Opinion & Analysis

Op-ed: The focus on equipment has hurt golf

Published

11 years ago

Nov 24, 2012

The marketing machine that the golf industry has become, churning out new drivers, irons sets and putters seemingly over night, has hurt the game more than it has helped it. Too many golfers pay far too much attention to what they are hitting, rather than how they are hitting what they are hitting. The focus on equipment has steered the game in the wrong direction.

Click here for more discussion in the “Golf Talk” forum.

New clubs bring us that excited schoolboy, Red Rider BB gun effect, but by now we all know a great golf game can’t be delivered to us in a box. We’ve all heard the saying, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

What about fool me 127 times?

The equipment manufacturers are not stewards of the game. They are not necessarily trying to build a better golfing public any more than a clothing company is trying to make the public better dressed. They are businesses that need our dollars to be profitable. While many golf courses seem to be struggling, golf equipment companies are rolling right along, economy be-damned. “These guys are good,” is one way to say it.

The manufacturers are not offering new clubs to the market every year with the idea of improving golfers, they are simply releasing new and fresh product to the market, looking for their piece of the pie. The painful truth is that most golfers have swings that no moveable weights, supersonic shafts, or dynamic paint scheme could possibly help.

Since 90 percent of golfers don’t break 90 on a consistent basis and the average USGA handicap in the United States for men is 14.3, how badly do we golfers really need to spend that $400 on a driver, instead of on a package of lessons from a local PGA professional?

Equipment is important to the game, but equipment is not the game. The game is about impact positions, consistent contact on the clubface and how well a player can control his ball as he hits it around those 18 holes. Even a golfer who has his “ideal” equipment still needs to make good swings and hit good shots.

Finding that ideal equipment is easier said than done. The science behind Trackman, FlightScope and other launch monitors cannot be argued. The accuracy of the information of this technology is incredible. PGA Tour players and top amateurs and professionals can use these devices to dial in proper shafts, club heads, club weights, lies and lengths with amazing results. But how are the rest of us supposed to use them?

My experiences with launch monitors when I was trying to “fit” for new equipment was that they showed me when I was making bad swings. I got two completely different sets of results from Flight Scope with the same clubs on different days. One day I was swinging about the best I could swing and had really low backspin numbers combined with an almost perfect smash factor. A week later my swing resembled a one-winged flamingo’s and my backspin, launch, carry and smash factor numbers were on the opposite end of the spectrum. There was no chance for me to “dial in” any shafts or head choices. I was too busy trying to make good swings to be able to tell which equipment might be best for me.

Golfers are often expected to pay upward of $250 for fitting sessions. That $250 fee puts pressure on us to get the most we can out of the fitting. If I had based an overhaul of my equipment on either one of those days with the launch monitor, I could very well have ended up with an expensive purchase that might not have improved me at all. In fact that was exactly what the pro told me. He said it is often difficult to “fit” people into new equipment and be able to assure them that the new equipment will make them better (outdated or poorly fitted equipment aside). Sometimes all of the new equipment hype is very hard to live up to.

My experiences at demo days at my club were equally as frustrating. TaylorMade came late to the event, with two clubs to hit and only the stock shafts in regular or stiff flex to try out. The grips were almost too slick to swing the clubs and the rep brought a range finder to follow the ball in the air and “tell” us how far we were hitting it. The Titleist rep had a launch monitor that told me I was carrying the driver he gave me to try out 295-yards in the air. Maybe it meant to say 245-yards. These are just two of the examples, and I am sure that the cattle call of people coming and going to these things is tough for any company to deal with, but the process left me feeling a little unwashed.

Conventional wisdom told me to take my club testing to the golf courses to try out drivers during actual rounds of golf. Over a two-week period I used several different Titleist 910D2 and D3 driver head and shaft combinations in about 10 rounds of golf. What I learned was that when I made good swings with almost any of the combinations, it was always better than poor swings with any of the combinations. The results were the same when I tried out drivers from PING and Callaway as well. With my driver swing speed, well-hit shots with just about every club went about the same distance and with the same accuracy.

I eventually settled on a purchase of new irons and woods that Frontier Airlines lost for me on my way home from a family vacation. While I square-danced with Frontier for a few weeks on the phone, a friend of mine offered to let me use his old clubs. They were about a 15-year-old set of huge-headed PING irons, the wrong length, lie, and flex for me, and an eight-year-old Callaway driver, also the wrong flex. I had some old wedges, a trusty old hybrid, his ill-fit 15-year-old Callaway three-wood and a back up putter that had been banished to hell. I figured it was better than nothing. I proceeded to have the three best weeks of golf I had ever put together in my life. Using that crazy combination of clubs, my handicap improved a shot and a half and I shot my career best round on one of the courses I play the most. A person more cerebral than I am might have felt downright silly for all of the money I had shelled out for the new clubs a month a before.

Lost in the fun and madness of trying out new equipment was the fact that good swings, solid course management, and knowing how to execute the short game are more important than the clubs I had in my bag. I grew up in a small Kansas town, on a nine-hole golf course with no driving range. The only practicing I could really do was chipping and putting around our course’s little practice green. I used to do that for hours at a time when I wasn’t good enough yet to play on the course with my grandfather’s nassau groups. Maybe that’s why I have so much fun trying out new equipment on driving ranges now; I never got to do it as a kid. I’m sure there is a lesson for me to remember about that now, but it is eluding me.

When I see the OEMs make videos for GolfWRX describing how they improved one set of irons over their previous year’s model, I can’t help but wonder who out there it is that can really tell the difference in the performance of the heads when they hit clubs with such subtle changes. They are all the highest quality clubs, and I’m guessing Luke Donald really feels a difference between the Mizuno MP-62 compared to the new MP-64. Nick Watney can discern the difference in one model of Titleist AP2 irons over the other and there may be some nice aesthetic and functional differences between the PING S58, S57 and S56 irons. But how many guys can tell the difference and have it really matter?

That player out there who says one is way better than the other might just be looking for a way to justify that Red Rider high once again. Maybe the turf interaction or the flighting built into the head is better in one club for some guys, but if they already owned the previous sets is there really a $900 difference in the new one? The club ho in me will say that I might buy one of the sets anyway, but that’s just because a ho is going to do what a ho is going to do.

The biggest problem with the focus being shifted to equipment rather than getting lessons and honing skills is that people recently new to the game won’t have the background in golf from 30-years ago as a child that prevents the bad “arrows” we sometimes find from keeping the “Indian” from being effective. Golfers are being convinced that their bad tee shots were hit because the club head weights and face angles had been set poorly or that the shaft in their new $399 driver wasn’t good enough. They are led to believe that equipment can be bought that will “fix” their swing flaws. I asked my local pro, a PGA Tour veteran with many made cuts to his credit about a certain shaft I was interested in trying out. He looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. He told me he had no idea what that shaft was, or what shaft was in his new TaylorMade driver he was killing. He had seen me in action many times, and he was polite enough not to come right out and tell me I wasn’t good enough to need anything more than what I had.

We can all choose to spend our free golf time and our golf dollars however we choose to. It doesn’t have to make sense, especially if it makes us happy. I’ll probably buy and sell two or three different putters over the next year or so too. One of my grandfather’s old buddies that helped teach me the game back in the day told me it didn’t matter if you putted with an old sheep herders stick if you are making putts with it. Playing with Bo Peep’s stick would be a lot cheaper, but it would not be as much fun as trying out new putters. The club ho in all of us knows that. That’s why the ho wins out and buys new equipment rather than sticking with what we have for awhile and spending that money on lessons.

It’s fun to hope that the next set of irons, newest driver or precisely milled putter could be be the spark we need to produce our best rounds and Nassau-winning putts. But we just can’t kid ourselves that we wouldn’t have been able to do it with what we had in the bag three, five and maybe even eight-years ago.

Kevin Crook is a contributor for GolfWRX.com. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the GolfWRX.

Click here for more discussion in the “Golf Talk” forum.

Your Reaction?

LIKE2
LEGIT1
WOW0
LOL0
IDHT0
FLOP1
OB0
SHANK0

Opinion & Analysis

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

Published

1 day 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

4 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.

Your Reaction?

LIKE8
LEGIT4
WOW1
LOL1
IDHT0
FLOP0
OB0
SHANK1

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.

Your Reaction?