This week the golf world heads to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic games. For the men’s golf tournament, 60 players will be competing in a no-cut event at Kasumigaseki Country Club (par 71, 7,447 yards) in Kawagoe, Saitama, Japan. This venue is one of the most illustrious tracks in all of Japan, and in 2014 Tom and Logan Fazio made renovations to the course in preparation for the Olympics. Specifically, they altered the greens to bentgrass and added some fairway bunkers to this par 71. Every week I use Alex Baker’s Unofficial World Golf Rankings to identify mispriced options in both the PGA DFS and golf betting market. Below are three expert PGA picks for this week and Vegas betting odds for the Tokyo Olympic games.
Expert PGA Picks & Vegas Odds: The Tokyo Olympics
Much like the standard rankings in golf, Awesemo has produced the Unofficial World Golf Rankings. We can use these in PGA DFS lineups or to find an edge on our golf betting picks. At Awesemo, the metric is the number of strokes above or below how an average field in a PGA tournament performed. How to weigh these data points is essential, as people love to talk about short form versus long form. Only PGA Tour tournaments are considered right now, and golfers need a minimum of 20 rounds played. Players are not rewarded by more or fewer rounds in the time period.
Rory McIlroy (+1200, William Hill)
In the top tier McIlroy is the best value in the betting market this week. His last start came at the British Open, where he carded a 46th-place finish. While this was disappointing, McIlroy did sink 17 birdies at Royal St. George’s that week, which was only 2 back of winner Collin Morikawa. What kept McIlroy from contending at this major was his inability to stay out of trouble, with him tallying 15 bogeys. Clearly his game is not far off, and if McIlroy can avoid the crooked numbers on his scorecard this week, he should be in the hunt for a gold medal.
In his last 10 starts at par 71s McIlroy has finished in the top 10 on five occasions, including a win at Quail Hollow for the Wells Fargo Championship in May. Just like Kasumigaseki Country Club, Quail Hollow is a track that Fazio has made major renovations to over the years, and McIlroy’s most recent victory there was the third win of his career at the par 71.
Paul Casey (+1400, BetRivers)
Casey in the midst of an excellent season and is worth backing at this price. He has six top-10s to his name this year and ranks second in strokes gained on approach and seventh in strokes gained tee to green.
Predictably, Casey’s flat stick has been his downfall, ranking 133rd in strokes gained putting, but there is room for optimism with him returning to bentgrass this week in Japan. By a wide margin Casey has statistically rolled it best on this green type throughout his career, and two of his three PGA wins have come at par 71s.
SI Woo Kim (+5000, BetMGM)
This week Kim will be playing for much more than a paycheck. As a South Korean native, he is obligated to serve a 20-month military sentence for his country before he turns 28, and one of the only ways to be exempt from this duty is to win an Olympic medal. This is a very serious matter, and Kim withdrew from the British Open two weeks ago to solely focus on the Olympics. He has not had the best season, but Kim is capable of winning any given week. He has three PGA victories on his career resume, most recently with a victory at the American Express this past January.
His best putting results come on bentgrass, and Kim has produced positive strokes tee to green and on approach in three of his past four starts on Tour. He ranks 10 spots higher in Awesemo’s Unofficial World Golf Rankings than his standard ranking. All things considered, these odds are far too long for a highly motivated Kim.
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