Opinion & Analysis

Charles Schwab Challenge and Dutch Open: Best prop bets

Published

2 years ago

May 25, 2022

Once again, this column leaves the outright betting to Matt Vincenzi and concentrates on the best of the rest – the side bets.

Most bookmakers offer prices for the PGA and DP World tours for finishing positions and that is, once again, where we are headed this week.

Here’s five of the best….

Kevin Na – Top-20 +180 (FD)

Up against a quote of just +130 from DK, one oddsmaker must be wrong and I reckon it’s the bigger quote that is out of line.

It was a close pick between previous Colonial winners Kokrak and Na, and whilst they both appear in relevant Greenbrier form, I just get the impression that Na is the player more on the up after a solid effort at Southern Hills, another track designed by Perry Maxwell.

The 38-year-old turns up at the same classic courses (he can’t compete with the length at the 7600-yard tracks) and wins here and at The Old White, alongside top finishes at Muirfield, Riviera and Copperhead all give reason to be ‘on’ should he arrive at a favoured track in any sort of form.

The best of his four weekends in a row includes a 14th place finish at The Masters whilst 26th at Harbour Town point again to his liking of trickier, wind-affected, tree-lines courses.

Unusually, Na missed the Byron Nelson, an event he does well at, but did well to finish in the top-25 in last week’s major given he was never really on top of his game.

In 14 starts at Colonial, the 2019 winner also has four top-10s, a pair of top-20 finishes and only two missed cuts and again overcame a poor driving performance in 2021, to rank top-10 in all other stats on his way to a place just outside a top-30.

Na shouldn’t have to worry too much about bombing it this week, and his tidy game and excellent recent approach stats should see him land the top-20.

Sebastian Munoz – Top-20 +200 (DK)

29-year-old Columbian Munoz is an obvious play for this type of market, having finished third here last season, and filling the same place at the Byron Nelson and Greenbrier Classic.

Not only does he bring in correlative form, but he is sneakily making his way inside the top-50 in the rankings, having been outside of the top-100 in 2019 and 66th at the start of the year.

Despite his claims in the book, his form is actually a tad better than the final figures suggest having led at Craig Ranch for three rounds, been top-3 throughout the RSM led into Sunday at the John Deere and been always prominent here in 2021.

Munoz hasn’t missed a cut in his last eight 72-hole events, efforts that include five top-30 finishes, many in events with an overall deeper field.

Over the last three months, the 54th best player in the world according to the OWGR, ranks 23rd for total driving, 9th for ball-striking, 10th for greens-in-reg and 15th for par-four performance, a huge factor in all the last five runnings of the event.

Nate Lashley – Top-20/Top-40 +600/+200 (DK)

Shock winner of the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic, Lashley, is never the most obvious pick in any market, but that allows us to nab a better price than he should be.

Another player that simply cannot compete on the longer courses, over the last three months he ranks 130th for distance off the tee but just outside the top-50 for accuracy, paving the way for solid approach shots and green-finding (2nd in GIR).

Impressively, the 39-year-old ranks tied-second for par-four performance over the same period, tied with Jordan Spieth and Brandon Wu and just behind the recent PGA champion, Justin Thomas.

Form wise, the pick of the season’s form is a 7th at Puerto Rico, 15th at Corales, 11th in Mexico and more significantly a pair of top-20 finishes in Texas – 18th at the Valero and a last time effort of 17th at the Byron Nelson, when a final round 64 lept his name up the board.

At the sole victory in Detroit, Lashley beat Rory Sabbatini, a player with significant form here, whilst he can also boast career finishes of tied-third at the Pheonix and Greenbrier and a top-20 in Houston, where many of the top-10 feature heavily in most Texas events.

It isn’t insignificant that Lashley’s best figures for approach and tee-to-green have been at recent events in the state, and he can add an eighth career top-40 to his Texas record.

Marcus Armitage – Top-10/Top-20 +600/+290

The DP World Tour visits the Bernardus golf course for the second time in succession, but the Dutch Open is now a pale shadow of one of the classic European Tour events, the KLM.

Still, there are profits to make and with a very open field, backing one of the best iron players on the tour will often reap rewards.

34-year-old Armitage took a long time to win his first European Tour event, some five years after his sole Challenge Tour win, but with 10 top-10 finishes and the same amount of top-20s in his last 56 starts, this is a chance for him to add yet another single-digit number to his record.

Armitage has missed just one cut in his last nine starts since a second-round 79 ruined an opening 70 in Abu Dhabi, and in that period alone has finished in the top-20 on five occasions, the highlight being a top-5 in Qatar.

A bit of a bomber off the tee, he should be able to club down enough to keep his accuracy, before building on that with the regular iron play that has seen him rank 16th for greens-in-reg over the last six months. Indeed, since March, he has tee-to-green figures of 23/1/9/7/25 and similar stats for his iron play.

This is his level, and he looks terrific value for both bets.

Richie Ramsay – Top-10/Top-20 +700/+320

It’s been a long time since Ramsay was ranked inside the top-100, but there have been enough signs recently to be with him on a track that has enough links-like quality for him to thrive.

In nine events this season, the Scot has three welcome top-30 finishes, but crucially his most recent outings have resulted in a tied-third at The Belfry and top-15 last time in Belgium.

Sadly, the effort at the British Masters has a tale.

After leading a ‘home’ event for most of the final round, Ramsay hit a poor second shot to the water at the front of the green, ultimately recording a six, and a two-shot loss.

As covered in an interview with The Scotsman, that hurt an awful lot and it is to his credit that he recovered to finish well inside the top-20 at the Soudal Open, after his opening two rounds left him in 53rd at the cut.

Ramsay’s method is to play a game of accuracy over brute power and there may be significance in the record of courses at which he plays well.

Shock 2021 winner Kristoffer Broberg, had past form at the Dunhill Links (T9), Crans (T10) and at Le Golf Nationale (T12 twice and t16) and Ramsay can at least match that with a win at Crans, two high finishes at the Links and top-five placings in France.

That may be something and nothing, and whilst the former US Amateur champion admits he is coming to the twilight of his career, finding fairways consistently will always give him a chance. Third for driving accuracy and first and sixth for greens over the last two events certainly gives hope that perhaps his last win is not behind him. Either way, he can certainly take his place in the higher echelons of this field.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

4 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

4 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

1 week ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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