The swing season continues this week in Las Vegas at TPC Summerlin for the Shriners Children’s Open, a swing season mainstay on the PGA Tour. We have a significant upgrade in field quality this week compared to last week’s Sanderson Farms, with 12 of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings teeing it up this week in the desert.
TPC Summerlin has been one of the easiest courses on Tour for the past few seasons. Played at altitude, the 7,255-yard Par-71 has three Par-5s that are reachable by the entire field. It also features enormous Bentgrass greens that are relatively flat, so this has been a putting contest, with the winning score pushing into the low -20s. For more course details, check out Ron’s course preview, but here’s an important tidbit:
Similar to the past two weeks, Driving Accuracy on these fairways is lower than the Tour average, but GIR% is among the highest. The Bermuda rough is only two and a quarter inches and causes little trouble for players with wayward tee shots. The bentgrass greens are the sixth-largest on Tour and rank as one of the easiest putting surfaces. Looking back at the course history over the last five years, it is the sixth-easiest course on Tour at 1.98 strokes under par.
As mentioned above, TPC Summerlin is the definition of a “birdie-fest”, and this is despite the fact there are only three Par 5s to score on. Two years ago, this event set the PGA record for the lowest cut-line in PGA Tour history at 7-under par. In fact, this course is so undemanding that over the past five years, it has ranked in the top-three easiest courses for Good Drive%, GIR%, and BoB%. It is also the easiest course on Tour for BoB% from the rough and Birdie to Bogey ratio. It contains the lowest-scoring Par 4s on Tour as well as the furthest average Driving Distance.
We have a short course that’ll put scoring wedges in the hands of the world’s best players. Your golfers need to go low, and they need to go low on Thursday and Friday if they’re going to see the weekend here.
There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game, and my goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting this week. When pricing out finishing position bets, I’ll often lean towards BetMGM even if there’s a better number elsewhere because of MGM’s advantageous dead-heat rules. Know the rules of the books that you’re betting on, folks!
Please take advantage of the Discord feature and community. It’s the best way to get up-to-the-minute lines and advice, and if you need help getting started, please reach out. That’s where my full card will be posted, along with any live in-tournament bets. Betting markets are fluid, but I’ll note the best number available at the time of this writing.
I’m not sure how I’ll be allocating funds for the swing season yet, but for now, I’m concentrating on outright selections in this space.
*Betting lines are accurate at the time of publication.
f684b2f3d4218ee06dad551b3bb2074bNoonan’s Shriners Betting Targets
Max Homa
The hits keep coming for Max Homa. After wrapping up his best year on Tour with a T5 finish in Atlanta at the Tour Championship, Homa kicked off the swing season by successfully defending his title at the Fortinet Championship. Then, he carried that momentum with him to Quail Hollow, going 4-0 in Presidents Cup matchups while being one of Team USA’s emotional leaders throughout the four-day event.
He has no weaknesses tee-to-green and is among the best putters in this field, ranking in the top 10 in birdies, SG:P, and BoB% over his past 50 rounds. And look, he’s one of ‘my guys,’ so I don’t need much convincing when he’s a viable option in a given week.
To Win: 18/1 BetMGM
Cameron Davis
I find similarities to last month’s Fortinet Championship, hence the Homa pick, and I’m going back to the well on Cameron Davis, one of my favorite plays heading into this swing season. Despite the lack of Sunday afternoon hardware last season, it’s hard to argue against the 2021/2022 season being the best to date for the 27-year-old Aussie. He doubled the previous year’s top-20 finishes with eight and made it to the BMW Championship, the second round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, finishing just outside the final Tour Championship field of 30. Leading up to the BMW, Davis finished T16 or better in five straight starts, spearheaded by exceptional tee-to-green performances every week.
He didn’t show up like I was expecting him to at the Fortinet, but his performance for the International Team at the Presidents Cup was encouraging, and his game fits this bomb and gauge birdie fest setup due to his exceptional wedge game and ability to go low.
To Win: 40/1 DraftKings
Tom Hoge
Backing a noted casino connoisseur at an event in Las Vegas might be a bad idea, but Tom Hoge loves desert golf, and his game is a tremendous fit for what it takes to win at TPC Summerlin. He’s made the cut here in five of six stops, including a T24 in 2021 and a T14 here last season. His approach game is exceptional from the 100-150 yard range, which is where he’ll find himself often this week. Although his long-term putting stats aren’t great, he’s shown that he can contend when going low is the name of the game, like he did last year at the American Express and Pebble Beach. I jumped on him early on Monday at 60/1.
To Win: 60/1 DraftKings
FanDuel Finishing Position Parlay
Aaron Wise and Tom Kim- T40 (+135) FanDuel
Unlike most other books I’m familiar with, FanDuel allows you to parlay finishing position bets. Now, the very premise of the bet is flawed because the expected value is negative since players are competing for the same finishing positions. If the bet is two T40s like this one, when one leg of your parlay finishes above the threshold, there’s now one less spot available in that range for the other leg(s) to also come in. I know the math is terrible. Spare me. But let’s be honest. Some bets are just fun, and these are fun for me.
I’ll likely add at least one of these two to my betting card, but possibly as live looks instead of pretournament. Both are posted around 22/1 in most spots, and I’m hopeful that the chances of a late tee time on Thursday might drop their number if someone goes out low in the first round’s early wave. You can add Max Homa as a third leg to this and make it +255. Live a little, folks.
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Featured Image – Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images