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The Mystery Behind the Mulligan

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Twenty years ago, I played a lot of golf with a guy we had nicknamed “The Best Mulligan Player in Golf.” He’d perfected the art by keeping an extra ball in his front left pants pocket and incorporating a reach for it into his cut short follow-through before his first ball had even hit the apex of its flight. It was a near seamless (and shameless) motion that allowed him to hit again without even slowing play. The thing that constantly amazed me, though, was not his rapid re-load and ability to get off successive shots in a manner that might have rivaled the supposed prowess of Lee Harvey Oswald, but how his mulligan was always so good following a shot that was so bad just an instant prior. How could the same swing that had produced a snap hook or a dead block 40 yards offline seemingly find the middle of the fairway, or drop a ball a foot or two from the pin with relative ease the next?

Now were he truly unique, I’d suggest we bring him in to a lab somewhere to be studied, but truth be told, he’s not alone. Whether you call it a mulligan a breakfast ball or just a plain do-over, golf’s most redemptive invention often seems to have an almost magical way of showing us glimpses of the hidden aptitudes inside each and every one of us that are just waiting to be released… but does it? Because if it’s really as easy as just dropping a second ball, then maybe it’s long past time we studied its origins, how it has become so pervasive, and what we can all learn from the mystery behind the mulligan.

The term mulligan came into regular use somewhere between the 1920s and the 1940s in the U.S. There are two generally accepted theories of the term’s origin, which are both credible and particularly notable because it appears that mulligan is the only regularly used golf term named after a particular person or persons. One of those persons was a Canadian amateur by the name of David Bernard Mulligan, a prominent former member of Winged Foot Golf Club in New York. As the story goes, Mulligan would drive his regular foursome to the club back in the 1920s. Upon arrival, Mulligan always complained about the fact that his hands were numb from navigating the rough and bumpy roads along the way. On one such day, he teed up a second ball on the first tee, declaring he was hitting a “correction shot” after a particularly poor drive. His playing partners asked him what he would call that. “A Mulligan,” he said, and his foursome all laughed. Considering the circumstances, they agreed to let him go ahead and play the second ball.

After Mulligan and his partner ended up winning the match by a shot, there was some discussion about the second ball he had played, and the resulting agreement was that henceforth you could play a second ball from the first tee if you didn’t like the first one. Once other members heard about the practice, its use spread along with the story to the point that Mulligan was even interviewed about it a generation later.

Despite that well-chronicled story, there is at least one other that apparently has enough merit that it’s proudly noted on the responsible club’s website. John A. “Buddy” Mulligan was a locker room attendant in the 1930s at Essex Fells Country Club in New Jersey. Mulligan was apparently often sucked into money games with assistant professional Dave O’Connell and Des Sullivan, the eventual golf editor of the Newark Evening News, during the week when few members were around because of The Depression. One afternoon, after hitting a poor opening tee shot, Mulligan begged his partners to be given another shot since they had been practicing all morning and he had not. After receiving a pardon for his poor opening tee shot, Mulligan proudly bragged to his members in the locker room for months about having negotiated the extra shot. The members apparently loved the idea so much they began giving themselves Mulligans, and Sullivan subsequently began using the term in his pieces in the Newark Evening News.

Now as interesting as those stories are, and whether or not either of the latter two is the true origin of why most of us now call our desire to re-hit certain shots now and then a mulligan, I believe the reasons why we hit those first shots so poorly and why we so often hit those second shots better a much more intriguing line of conversation. And if you’ve read this far, I’ll assume it has more to do with learning how to capture some of the magic of the mulligan on that first shot, rather than anything to do with my gifted story-telling.

Well, first of all, the reasons each of us hit poor shots on the first tee and elsewhere are obviously as numerous as the stripes on the balls of the driving ranges of the world. Fear, nerves, unrealistic expectations, unreliable swing mechanics, pressure, mis-placed focus, a lack of confidence, failure to commit to the shot, failure to trust our swing, an inability to stay in the present, being overly attached to our out-sized egos, and a laundry list of other things can each individually be enough to cause a poor golf shot. And when you combine two or more of these issues together, you can have a wicked combination that makes it no small wonder that we actually manage to ever hit that first shot well.

The most obvious reason we perform better when we reach for a mulligan is that, other than unreliable swing mechanics, most of those excuses, contributing factors, and conditions for why we hit poor shots initially are either absent or at least much diminished. And if you need the ever-present potential of being able to drop a second ball to hit a decent golf shot now and then, for better or worse, your problems on that first shot are more mental than mechanical. Like the guy or gal who has won the U.S. Open three times on the driving range, but who suddenly slices it into the woods like Judge Smails once it actually counts, if we struggle with executing once the spotlights are on, the pressure is mounting, and or when it’s time to actually start counting all those ill-fated attempts then we need to start this journey by taking a hard look inward. And if you’re the type who plays with a second ball in your front pants pocket to help relieve some of that pressure, while you may be on the course, in a sense, you’ve never even left the range.

Before taking that inward glance, though, I need to say that when I first set out to write this, I had intended to offer a few strategies, backed up by the latest neuroscience, to help you get things right the first time. Some simple mindfulness practices that I use with students every day can really help tone down that mental-space junk we tend to have floating around in our heads that contribute to the problem. Along the way, though, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.

  1. Just as the reasons for why you struggle on that first shot are individual and varied, so are the potential fixes and diving into those waters in this brief space would force me to paint everyone with too broad a brush to remotely do it justice.
  2. There is one element to this that is nearly universal, and so incredibly basic about our love/hate relationship with the mulligan and how it effects our psyche that I think it gets instinctively overlooked… how it reinforces our belief in the better golfer that resides somewhere deep inside us all.

So when it comes to that inward glance, we need to start by making sure we’ve taken an honest look at all those mulligans to ensure we aren’t viewing them through the rose-colored lenses of self-delusion. Is that second ball really always so magical? Have we, without being aware of it, mentally discarded all those times when our mulligans weren’t all that special because we so want to identify with those times when it was? Could our desire to identify with that mysteriously talented golfer we believe is somewhere inside of us resulted in us unintentionally deluding ourselves into believing that the only thing standing in the way of letting that better golfer out is ourselves?

Maybe our true first step needs to be a re-examination of that storyline running inside our heads to see if it’s actually grounded in fact. Have we truly put in the work? Have we even once performed to the standard we’ve been subconsciously holding ourselves to? That little voice in our heads gets awfully loud in moments of pressure, but is it even louder when it’s scolding us for not performing up to what we’ve deluded ourselves into believing is our true ability?

Now please don’t confuse what I’m saying here as a cry to collectively lower our standards. If you read my article on club championships you know I think in many ways they need to be raised, and belief in our potential is a fire I want to stoke, not extinguish. That belief and the hope it instills in us is the biggest part of what drives us to improve (what pays my mortgage), and, like that one good shot on the last hole, is truly what keeps us coming back. We need to be realistic, however, and make sure we’re not confusing belief in our potential with the belief that we’ve done everything we can and should do to live up that potential.

So what the mulligan may ultimately represent is not just our desire to score better, but to be better, and prove to ourselves that given the right set of circumstances we can. Most of us have come to terms with the fact that something, something related to how we’re handling pressure, the spotlight, or even the maddening specter of not living up to our true potential is getting in the way with letting the true golfer that lies buried somewhere deep inside of us out. And a big part of why we keep at it, day after day, round after round, month after month, year after year, is to discover that missing link between the golfer we are, and the one we know we can be.

So where do we start the search? Well, the first place you need to look is at your expectations and make sure they are in line with your abilities. And if those abilities aren’t truly up to the level of your expectations, then I’d like to selfishly suggest a visit to your local PGA Pro. Just remember, the secret to any self-improvement, like Ben Hogan once said, is nearly always hidden in the dirt of a little hard work.

Second, believe in your ability, if you’ve done it even once before you have the ability to hit that ball right the first time, even if it’s not every time, and don’t let that little voice get too loud at times when you don’t.

Next, take the temptation of that second ball out of your front left pants pocket or wherever else it might reside. The security blanket that little escape hatch has been providing and the temptation to use it just might have been at least part of the problem all along.

And finally, if circumstances (and the rules) dictate that you must hit a second ball, instead of declaring it a mulligan, a breakfast ball or whatever else you may have referred to it in the past, try calling it what the Scots do… three from the tee.

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Mike Dowd is the author of the new novel COMING HOME and the Lessons from the Golf Guru: Wit, Wisdom, Mind-Tricks & Mysticism for Golf and Life series. He has been Head PGA Professional at Oakdale Golf & CC in Oakdale, California since 2001, and is serving his third term on the NCPGA Board of Directors and Chairs the Growth of the Game Committee. Mike has introduced thousands of people to the game and has coached players that have played golf collegiately at the University of Hawaii, San Francisco, U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Davis, University of the Pacific, C.S.U. Sacramento, C.S.U. Stanislaus, C.S.U. Chico, and Missouri Valley State, as men and women on the professional tours. Mike currently lives in Turlock, California with his wife and their two aspiring LPGA stars, where he serves on the Turlock Community Theatre Board, is the past Chairman of the Parks & Recreation Commission and is a member of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Turlock. In his spare time (what's that?) he enjoys playing golf with his girls, writing, music, fishing and following the foibles of the Sacramento Kings, the San Francisco 49ers, the San Francisco Giants, and, of course, the PGA Tour. You can find Mike at mikedowdgolf.com.

12 Comments

12 Comments

  1. Koyote Ken

    Jul 11, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    My foursome calls them simply “DCT’s”………..
    Stands for “Don’t Count That!”

  2. Powder skier

    Jul 8, 2016 at 7:00 pm

    Now please explain why the maker of a hole in one buys drinks

  3. Devin

    Jul 6, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    “The thing that constantly amazed me, though, was not his rapid re-load and “ability to get off successive shots in a manner that might have rivaled the supposed prowess of Lee Harvey Oswald”

    Really?

    • No WMD

      Jul 6, 2016 at 1:38 pm

      I know, right? The exaggerations of these writers make them sound so pedestrian and immature

  4. alexdub

    Jul 6, 2016 at 11:27 am

    I love these types of articles here. Good research and great write up, Mike.

    • mike dowd

      Jul 6, 2016 at 11:57 am

      Thanks Alex. Glad you enjoyed it. It’s amazing how when it comes to golf so often that the more things change, the more things stay the same. While they might not have been called Mulligans or Breakfast Balls before the 1930’s, I’m sure people were still taking them. 🙂

  5. RG

    Jul 6, 2016 at 9:56 am

    Breakfast ball, gotta love’em.

    • Double Mocha Man

      Jul 7, 2016 at 11:32 am

      Don’t forget the Lunch Ball, for the back nine. The Happy Hour Ball if you bring an adult drink onto the course. The Appetizer Ball, the Dinner Ball, the Dessert Ball, the After-Dinner-Cigar Ball and the Twilight-I-Didn’t-See-Where-That-Ball-Went Ball. It just depends on what time of day and in what situation you need to hit a second ball. BTW, one man scrambles are perfect for those who like to hit a second ball.

  6. Tom

    Jul 5, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    I apply the same ” do over” principle to relationships. That’s why I’ve been married three times….lol

    • Philip

      Jul 5, 2016 at 3:14 pm

      Darn! You got me by 1/2 – I’ve only been married 2 1/2 times – lol

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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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