurich Classic and the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, most of the best players in the world will head to historic Quail Hollow for one of the best non-major tournaments of the year.

Last season, Wyndham Clark won the event by four shots.

Quail Hollow is a par-71 measuring 7,521 yards that features Bermudagrass greens. The tree-lined, parkland style course can play quite difficult and features one of the most difficult three-hole stretches in golf known as “The Green Mile,” which makes up holes 16-18: two mammoth par 4s and a 221-yard par 3. All three holes have an average score over par, and water is in play in each of the last five holes on the course.

The field is excellent this week with 68 golfers teeing it up without a cut. All of the golfers who’ve qualified are set to tee it up, with the exception of Scottie Scheffler, who is expecting the birth of his first child.

Past Winners at Quail Hollow

2023: Wyndham Clark (-19)
2022: Max Homa (-8)
2021: Rory McIlroy (-10)
2019: Max Homa (-15)
2018: Jason Day (-12)
2017: Justin Thomas (-8) (PGA Championship)
2016: James Hahn (-9)
2015: Rory McIlroy (-21)

Key Stats For Quail Hollow

Strokes Gained: Approach

Strokes gained: Approach will be extremely important this week as second shots at Quail Hollow can be very difficult.

Total SG: Approach Over Past 24 Rounds

Akshay Bhatia (+1.16)
Tom Hoge (+1.12)
Corey Conners (+1.01)
Shane Lowry (+0.93)
Austin Eckroat (+0.82)

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee

Quail Hollow is a long course on which it is important to play from the fairway. Both distance and accuracy are important, as shorter tee shots will result in approach shots from 200 or more yards. With most of the holes heavily tree lined, errant drives will create some real trouble for the players.

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee Past 24 Rounds:

Ludvig Aberg (+0.73)
Rory McIlroy (+0.69)
Xander Schauffele (+0.62)
Viktor Hovland (+0.58)
Chris Kirk (+0.52)

Proximity: 175-200

The 175-200 range is key at Quail Hollow. Players who can hit their long irons well will rise to the top of the leaderboard.

Proximity: 175-200+ over past 24 rounds:

Cameron Young (28’2″)
Akshay Bhatia (29’6″)
Ludvig Aberg (+30’6″)
Sam Burns (+30’6″)
Collin Morikawa (+30’9″)

SG: Total on Tom Fazio Designs

Players who thrive on Tom Fazio designs get a bump for me at Quail Hollow this week.

SG: Total on Tom Fazio Designs over past 36 rounds:

Patrick Cantlay (+2.10)
Rory McIlroy (+1.95)
Tommy Fleetwood (+1.68)
Austin Eckroat (+1.60)
Will Zalatoris (+1.57)

Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermudagrass)

Strokes Gained: Putting has historically graded out as the most important statistic at Quail Hollow. While it isn’t always predictable, I do want to have it in the model to bump up golfers who prefer to putt on Bermudagrass.

Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermudagrass) Over Past 24 Rounds:

Taylor Moore (+0.82)
Nick Dunlap (+.76)
Wyndham Clark (+.69)
Emiliano Grillo (+.64)
Cam Davis (+.61)

Course History

This stat will incorporate players that have played well in the past at Quail Hollow.

Course History over past 36 rounds (per round):

Rory McIlroy (+2.50)
Justin Thomas (+1.96)
Jason Day (+1.92)
Rickie Fowler (+1.83)
Viktor Hovland (+1.78)

Wells Fargo Championship Model Rankings

Below, I’ve compiled overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed — SG: Approach (27%), SG: Off the Tee (23%), SG: Total on Fazio designs (12%), Proximity: 175-200 (12%), SG: Putting Bermuda grass (12%), and Course History (14%).

Wyndham Clark
Rory McIlroy
Xander Schauffele
Shane Lowry
Hideki Matsuyama
Viktor Hovland
Cameron Young
Austin Eckroat
Byeong Hun An
Justin Thomas

2024 Wells Fargo Championship Picks

Tommy Fleetwood +2500 (DraftKings)

I know many out there have Tommy fatigue when it comes to betting, which is completely understandable given his lack of ability to win on the PGA Tour thus far in his career. However, history has shown us that players with Fleetwood’s talent eventually break though, and I believe for Tommy, it’s just a matter of time.

Fleetwood has been excellent on Tom Fazio designs. Over his past 36 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Total on Fazio tracks. He’s also been incredibly reliable off the tee this season. He’s gained strokes in the category in eight of his past nine starts, including at The Masters, the PLAYERS and the three “signature events” of the season. Tommy is a golfer built for tougher courses and can grind it out in difficult conditions.

Last year, Fleetwood was the first-round leader at this event, firing a Thursday 65. He finished the event in a tie for 5th place.

For those worried about Fleetwood’s disappointing start his last time out at Harbour Town, he’s bounced back nicely after plenty of poor outings this season. His T7 at the Valero Texas Open was after a MC and T35 in his prior two starts and his win at the Dubai Invitational came after a T47 at the Sentry.

I expect Tommy to bounce back this week and contend at Quail Hollow.

Justin Thomas +3000 (DraftKings)

It’s been a rough couple of years for Justin Thomas, but I don’t believe things are quite as bad as they seem for JT. He got caught in the bad side of the draw at Augusta for last month’s Masters and has gained strokes on approach in seven of his nine starts in 2024.

Thomas may have found something in his most recent start at the RBC Heritage. He finished T5 at a course that he isn’t the best fit for on paper. He also finally got the putter working and ranked 15th in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week.

The two-time PGA champion captured the first of his two major championships at Quail Hollow back in 2017, and some good vibes from the course may be enough to get JT out of his slump.

Thomas hasn’t won an event in just about two years. However, I still believe that will change soon as he’s been one of the most prolific winners throughout his PGA Tour career. Since 2015, he has 15 PGA Tour wins.

Course history is pretty sticky at Quail Hollow, with players who like the course playing well there on a regular basis. In addition to JT’s PGA Championship win in 2017, he went 4-1 at the 2022 Presidents Cup and finished T14 at the event last year despite being in poor form. Thomas can return as one of the top players on the PGA Tour with a win at a “signature event” this week.

Cameron Young +3500 (DraftKings)

For many golf bettors, it’s been frustrating backing Cam Young this season. His talent is undeniable, and one of the best and most consistent performers on the PGA Tour. He just hasn’t broken through with a victory yet. Quail Hollow has been a great place for elite players to get their first victory. Rory McIlroy, Anthony Kim, Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark all notched their first PGA Tour win at Quail.

Throughout Cam Young’s career, he has thrived at tougher courses with strong fields. This season, he finished T16 at Riviera and T9 at Augusta National, demonstrating his preference of a tough test. His ability to hit the ball long and straight off the tee make him an ideal fit for Quail Hollow, despite playing pretty poorly his first time out in 2023 (T59). Young should be comfortable playing in the region as he played his college golf at Wake Forest, which is about an hour’s drive from Quail Hollow.

The 26-year-old has played well at Tom Fazio designs in the past and ranks 8th in the field in Strokes Gained: Total on those courses in his last 36 rounds. Perhaps most importantly, this season, Young is the best player on the PGA Tour in terms of proximity from 175-200 in the fairway, which is where a plurality and many crucial shots will come from this week.

Young is an elite talent and Quail Hollow has been kind to players of his ilk who’ve yet to win on Tour.

Byeong Hun An +5000 (FanDuel)

Byeong Hun An missed some opportunities last weekend at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. He finished T4 and played some outstanding golf, but a couple of missed short putts prevented him from getting to the winning score of -23. Despite not getting the win, it’s hard to view An’s performance as anything other than an overwhelming success. It was An’s fourth top-ten finish of the season.

Last week, An gained 6.5 strokes ball striking, which was 7th in the field. He also ranked 12th for Strokes Gained: Approach and 13th for Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. The South Korean has been hitting the ball so well from tee to green all season long and he now heads to a golf course that should reward his precision.

An’s driver and long irons are absolute weapons. At Quail Hollow, players will see plenty of approach shots from the 175-200 range as well as some from 200+. In his past 24 rounds, Ben ranks 3rd in the field in proximity from 175-200 and 12th in proximity from 200+. Playing in an event that will not end up being a “birdie” fest should help An, who can separate from the field with his strong tee to green play. The putter may not always cooperate but getting to -15 is much easier than getting to -23 for elite ball strikers who tend to struggle on the greens.

Winning a “signature event” feels like a tall task for An this week with so many elite players in the field. However, he’s finished T16 at the Genesis Invitational, T16 at The Masters and T8 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The 32-year-old’s game has improved drastically this season and I believe he’s ready to get the biggest win of his career.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s LIV Golf Singapore betting preview: Course specialist ready to thrive once again

Published

1 week ago

Apr 30, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After another strong showing in Australia, LIV Golf will head to Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore looking to build off of what was undoubtedly their best event to date.

Sentosa Golf Club sits on the southern tip of Singapore and is one of the most beautiful courses in the world. The course is more than just incredible scenically; it was also rated 55th in Golf Digest’s top-100 courses in 2022-2023 and has been consistently regarded as one of the best courses in Asia. Prior to being part of the LIV rotation, the course hosted the Singapore Open every year since 2005.

Sentosa Golf Club is a par 71 measuring 7,406 yards. The course will require precise ball striking and some length off the tee. It’s possible to go low due to the pristine conditions, but there are also plenty of hazards and difficult spots on the course that can bring double bogey into play in a hurry. The Bermudagrass greens are perfectly manicured, and the course has spent millions on the sub-air system to keep the greens rolling fast. I spoke to Asian Tour player, Travis Smyth, who described the greens as “the best [he’s] ever played.”

Davis Love III, who competed in a Singapore Open in 2019, also gushed over the condition of the golf course.

“I love the greens. They are fabulous,” the 21-time PGA Tour winner said.

Love III also spoke about other aspects of the golf course.

“The greens are great; the fairways are perfect. It is a wonderful course, and it’s tricky off the tee.”

“It’s a long golf course, and you get some long iron shots. It takes somebody hitting it great to hit every green even though they are big.”

As Love III said, the course can be difficult off the tee due to the length of the course and the trouble looming around every corner. It will take a terrific ball striking week to win at Sentosa Golf Club.

In his pre-tournament press conference last season, Phil Mickelson echoed many of the same sentiments.

“To play Sentosa effectively, you’re going to have a lot of shots from 160 to 210, a lot of full 6-, 7-, 8-iron shots, and you need to hit those really well and you need to drive the ball well.”

Golfers who excel from tee to green and can dial in their longer irons will have a massive advantage this week.

Stat Leaders at LIV Golf Adelaide:

Fairways Hit

1.) Louis Oosthuizen

2.) Anirban Lahiri

3.) Jon Rahm

4.) Brendan Steele

5.) Cameron Tringale

Greens in Regulation

1.) Brooks Koepka

2.) Brendan Steele

3.) Dean Burmester

4.) Cameron Tringale

5.) Anirban Lahiri

Birdies Made

1.) Brendan Steele

2.) Dean Burmester

3.) Thomas Pieters

4.) Patrick Reed

5.) Carlos Ortiz

LIV Golf Individual Standings:

1.) Joaquin Niemann

2.) Jon Rahm

3.) Dean Burmester

4.) Louis Oosthuizen

5.) Abraham Ancer

LIV Golf Team Standings:

1.) Crushers

2.) Legion XIII

3.) Torque

4.) Stinger GC

5.) Ripper GC

LIV Golf Singapore Picks

Sergio Garcia +3000 (DraftKings)

Sergio Garcia is no stranger to Sentosa Golf Club. The Spaniard won the Singapore Open in 2018 by five strokes and lost in a playoff at LIV Singapore last year to scorching hot Talor Gooch. Looking at the course setup, it’s no surprise that a player like Sergio has played incredible golf here. He’s long off the tee and is one of the better long iron players in the world when he’s in form. Garcia is also statistically a much better putter on Bermudagrass than he is on other putting surfaces. He’s putt extremely well on Sentosa’s incredibly pure green complexes.

This season, Garcia has two runner-up finishes, both of them being playoff losses. Both El Camaleon and Doral are courses he’s had success at in his career. The Spaniard is a player who plays well at his tracks, and Sentosa is one of them. I believe Sergio will get himself in the mix this week. Hopefully the third time is a charm in Singapore.

Paul Casey +3300 (FanDuel)

Paul Casey is in the midst of one of his best seasons in the five years or so. The results recently have been up and down, but he’s shown that when he’s on a golf course that suits his game, he’s amongst the contenders.

This season, Casey has finishes of T5 (LIV Las Vegas), T2 (LIV Hong Kong), and a 6th at the Singapore Classic on the DP World Tour. At his best, the Englishman is one of the best long iron players in the world, which makes him a strong fit for Sentosa. Despite being in poor form last season, he was able to fire a Sunday 63, which shows he can low here at the course.

It’s been three years since Casey has won a tournament (Omega Dubai Desert Classic in 2021), but he’s been one of the top players on LIV this season and I think he can get it done at some point this season.

Mito Pereira +5000 (Bet365)

Since Mito Pereira’s unfortunate demise at the 2022 PGA Championship, he’s been extremely inconsistent. However, over the past few months, the Chilean has played well on the International Series as well as his most recent LIV start. Mito finished 8th at LIV Adelaide, which was his best LIV finish this season.

Last year, Pereira finished 5th at LIV Singapore, shooting fantastic rounds of 67-66-66. It makes sense why Mito would like Sentosa, as preeminent ball strikers tend to rise to the challenge of the golf course. He’s a great long iron player who is long and straight off the tee.

Mito has some experience playing in Asia and is one of the most talented players on LIV who’s yet to get in the winner’s circle. I have questions about whether or not he can come through once in contention, but if he gets there, I’m happy to roll the dice.

Andy Ogletree +15000 (DraftKings)

Andy Ogletree is a player I expected to have a strong 2024 but struggled early in his first full season on LIV. After failing to crack the top-25 in any LIV event this year, the former U.S. Amateur champion finally figured things out, finished in a tie for 3rd at LIV Adelaide.

Ogletree should be incredible comfortable playing in Singapore. He won the International Series Qatar last year and finished T3 at the International Series Singapore. The 26-year-old was arguably the best player on the Asian Tour in 2023 and has been fantastic in the continent over the past 18 months.

If Ogletree has indeed found form, he looks to be an amazing value at triple-digit odds.

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