The first week of the FedEx Cup is in the books, and now we are down to 70 players vying for the trophy. Dustin Johnson went full video-game style last week and posted -30 and crushed the PGA betting markets; and we saw the entire field tear apart TPC Boston. This week, we head to Chicago and more specifically to Olympia Fields for the second leg of the playoffs. Since this is 70 players, it is a non-cut. After this week, only 30 players will head to Atlanta to determine who is the 2020 FedEx Cup champion.
Olympia Fields has hosted a few U.S. Opens, including one in 2003, but the majority of the field hasn’t played the course in competition. The 2015 U.S. Amateur Tournament, won by Bryson DeChambeau, took place here, but even that was several years ago. This will make course history basically obsolete, and we will have to look at other metrics to find some outright winners.
Make sure to check out the DFS Above the cut Article for a full breakdown of Olympia Fields, but the quick notes are the following: Par 70 measuring out around 7,300 yards and poa greens. The course has water hazards and a bunch of par 4’s that are north of 450 yards. Still, even with these hazards, I expect some low rounds to be out there.
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PGA Betting: Futures/Outrights Winners
Rory McIlroy: 19-1 (DraftKings)
In picking outrights, it is not just about who you think is going to win, but more importantly, evaluating them against their price. We talked about this last week when we backed Dustin Johnson over guys like Justin Thomas and McIlroy and that was due to him sitting at 22-1 while the favorites were basically half the price. Now, that doesn’t mean the longer odds are going to win, but when they do the payoff is significantly better, and your break-even on that bet gives you more runway than one of the leaders.
This is a similar situation with McIlroy, as he sits at 19-1 this week on DraftKings. The game isn’t in great shape, and it was another disappointing 65th-place finish at the Northern Trust. Stats-wise, it wasn’t terrible with five strokes gained with his irons and ice cold putting that resulted in minus-6.5 on the greens. More surprising was a slight loss off the tee, which basically never happens for McIlroy.
I expect that to turn around immediately, and then we will see what he can do with the flat stick. The price is clearly McIlroy’s best asset this week, and 19-1 seems to still be somewhat widely available. For reference, sites have him sitting at 12-1 to win the U.S. Open and 9-1 to win the Masters, and that shows how the market has reacted to his poor form. Blindly back McIlroy outright at 19-1 in 70-man fields, and long term you will come out ahead.
Viktor Hovland: 45-1 (DraftKings)
Last week I talked a little about Hovland, who has had a complete reversal in his game, with the ball striking average and the putter on fire. This comes off the heels of a stretch where Hovland was the best ball striker on Tour, and if he could have gotten anything with the putter, he easily could have won multiple times.
At the Northern Trust, the same thing continued with another five strokes gained putting for Hovland, while the ball striking was once again middle of the road. He still came in 18th, and his game is in decent shape, but it feels like he’s wasting some of these putting performances. This course should fit his game, and I still believe it is just a matter of time before the ball striking and some of these hot putting performances come together. With a lot of players’ PGA betting outright prices down due to the 70-man non-cut, Hovland stands out at 45-1. I will take him as a flier to get into contention this week.
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Top 10
Cameron Champ: +700 (FanDuel)
This field is loaded with big-time players, but we also have to remember it is just 70 players teeing it up. We do not have a cut to worry about, and obviously it is much easier for players to get in the mix playing against half of a normal-sized field. This impacts the prices we get in the betting market, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some quality payouts available if we find the right spots.
We know that Champ has the firepower to deal with any layout, and these par 4’s or long par 5’s shouldn’t cause any problems because of the distance. Now, Champ clearly needs to get the rest of his game back in form, but it was just a few weeks ago where he finished 10th at a major thanks to a well-rounded skill set led by his outrageously good driving. This course should fit his blueprint of distance off the tee cutting down some of these longer par 4’s. If Champ can once again gain strokes putting, I feel comfortable backing him to get in the mix, and the 7-1 price for a top 10 in a field of 70 is very appealing.
PGA Betting Matchup
Tiger Woods (+125) vs Scottie Scheffler (FanDuel)
We head to the matchup market here as there are a bunch of individual matchups to breakdown if you are looking for less volatile wagers. Another reason to bet a matchup is you are looking to short a specific player, and you can take several head-to-heads with him hoping he doesn’t find the weekend.
The PGA betting matchup I’m targeting here is one that made me do a double take, as Tiger Woods is a decent sized dog to Scottie Scheffler. When you dig into recent form, it is easy to see why this is the case, but it still seems like an overreaction.
Tiger needs to fix his putter, as he has lost in every event he has played post restart. The tee-to-green game is solid enough, and he gained moderately both off the tee and with the irons last week at The Northern Trust. A change of surface on the greens can only help, and I trust that part of his game to come around even if it is not a huge asset right now. Add in that Tiger has to put together some magic to make East Lake, and he needs to bring his A-game to extend the season.
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On the other side we have Scheffler, who is joining Harris English in their plan of dominating August golf. Scheffler has been on fire since a missed cut at Workday and comes into this week off a fourth-place finish at the PGA Championship and another fourth last week. His game is firing on all cylinders. as he gained in all categories, including with the putter, which is far from a given for him. There’s nothing to really knock here except that the around-the-green game is running at a wildly unsustainable rate and will regress sooner rather than later.
The big issue for Scheffler is that this recent form has bumped up the price in DFS and across betting markets. To get this matchup at +125 for Tiger is enough for me to fire even when Scheffler’s stock is sky high and Tiger isn’t playing his best. I view this as a classic overreaction to some big-time form, and with a high-variance player like Scheffler, it’s a nice spot to take positions against him in the head-to-head PGA betting market.
PGA Betting Quick Notes
If you are unfamiliar with PGA betting or are just looking to dive into it for the first time, make sure to try and understand each type of bet and how to properly allocate bankroll for each. When choosing a few outrights at long odds, we are hoping to hit one of those a year as it would pay for the entire season and then some. Think of that as the large-field GPPs where you hope to tread water and then rely on a big hit once every year or so to do major damage.
On the other side, we have head-to-head bets, which, naturally, are more like cash games or head-to-heads in DFS where you aren’t going to win a huge multiplier of your money, but also should be hitting them at a reasonable clip. Getting a clearer picture of what each bet is like is important as this is a long season with a lot of opportunities to take some stabs at these PGA odds.
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Looking for more PGA DFS picks content? We’ve got loads of articles, data, cheatsheets and more on the Awesemo PGA home page, just click HERE.
