There is no ShotLink data for the North Course this week so there will be no Strokes Gained charts for betting or Showdown until after the conclusion of Round 3. Round 3 starts at 9:18 am ET.
The weather the no one could shut up about didn’t turn out to be as bad as we thought, but it was still a bit gusty and playing conditions weren’t easy. With only about a half dozen rounds in the 60s, and the rough proving to be as deep and challenging as promised, it feels like it’ll take some real mistake free golf to catch leader Sam Ryder, currently sitting three clear of Brendan Steele.
I guess we all pictured a golfer playing the kind of golf that would separate him from the pack while the field tried in vain to keep up. We just expected it to be the Spanish fella that went off at +450 and not the winner of the 2015 National Capital Open to Support Our Troops on the Canadian Tour. Golf’s funny that way, and to be fair, we did see Rahm flex it a little on the back nine, so I won’t be counting him out.
Weather Forecast – La Jolla, California
This is the point in the tournament where I start incorporating how the golfers are responding to the course in real time rather than just relying on my pre-tournament projections. It’s painfully obvious who’s playing well above their baseline, and most of the guys who played well below are packing up and heading up the coast but, there are a few of the top golfers I’d be looking at fading into the weekend. It just sucks that a couple of them are my damn outrights for the week.
Without SG stats from one of our courses, there’s a ton of guesswork which sucks, but I think my pre-tourney stuff was well planned and I can hopefully keep it rolling (4-0-1 on daily matchups & 2-0-1 on full tourney matchups that graded early).
Again, some of this is tough without full stats, but these are my the far ends of my list as far as “performance relative to expectation”. Note this is a comparison that uses my raw data and does not account for the betting prices or market sentiment. Lists are ranked with he highest values at the top.
Round 3 Betting Selections
1 unit bet on each of these, as the norm. Lots of books were handing an X vs Tony matchup that I should have seen coming, but did find a spot to fade Xander a bit using Hideki at a big ole price for 18 little holes & I will be turning heel against Benny An, trying to pull the “wins bets on AND against the same guy during the tourney.”
Hideki Matsuyama > Xander Schauffele +140 (Bookmaker)
Byeong Hun An > Ben Griffin +100 (BetOnline)
Outrights I don’t hate if you wanted to add something live: Tony Finau 16/1, Callum Tarren 100/1
Round 2 DraftKings DFS Showdown Selections
All one course now, and you’ve gotten to see everyone play it once. Ownership is always a bit tricky for showdown, but I think there will be a few guys (Rahm, Montgomery, Day) that will be nice guys to pivot off of for Friday. Hoping the people talk themselves out of Morikawa based on the broadcast showing a ton of his misses on the greens.
Core Plays
- Collin Morikawa $9,700
- Justin Rose $8,000
Upper Tier Plays
- Sungjae Im $9,200
- Si Woo Kim $9,000
Mid Range Plays
- Hideki Matsuyama $8,600
- Thomas Detry $7,700
- Wyndham Clark $7,800
Value Plays
- Seounhyeon Kim $7,100
- Dean Burmester $7,300
- Cam Champ $6,900
- Benny An $7,200
- Garrick Higgo $7,100
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