Win Big Bills At Southern Hills
PGA Championship | Stats, Trends & Things You Don't Need To Know
Southern Hills
Par 70 - 7,556 Yards
Stimp: 10
Fun Fact: Phil Mickelson is not in the field to defend his title this week. The last time that a defending men’s Major Champion, who is otherwise healthy, hasn’t defended his title was Ben Hogan in 1954. (Per Justin Ray)
Majors Are Just Different
Let’s start the week the way we always do, the best players in Major Championships dating back to 2008:
Volatility at The PGA
I’ve been tracking fantasy and betting performances for years and it’s becoming clear that there’s just something volatile about the PGA Championship. Maybe it’s the large, deep field and rotating courses.
Since 2018, the PGA Championship has not been kind to golfers priced over $10,000 on DraftKings. Those golfers have gained, on average, 23.76 fantasy points to the field. While that sounds good, it’s the worst of the four Major Championship.
There is some hope — golfers priced in the $8,000 and $7,000 ranges have done significantly better than other Majors, gaining 14.08 and 7.24 fantasy points respectively. Both tiers are the best of all four Majors.
Scottie Is A Handful!
There are generally going to be (2) paths to success this week. 1) Hit a ton of greens and be elite on approach or 2) get up-and-down constantly. Well, Scottie has both of those covered.
Over the last 40 rounds, he’s 5th in Strokes Gained Approach and 3rd around-the-greens.
“But this is a Major Championship, Rick — it’s different.” Yeah, Scottie’s last seven Major Championships:
Win, 8th, T7, T8, T18, T19, T4
Win Without Winning
There is one inherent flaw in betting on golf — the most popular form of betting (outrights) allows for only ONE GOLFER to find paydirt. It’s maddening. Which is why I’ve grown so excited about Jock MKT — stock market DFS. You buy shares of golfers at all different prices and you only need them to beat their expectation to make you money. For example, here are the best players in the market over the last ten starts … hardly a win in sight:
If you haven’t signed up for Jock MKT yet, use the code “RICK” for a deposit bonus and also check out the sweet giveaways for this week.
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Can You Hear Me, Now?
Will Zalatoris must be a Verizon guy. Including the 4.22 strokes he lost putting last week at the AT&T Byron Nelson, that makes (5) of the worst 8 putting weeks of his career coming at AT&T sponsored events!
There’s really no point to this, but don’t sweat the MC from last week.
Fast Starters
There are some guys in this field who seem to always start strong in Major Championships (finishing them is a different story). Here are the best R1 golfers in Majors since 2018 (min 8 rounds):
Koepka +3.5
Fowler +3.25
Oosthuizen +3.00
Schauffele & Rose +2.77
Scheffler +2.63
Xander Schaueffele has only lost strokes to the field 3x in 19 career Major Opening Rounds. He’s gained 4+ in an opening round on 7 occasions.
Scottie Scheffler, in nine tries, has never lost strokes to the field in the opening round of a Major.
If you think those trends continue, you could put them together on PrizePicks for a 3x return on your money.
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Tap Into The Ceiling
If you’re trying to win $1,000,000 this week, you’re going to need to find golfers with a massive ceiling. Let’s set the ceiling at 5+ strokes gained in a single round. That’s something that has only occurred in 6.5% of Major Championship rounds dating back to 2008. However, some guys tap into it much more often than others.
Here are the highest ceiling players in the field, broken down by the percentage of rounds they gain X strokes to the field.
Good Luck
Rick