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3 emerging golf architects discuss the future of course design

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The next leaders in golf course architecture, unfiltered. Sounding off on their work, the game, the state of the industry, the future of restoration and new constructions, what needs to change, and what inspires them.

Michael McCartin worked for Tom Doak’s Renaissance Design, assisting in the construction of Old Macdonald, Ballyneal, and Streamsong. He recently completed a unique nine-hole golf course in Sperryville, Virginia: Schoolhouse Nine.

schoolhouse-nine-I grew up playing on a public course…it was dead flat. If you don’t have a good eye for it, it seems devoid of architectural features. After playing there as my reference point and going out to other courses, it piqued my interest to see the differences once you start introducing different elements.

By 12 or 14, I’d read every book out there. I was obsessed with course design. I think I got [Tom Doak’s] Confidential Guide when I was 14 or so, and that really took it to another level.

I studied abroad in St. Andrews, which was the best decision ever. At the time I was there, the links card was 150 pounds for the year to play unlimited golf on all the town’s courses, including the Old Course.

When I was there, I started a correspondence with Tom Doak. I knew he had lived there, and he was nice enough to give me some recommendations. After I graduated, I applied for an internship with Tom. So, for the past 10 years or so, I’ve been working with Renaissance Golf Design.

Streamsong, a project McCarty worked on.

Streamsong, a project McCartin worked on.

When you look at Schoolhouse Nine, what we’re doing, it hits the buttons. Affordability: the course is going to cost $10. Juniors can get a pass for the summer at a reasonable rate. Pace of play: It’s 9 holes. And maintenance and affordability go hand in hand. We’re only irrigating the greens, so everything else changes according to the season.

There are opportunities where making the course more interesting is going to help on the revenue side. If you’re going to rebuild a bunker, it’s not that much more to build in cool architectural features. There’s no cost in building a new green 20 yards to the right versus rebuilding the same green.

Clients can offer a lot of design ideas as far as what they’re inspired by and you can use that as a starting off point. “How can I incorporate something like that into the design?” You end up with something you might not have come up with on your own. But because you had a nugget of a starting idea, it evolved into something, and you can then point back to the owner and say that it came from his idea.

You get a better product when you have someone who is involved with the design actually doing the building. Coore, Crenshaw, Tom, Gil Hanse, they all spend time on machines or have in the past, and they have a crew of people they work with all the time. I think you get the best results that way.

You’re still going to get owners who want to build Augusta National and some people who are more realistic about it. The projects that aren’t as high profile yield just as much opportunity for great golf architecture, where the course makes the best of the property.

Just because there’s one trend doesn’t mean people aren’t going to be building, like, Bluejack National down in Texas—high-end, charge a bunch of money. But I hope that the portion of the pie that’s allocated to more affordable stuff grows. There are a lot of opportunities to get away from the super exclusionary, super high-end place.

———

Tad King (L) and Rob Collins at Sweetens Cove.

Rob Collins (along with partner Tad King) is the man behind Sweetens Cove, the rebuild of Sequatchie Valley Golf & Country Club that Golf Digest named the best nine-hole course in Tennessee and course architecture fans are raving about.

Sweetens Cove: Hole 1

Sweetens Cove: Hole 1

Right now, I’m looking at two Donald Ross restoration projects. Our phone is definitely starting to ring and we’re seeing a pick-up, but it would be unrealistic to think that in the next 10 to 15 years get back to where we were in the 90s.

We wanted to be able to design and build golf [courses]…in contrast to the typical model that’s used where you have the architect on one side and the contractor on the other. There’s going to be a bigger premium placed on efficiency, cost saving, the construction methods.

The traditional approach…leads to a lot of competition. It can lead to a lower level of quality. It can lead to higher costs. We looked at the guys who we thought were doing the best work in the world…Hanse, Doak, Coore and Crenshaw. They have a design-build mentality where they have control, and that’s how we do it, we design and build.

We like building strategic golf courses that make you think: Wide corridors…contour that creates interest in and around the green complex. We really stress recovery shots around the greens and the ground game.

We’re always trying to enhance the experience a little bit with things you may not notice the first 10 times you play, but you’ll notice it the 20th time. I want the golf course to always be revealing something new.

Sweetens Cove: Hole 3

Sweetens Cove: Hole 3

As an architect, dealing with the contractor, there are little things you’re going to give in on. One or two or three little details aren’t going to make that big of a difference, but if you add up all the details you gave in on the course, if you start chipping away at details, eventually the project is going to be flat. That’s what so many golf courses suffer from: They’re just kind of monochromatic.

We started in 2011…had it [Sweetens Cove] grassed out in the summer of 2012. The family that owns it decided that golf is not part of their core business, so I partnered with Ari Techner of Scratch Golf to take over last May. It opened up last October.

It’s a really special place. As far as golf goes, there’s nothing at all like this anywhere. I said, I really want to do something different here. Nobody’s going to drive to rural Tennessee to play a golf course that looks like Chattanooga Golf and Country Club. We had to do something unique.

We did that with really wide fairways…fairways cut everywhere. Greens are very large…very undulating. We use a lot of contour to create interest and to create playability dilemmas and challenges. It’s very heavily influenced by Pinehurst No. 2…with Maxwell-Mackenzie-Raynor-type greens.

I don’t like 9-hole courses that masquerade as 18-hole courses. Let’s just be content with building nine great holes. Let’s build enough flexibility…that you can leave it up to the golfer. They can play the front tees one time or the back tees or do whatever they want. It’s a more democratic approach.

———

Kyle Franz (C) with Joe Buck (L), Greg Norman (RC)

Kyle Franz restored Donald Ross-designed Mid Pines to much acclaim. Golf magazine named it the best resort renovation of 2013. He also worked with Tom Doak at Pacific Dunes and the Pinehurst No. 2 restoration with Coore & Crenshaw.

Mid-Pines-Restoration-I randomly met [Mid Pines’] owner at a cocktail party one night. Not knowing who he was, I was very candid on what I though the potential was for the golf course, if they ever chose to do the kind of things they were doing on No. 2. I did a bunch of Photoshops of what the golf course would look like. The same things needed to happen that happened at No. 2: Restoring the sandy areas. Restoring the areas around the bunkers to what they were originally like.

All the underbrush had been slowly eradicated over the decades. It was a bit of a mindtrip to put back together that feeling and concept. I added hazards to get the same kind of strategic feel—the blood-pumping shots—it was a very fun restoration: part archeology and part improvisation to get the holes to feel like they originally did.

A lot of things are in play over the next 10 or 15 years. The financial crisis turned even the biggest architects into restoration architects. That is really the direction the business needs to go. Obviously there are a few new courses beginning to be built these days.

There’s so many really good golf courses…classic golf courses…newer courses on really good pieces of ground. It takes a huge chunk out of the equation to deal with a place where you already own the property and turn it into a really good golf course. There’s a lot of those out there. I think that’s going to be big over the next 20 years or so: Taking the golf courses we have and making them a heck of a lot better.

I do think there’s maybe one more golf boom left in the United States. But we’re going to get to the point where we’ve kind of saturated our own market. A new golf course gets built here and there in the UK, but they eventually did that. Nothing new got built for a long, long time.

People like Tom Doak, myself, we’re very, very heavy proponents of walkable golf courses. 6,000- to 6,500-yard gof courses. Places that are comfortable to walk. Every one of those drivers that you buy that’s designed to send your balls 30 yards farther…that comes back to their checkbook…the amount of land required…irrigation…turf…maintenance…construction. Every contractor builds budgets on square footage. That comes back to the golfers at the other end of the line. It’s made it too expensive…and it’s hard to get young guys excited about golf because it takes too long to play.

With Pacific Dunes we all kind of hoped that’d be a line in the sand. One of the highest-rated courses built in the past 10 years, but it’s only 6,600 yards. Tom built the perfect course into that piece of land.

Screen Shot 2015-04-27 at 3.13.06 PM9-hole courses play into this. For some reason it’s a little bit harder to get people excited about them, but the opportunities are out there to kind of push the ball forward. What would be really cool is to find a section somewhere in the country where’s there’s like four different parcels for nine-hole golf courses within a 20 mile radius.

The holes that really do something for me are the ones that have proven absolutely timeless. Like No. 15 at Pinehurst No. 2. The green is so small and the area over the green is so severe that it’s foolish to attempt any aerial shot. So the percentage is to play short and hope you can trundle it up there. And the Road Hole…that hole will work for ground shots for as long as the game is played.

The philosophy Bill and Ben had 20 years ago was to make the ground game interesting…throw it out to the players and give them options. I look at it in terms of making it a sucker play to put it in the air. Example: No. 5 at Augusta. The aerial game is only…40 percent of the game.

Ever since I’ve known Tom Doak, he’s wanted to do reversible routing; Tom’s finally getting to do that at Forest Dunes. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do…two for the price of one! Maybe this will be Tom Doak’s Sgt. Pepper’s moment…something completely different than what he’s done that has a huge impact on what everybody else is doing. It’s always been in the back of my mind…but it takes somebody as smart as Tom Doak…to make it work.

That winter I spent at St. Andrews, I joked that I probably walked it backwards as many times as I did forwards, because I was aware that the course had been reversible before. Some of the best holes in the world are on the Old Course going the other direction.

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16 Comments

16 Comments

  1. Katie Masheter

    Jan 25, 2017 at 8:13 am

    Some high-end dazzling eye-candy designs but a lot more emphasis on naturalistic, playable, uncluttered golf http://www.scottishdesignmasters.com/biggest-changes-future-trends-golf-course-architecture/

  2. Mark

    May 8, 2015 at 2:11 pm

    The modern breed of architecture is getting too “clever”…everyone tries to get as many features as possible into a course instead of designing something that suits the local terrain. Mr Doak does some good work but the ultra exclusive and heinously expensive Renaissance Club is a poor relation to other courses and that same coastline and is no more than a pastiche of what a true links is. Scottish Golf is for working men and women and affordable.
    As for the rennovation of Pinehurst Number 2…..a school friend of mine lives 5 miles from the course and was almost reduced to tears. He describes the changes as vandalism…
    And I’m in rarew agreement with IJP. Chambers Bay is the answer to a question nobody asked. Please go back to great parkland venues like Winged Foot, Baltusrol and Oak Hill….

    • Eej

      May 9, 2015 at 12:20 pm

      “Scottish Golf is for working men and women and affordable.”

      You couldn’t be farther from the truth.
      http://www.standrews.com/Play/Green-Fees

      those are in pound sterling, mate. Telling me that’s affordable for the working men and women? Don’t be daft

      • net

        May 10, 2015 at 5:56 pm

        Yeah, there’s about 500 courses outside of St. Andrews. The big name courses are expensive, but there’s certainly plenty of working men golf to go around. Some better than the big names.

  3. Greg V

    May 8, 2015 at 10:19 am

    One of the problems with golf course architects is that they are so close to the subject that they try to outdo each other, creating the next great masterpiece. In reality, the public golfer ends up with courses described above – long forced carries, an overuse of penal bunkers, water in way too many places.

    Most of us need a minimum of challenge – hitting the ball straight is challenge enough. We want courses that are in decent shape; green speeds in the moderate range generally provide more fun and more satisfying rounds.

    From the pictures that I saw in the article plus others that I saw when exploring on-line, the courses mentioned are over-designed. I would challenge these guys to provide an experience akin to North Berwick – a playable course that has evolved over time, rather than designed as someone’s masterpiece. Throw in one little quirky flair like a short wall in front of a green, and be done with it.

  4. Cysmic

    May 7, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    Franz: What would be really cool is to find a section somewhere in the country where’s there’s like four different parcels for nine-hole golf courses within a 20 mile radius.

    Within a 20 mile radius of my hometown in northwest Iowa there’s 11 different 9 hole courses, not including an additional 9 hole Par 3 course. You want 9 hole courses, come to Iowa.

  5. ken

    May 6, 2015 at 9:21 pm

    I live in a metro area in NC. During the period 1990 to 1997 11 golf courses were built within a 45 minute drive of my home in the suburbs.
    One has closed. Another has gone through several ownership changes. 5 others once owned by the same company are now under the ownership of a few different companies.
    The one common denominator is they are all “upscale” semi private or daily fee.
    All of these courses were built so they COULD NOT be walked. Why? Golf carts mean revenue.
    Another issue….modern courses were designed each to be more difficult than the one three miles down the road. Too many forced carries. Deep fairway bunkers with soft sand and steep faces make it impossible for all but the single digit index players to advance the ball. Greens too large( $$) Dumb. We amateurs don’t want to get beaten up. We want to have fun.
    BTW, the one factor as to why a round of golf takes too much time is caused by those who play tees inappropriate for their skill level.

    • Chuck

      May 7, 2015 at 11:50 am

      You’ve made some excellent points.

      Some of what makes a routing require golf carts is the land itself. Less choices for golf course parcels; more land use regulations and wetlands protection; in some cases there are demands for residential/homesite plans.

      This was a real nice job by Ben and his subjects. For those of you who haven’t yet read it, Geoff Shackelford’s “The Future of Golf” is now in paperback and expands on many of these subjects. Geoff is a sometime-architect in his own right, with some similar (9-hole) projects and some very significant consulting work (LACC) to his credit.

  6. Sean

    May 6, 2015 at 8:38 pm

    Many of the modern courses seem to have been built with the better golfer in mind…forced carries, long, and the like. The vast majority of the golf public struggle on these kinds of venues. Allowing people to play the ball on the ground, reasonable yardages, and the like, may keep people from getting frustrated and leaving the game.

  7. Jordan

    May 6, 2015 at 9:58 am

    I wish there was more 9-hole golf available near me (Brooklyn, NY). I’d play a lot more if I could be done in 2-3 hours. It’s nearly impossible to get out for 18 with both my wife and I working full-time and a 4-month old at home. Right now, the only option is to get up at 4:30am and get one of the first tee times at one of the local munis as that is the only time they offer 9-hole rates.

  8. John

    May 5, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    I took to the game at the age of 10 playing a 9 hole public course, Caznovia Park, in Buffalo. It was affordable and I would play it two or three times a day. It sits on a beautiful piece of land and could be a gem if someone put some money into it. As I grew older, got married and had children, 9 hole golf became the norm for me three or four times a week because it took less than 2 hours. I believe there is a place for nine hole golf courses that are affordable, not frustrating but fun to play, and can be played quickly. The U.S. needs to get out of the “bigger is better” mentality in alot areas, including playing golf!

  9. other paul

    May 5, 2015 at 9:13 pm

    The closest golf course to my house is a 9 hole course that I usually played a few times every summer. It was to easy, and to short, 2700yards. Last year there was rumors of it bring developed into something else. So it was barely maintained. Some bunkers are over grown with weeds and they barely seem to even cut the grass. I dont even want to know if they are opened this year because last year they were an embarrassment to golf course management everywhere. How ever, if someone built a nice course in its place I would go there all the time like I used to.

  10. duckjr78

    May 5, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    Please, more articles like this! Excellent job.

  11. HoldTheLag

    May 5, 2015 at 2:41 pm

    Wow to play a course like that for $10 is a steal and a half…really wish we get more like that built around here.

  12. Brody

    May 5, 2015 at 1:33 pm

    Nice job, Ben! Good read

  13. Daniel

    May 5, 2015 at 1:08 pm

    This is a great article that gets me excited about the future of golf. The two main complaints about golf are that it is too expensive and it takes too long to play. The really well designed 9 hole course would solve both problems. Right now most goers think that if you don’t play 18 it doesn’t count as a real round, but if there were more 9 hole courses around it would become more acceptable. Sweetens Cove looks amazing, I’d love to play that someday. If there was a course like that around me, I’d play a lot more golf.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open betting preview

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As the Florida swing comes to an end, the PGA Tour makes its way to Houston to play the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course.

This will be the fourth year that Memorial Park Golf Course will serve as the tournament host. The event did not take place in 2023, but the course hosted the event in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Memorial Park is a par-70 layout measuring 7,432 yards and features Bermudagrass greens. Historically, the main defense for the course has been thick rough along the fairways and tightly mown runoff areas around the greens. Memorial Park has a unique setup that features three Par 5’s and five Par 3’s.

The field will consist of 132 players, with the top 65 and ties making the cut. There are some big names making the trip to Houston, including Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Tony Finau, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala.

Past Winners at Memorial Park

  • 2022: Tony Finau (-16)
  • 2021: Jason Kokrak (-10)
  • 2020: Carlos Ortiz (-13)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the Rabbit Hole by Betsperts Golf data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

Key Stats For Memorial Park

Let’s take a look at several metrics for Memorial Park to determine which golfers boast top marks in each category over their last 24 rounds:

Strokes Gained: Approach

Memorial Park is a pretty tough golf course. Golfers are penalized for missing greens and face some difficult up and downs to save par. Approach will be key.

Total Strokes Gained: Approach per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Tom Hoge (+1.30)
  2. Scottie Scheffler (+1.26)
  3. Keith Mitchell (+0.97) 
  4. Tony Finau (+0.92)
  5. Jake Knapp (+0.84)

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee

Memorial Park is a long golf course with rough that can be penal. Therefore, a combination of distance and accuracy is the best metric.

Total Strokes Gained: Off the Tee per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Scottie Scheffler (+0.94)
  2. Kevin Dougherty (+0.93)
  3. Cameron Champ (+0.86)
  4. Rafael Campos (+0.84)
  5. Si Woo Kim (+0.70)

Strokes Gained Putting: Bermudagrass + Fast

The Bermudagrass greens played fairly fast the past few years in Houston. Jason Kokrak gained 8.7 strokes putting on his way to victory in 2021 and Tony Finau gained in 7.8 in 2022.

Total Strokes Gained Putting (Bermudagrass) per round past 24 rounds (min. 8 rounds):

  1. Adam Svensson (+1.27)
  2. Harry Hall (+1.01)
  3. Martin Trainer (+0.94)
  4. Taylor Montgomery (+0.88)
  5. S.H. Kim (+0.86)

Strokes Gained: Around the Green

With firm and undulating putting surfaces, holding the green on approach shots may prove to be a challenge. Memorial Park has many tightly mowed runoff areas, so golfers will have challenging up-and-down’s around the greens. Carlos Ortiz gained 5.7 strokes around the green on the way to victory in 2020.

Total Strokes Gained: Around the Green per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Mackenzie Hughes (+0.76)
  2. S.H. Kim (+0.68)
  3. Scottie Scheffler (+0.64)
  4. Jorge Campillo (+0.62)
  5. Jason Day (+0.60)

Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult

Memorial Park is a long and difficult golf course. This statistic will incorporate players who’ve had success on these types of tracks in the past. 

Total Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult in past 24 rounds:

  1. Scottie Scheffler (+2.45)
  2. Ben Griffin (+1.75)
  3. Will Zalatoris (+1.73)
  4. Ben Taylor (+1.53)
  5. Tony Finau (+1.42)

Course History

Here are the players who have performed the most consistently at Memorial Park. 

Strokes Gained Total at Memorial Park past 12 rounds:

  1. Tyson Alexander (+3.65)
  2. Ben Taylor (+3.40)
  3. Tony Finau (+2.37)
  4. Joel Dahmen (+2.25)
  5. Patton Kizzire (+2.16)

Statistical Model

Below, I’ve reported overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed.

These rankings are comprised of SG: App (24%) SG: OTT (24%); SG: Putting Bermudagrass/Fast (13%); SG: Long and Difficult (13%); SG: ARG (13%) and Course History (13%)

  1. Scottie Scheffler
  2. Wyndham Clark
  3. Tony Finau
  4. Joel Dahmen
  5. Stephan Jaeger 
  6. Aaron Rai
  7. Sahith Theegala
  8. Keith Mitchell 
  9. Jhonnatan Vegas
  10. Jason Day
  11. Kurt Kitayama
  12. Alex Noren
  13. Will Zalatoris
  14. Si Woo Kim
  15. Adam Long

2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open Picks

Will Zalatoris +2000 (Caesars)

Scottie Scheffler will undoubtedly be difficult to beat this week, so I’m starting my card with someone who I believe has the talent to beat him if he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Will Zalatoris missed the cut at the PLAYERS, but still managed to gain strokes on approach while doing so. In an unpredictable event with extreme variance, I don’t believe it would be wise to discount Zalatoris based on that performance. Prior to The PLAYERS, the 27-year-old finished T13, T2 and T4 in his previous three starts.

Zalatoris plays his best golf on long and difficult golf courses. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the category, but the eye test also tells a similar story. He’s contended at major championships and elevated events in the best of fields with tough scoring conditions.  The Texas resident should be a perfect fit at Memorial Park Golf Club.

Alex Noren +4500 (FanDuel)

Alex Noren has been quietly playing some of his best golf of the last half decade this season. The 41-year-old is coming off back-to-back top-20 finishes in Florida including a T9 at The PLAYERS in his most recent start.

In his past 24 rounds, Noren ranks 21st in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 30th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, 25th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses and 21st in Strokes Gained: Putting on fast Bermudagrass greens.

In addition to his strong recent play, the Swede also has played well at Memorial Park. In 2022, Noren finished T4 at the event, gaining 2.2 strokes off the tee and 7.0 strokes on approach for the week. In his two starts at the course, he’s gained an average of .6 strokes per round on the field, indicating he is comfortable on these greens.

Noren has been due for a win for what feels like an eternity, but Memorial Park may be the course that suits him well enough for him to finally get his elusive first PGA Tour victory.

Mackenzie Hughes +8000 (FanDuel)

Mackenzie Hughes found himself deep into contention at last week’s Valspar Championship before faltering late and finishing in a tie for 3rd place. While he would have loved to win the event, it’s hard to see the performance as anything other than an overwhelming positive sign for the Canadian.

Hughes has played great golf at Memorial Park in the past. He finished T7 in 2020, T29 in 2021 and T16 in 2022. The course fit seems to be quite strong for Hughes. He’s added distance off the tee in the past year or and ranks 8th in the field for apex height, which will be a key factor when hitting into Memorial Park’s elevated greens with steep run-off areas.

In his past 24 rounds, Hughes is the best player in the field in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens. The ability to scramble at this course will be extremely important. I believe Hughes can build off of his strong finish last week and contend once again to cement himself as a President’s Cup consideration.

Akshay Bhatia +8000 (FanDuel)

Akshay Bhatia played well last week at the Valspar and seemed to be in total control of his golf ball. He finished in a tie for 17th and shot an impressive -3 on a difficult Sunday. After struggling Thursday, Akshay shot 68-70-68 in his next three rounds.

Thus far, Bhatia has played better at easier courses, but his success at Copperhead may be due to his game maturing. The 22-year-old has enormous potential and the raw talent to be one of the best players in the world when he figures it all out.

Bhatia is a high upside play with superstar qualities and may just take the leap forward to the next stage of his career in the coming months.

Cameron Champ +12000 (FanDuel)

Cameron Champ is a player I often target in the outright betting market due to his “boom-or-bust” nature. It’s hard to think of a player in recent history with three PGA Tour wins who’s been as inconsistent as Champ has over the course of his career.

Despite the erratic play, Cam Champ simply knows how to win. He’s won in 2018, 2019 and 2021, so I feel he’s due for a win at some point this season. The former Texas A&M product should be comfortable in Texas and last week he showed us that his game is in a pretty decent spot.

Over his past 24 rounds, Champ ranks 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 30th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses. Given his ability to spike at any given time, Memorial Park is a good golf course to target Champ on at triple digit odds.

Robert MacIntyre +12000 (FanDuel)

The challenge this week is finding players who can possibly beat Scottie Scheffler while also not dumping an enormous amount of money into an event that has a player at the top that looks extremely dangerous. Enter McIntyre, who’s another boom-or-bust type player who has the ceiling to compete with anyone when his game is clicking on all cylinders.

In his past 24 rounds, MacIntyre ranks 16th in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 17th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 10th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses.

MacIntyre’s PGA Tour season has gotten off to a slow start, but he finished T6 in Mexico, which is a course where players will hit driver on the majority of their tee shots, which is what we will see at Memorial Park. Texas can also get quite windy, which should suit MacIntyre. Last July, the Scot went toe to toe with Rory McIlroy at the Scottish Open before a narrow defeat. It would take a similar heroic effort to compete with Scheffler this year in Houston.

Ryan Moore +15000 (FanDuel)

Ryan Moore’s iron play has been absolutely unconscious over his past few starts. At The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field, he gained 6.1 strokes on approach and last week at Copperhead, he gained 9.0 strokes on approach.

It’s been a rough handful of years on Tour for the 41-year-old, but he is still a five-time winner on the PGA Tour who’s young enough for a career resurgence. Moore has chronic deterioration in a costovertebral joint that connects the rib to the spine, but has been getting more consistent of late, which is hopefully a sign that he is getting healthy.

Veterans have been contending in 2024 and I believe taking a flier on a proven Tour play who’s shown signs of life is a wise move at Memorial Park.

 

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Opinion & Analysis

Ryan: Why the race to get better at golf might be doing more harm than good

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B.F. Skinner was one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, developing the foundation of the development of reinforcement, and in doing so, creating the concept of behaviorism. In simple terms, this means that we are conditioned by our habits. In practical terms, it explains the divide between the few and far between elite instructors and college coaches.

To understand the application, let’s quickly review one of B.F. Skinner’s most important experiments; superstitions in the formation of behavior by pigeons. In this experiment, food was dispensed to pigeons at random intervals. Soon, according to Skinner, the pigeons began to associate whatever action they were doing at the time of the food being dispensed. According to Skinner, this conditioned that response and soon, they simply haphazardly repeated the action, failing to distinguish between cause and correlation (and in the meantime, looking really funny!).

Now, this is simply the best way to describe the actions of most every women’s college golf coach and too many instructors in America. They see something work, get positive feedback and then become conditioned to give the feedback, more and more, regardless of if it works (this is also why tips from your buddies never work!).

Go to a college event, particularly a women’s one, and you will see coaches running all over the place. Like the pigeons in the experiment, they have been conditioned into a codependent relationship with their players in which they believe their words and actions, can transform a round of golf. It is simply hilarious while being equally perturbing

In junior golf, it’s everywhere. Junior golf academies make a living selling parents that a hysterical coach and over-coaching are essential ingredients in your child’s success.

Let’s be clear, no one of any intellect has any real interest in golf — because it’s not that interesting. The people left, including most coaches and instructors, carve out a small fiefdom, usually on the corner of the range, where they use the illusion of competency to pray on people. In simple terms, they baffle people with the bullshit of pseudo-science that they can make you better, after just one more lesson.

The reality is that life is an impromptu game. The world of golf, business, and school have a message that the goal is being right. This, of course, is bad advice, being right in your own mind is easy, trying to push your ideas on others is hard. As a result, it is not surprising that the divorce rate among golf professionals and their instructors is 100 percent. The transfer rate among college players continues to soar, and too many courses have a guy peddling nefarious science to good people. In fact, we do at my course!

The question is, what impact does all this have on college-age and younger kids? At this point, we honestly don’t know. However, I am going to go out on a limb and say it isn’t good.

Soren Kierkegaard once quipped “I saw it for what it is, and I laughed.” The actions of most coaches and instructors in America are laughable. The problem is that I am not laughing because they are doing damage to kids, as well as driving good people away from this game.

The fact is that golfers don’t need more tips, secrets, or lessons. They need to be presented with a better understanding of the key elements of golf. With this understanding, they can then start to frame which information makes sense and what doesn’t. This will emancipate them and allow them to take charge of their own development.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Valspar Championship betting preview: Elite ballstrikers to thrive at Copperhead

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The PGA TOUR will stay in Florida this week for the 2024 Valspar Championship.

The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort is a par 71 measuring 7,340 yards and features Bermudagrass greens overseeded with POA. Infamous for its difficulty, the track will be a tough test for golfers as trouble lurks all over the place. Holes 16, 17 and 18 — also known as the “Snake Pit” — make up one of the toughest three-hole stretches in golf and should lead to a captivating finish on Sunday.

The field is comprised of 156 golfers teeing it up. The field this week is solid and is a major improvement over last year’s field that felt the impact of players skipping due to a handful of “signature events” in a short span of time. 

Past Winners at Valspar Championship

  • 2023: Taylor Moore (-10)
  • 2022: Sam Burns (-17)
  • 2021: Sam Burns (-17)
  • 2019: Paul Casey (-8)
  • 2018: Paul Casey (-10)
  • 2017: Adam Hadwin (-14)
  • 2016: Charl Schwartzel (-7)
  • 2015: Jordan Spieth (-10)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the Rabbit Hole by Betsperts Golf data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

Key Stats For Copperhead

1. Strokes Gained: Approach

Strokes Gained: Approach grades out as the most important statistic once again this week. Copperhead really can’t be overpowered and is a second-shot golf course.

Total SG: Approach Over Past 24 Rounds (per round)

  1. Tony Finau (+.90)
  2. Nick Taylor (+.81)
  3. Justin Thomas (+.77)
  4. Greyson Sigg (+.69)
  5. Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+.67)

2. Good Drive %

The long hitters can be a bit limited here due to the tree-lined fairways and penal rough. Playing from the fairways will be important, but laying back too far will cause some difficult approaches with firm greens that may not hold shots from long irons.

Golfers who have a good balance of distance and accuracy have the best chance this week.

Good Drive % Over Past 24 Rounds

  1. Brice Garnett (+91.3%) 
  2. Zach Johnson (+91.1%)
  3. Sam Ryder (+90.5%)
  4. Ryan Moore (+90.4%)
  5. Aaron Rai (+89.7%)

3. Strokes Gained: Ball Striking

Adding ball-striking puts even more of a premium on tee-to-green prowess in the statistical model this week. Golfers who rank highly in ball-striking are in total control of the golf ball which is exceedingly important at Copperhead.

SG: Ball Striking Over Past 24 Rounds:

  1. Xander Schauffele (+1.32)
  2. Keith Mitchell (+1.29)
  3. Tony Finau (+1.24)
  4. Cameron Young (+1.17) 
  5. Doug Ghim (+.95)

4. Bogey Avoidance

With the conditions likely to be difficult, avoiding bogeys will be crucial this week. In a challenging event like the Valspar, oftentimes the golfer who is best at avoiding mistakes ends up on top.

Gritty golfers who can grind out difficult pars have a much better chance in an event like this than a low-scoring birdie-fest.

Bogey Avoidance Over Past 24 Rounds

  1. Brice Garnett (+9.0)
  2. Xander Schauffele (+9.3)
  3. Austin Cook (+9.7) 
  4. Chesson Hadley (+10.0)
  5. Greyson Sigg (+10.2)

5. Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions

Conditions will be tough this week at Copperhead. I am looking for golfers who can rise to the occasion if the course plays as difficult as it has in the past.

Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions Over Past 24 rounds

  1. Xander Schauffele (+1,71) 
  2. Min Woo Lee (+1.39)
  3. Cameron Young (+1.27)
  4. Jordan Spieth (+1.08)
  5. Justin Suh (+.94)

6. Course History

That statistic will tell us which players have played well at Copperhead in the past.

Course History Over Past 24 rounds

  1. Patrick Cantlay (+3.75) 
  2. Sam Burns (+2.49)
  3. Davis Riley (+2.33)
  4. Matt NeSmith (+2.22)
  5. Jordan Spieth (+2.04)

The Valspar Championship Model Rankings

Below, I’ve compiled overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed — SG: Approach (27%), Good Drive % (15%), SG: BS (20%), Bogeys Avoided (13%), Course History (13%) Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions (12%).

  1. Xander Schauffele
  2. Doug Ghim
  3. Victor Perez
  4. Greyson Sigg
  5. Ryan Moore
  6. Tony Finau
  7. Justin Thomas
  8. Sam Ryder
  9. Sam Burns
  10. Lucas Glover

2024 Valspar Championship Picks

Justin Thomas +1400 (DraftKings)

Justin Thomas will be disappointed with his finish at last week’s PLAYERS Championship, as the past champion missed the cut despite being in some decent form heading into the event. Despite the missed cut, JT hit the ball really well. In his two rounds, the two-time major champion led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach per round.

Thomas has been up and down this season. He’s missed the cut in two “signature events” but also has finishes of T12 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, T12 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, T6 at the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro-Am and T3 at the American Express. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 6th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking in the field.

Thomas loves Copperhead. In his last three tries at the course, he’s finished T13, T3 and T10. Thomas would have loved to get a win at a big event early in the season, but avoidable mistakes and a balky putter have cost him dearly. I believe a trip to a course he loves in a field he should be able to capitalize on is the right recipe for JT to right the ship.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout +6000 (FanDuel)

Christiaan Bezuidenhout is playing spectacular golf in the 2024 season. He finished 2nd at the American Express, T20 at Pebble Beach and T24 at the Genesis Invitational before finishing T13 at last week’s PLAYERS Championship.

In his past 24 rounds, the South African ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 26th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. Bezuidenhout managed to work his way around TPC Sawgrass last week with minimal damage. He only made five bogeys in the entire week, which is a great sign heading into a difficult Copperhead this week.

Bezuidenhout is winless in his PGA Tour career, but certainly has the talent to win on Tour. His recent iron play tells me that this week could be a breakthrough for the 35-year-old who has eyes on the President’s Cup.

Doug Ghim +8000 (FanDuel)

Doug Ghim has finished in the top-16 of his past five starts. Most recently, Ghim finished T16 at The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field.

In his past 24 rounds, Ghim ranks 8th in Strokes Gained: Approach and 5th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. In terms of his fit for Copperhead, the 27-year-old ranks 12th in Bogey Avoidance and 7th in Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions, making him a great fit for the course.

Ghim has yet to win on Tour, but at one point he was the top ranked Amateur golfer in the world and played in the 2017 Arnold Palmer Cup and 2017 Walker Cup. He then won the Ben Hogan award for the best male college golfer in 2018. He certainly has the talent, and there are signals aplenty that his talent in ready to take him to the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour.

Sepp Straka +8000 (BetRivers)

Sepp Straka is a player who’s shown he has the type of game that can translate to a difficult Florida golf course. The former Presidents Cup participant won the 2022 Honda Classic in tough conditions and should thrive with a similar test at Copperhead.

It’s been a slow 2024 for Straka, but his performance last week at the PLAYERS Championship surely provides some optimism. He gained 5.4 strokes on approach as well as 1.88 strokes off the tee. The tee-to-green game Straka showed on a course with plenty of danger demonstrates that he can stay in control of his golf ball this week.

It’s possible that the strong performance last week was an outlier, but I’m willing to bet on a proven winner in a weaker field at a great number.

Victor Perez +12000 (FanDuel)

Victor Perez is no stranger to success in professional golf. The Frenchman has three DP World Tour wins including a Rolex Series event. He won the 2019 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, as well as the 2023 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which are some big events.

Perez earned his PGA Tour card this season and enters the week playing some fantastic golf. He finished in a tie for 16th in Florida at the Cognizant Classic and then tied for third in his most recent start at the Puerto Rico Open.

In his past 24 rounds in the field, Perez ranks 11th in Strokes Gained: Approach, 1oth in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, 6th in Good Drive % and 15th in Bogey Avoidance.

Perez comes in as a perfect fit for Copperhead and offers serious value at triple-digit odds.

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