TPC River Highlands

DB's Big Balls Betting Card & the 10 Key Stats can be found HERE!

Golf is a funny little game. DFS & betting on golf, even funnier. When the leaders were making the turn for the back 9 at Torrey, it looked like we were poised for an all-timer. You had Rory, Henley, Oost, Brooks, Rahm, Bryson, Morikawa, Scheffler, Casey, Hughes all at one point either tied for the lead or within 1. As Bryson stood on the #11 tee box, he held the lead all to himself at 5 under, and hadn't bogeyed a hole at the US Open in almost 2 full rounds! With a mere 8 holes to go in the championship, you were an IDIOT if you didn't play the defending US Open champ right?? Well, the joke was on you. After going 30 straight holes without a bogey, he proceeded to play the last 8 holes of the Open at 8 over par & finish outside the top 25. Only an IDIOT would have played Bryson at Torrey Pines right? It was a beautiful illustration of just when you think you have this game figured out, that's probably when it's about to kick you in the nuts the hardest. It was also a great example of both upward & downward variance, & the incredible role luck can play on a day-by-day, week-by-week, shot-by-shot basis. Rahm possibly (definitely) hit his tee shot on 9 OB, but because of very questionable USGA rules, it was a free drop. So instead of having to re-tee & probably make bogey at best, he goes on to make birdie which was the difference between winning & losing. Anyways, TPC River Highlands actually has a fairly unique skill set as compared to the last 3 events. As you'll see below, Total Driving is the name of the game this week, but I want to take a moment to remind everyone what exactly that means. Total Driving is the combination of BOTH length and accuracy, ideally, you have both, but if your really good at one & not so great at the other you can still be considered a 'good' total driver of the golf ball. Take our friend Abe Ancer, for the last calendar year he's averaged about 294 yards off the tee, which believe it or not is slightly below the tour average so he's technically 'short'. But because he hits such a high number of fairways (68%) he's actually one of the better total drivers in the field. If you check his strokes gained page, you'll see that he's gained strokes off the tee most weeks, & over the last 50 rounds ranks 8th in the field OTT. I think people generally make the mistake of assuming that you have to be a bomber to be a good total driver, and that's simply not the case. 

The weather looks pretty good Thursday & Friday, but the wind gets quite nasty on Saturday & Sunday. The scoring at River Highlands is very dependant on the wind. So for the 1st 2 days, the scoring should be fairly low, but on the weekend the scoring will be difficult to very difficult. 

(Image courtesy of DataGolf) So like we discussed above, accuracy off the tee and approach play are the two most predictive metrics at River Highlands. Because it's such a short course, and generally has longer rough, this would be another 'less than driver' course and is reflected in the statistics. At the Travelers, the field has historically hit the fairways at a 66.7% clip which is over a 10% increase from a normal tour stop. 

Leh Go!

MATCHUP 1

Harry vs. Hoff

English -119 vs. Hoff +102

Some nice DFS value on Ole Harry as he's $400 cheaper on DK yet the H2H fav. You saw the week before at Palmetto where he kind of rediscovered his game, gaining strokes across the board for the 1st time since his win at the TOC. He continued that form right into the US Open with a VERY sneaky solo 3rd place finish. While not very long off the tee he's a good total driver of the ball and has gained strokes on approach in 3 straight, ARG in 5 straight, & a bunch of strokes putting in 4 of the last 5 events. He'll certainly be popular this week because DK simply made him too cheap. The Hoff, after a ridiculous run of great ball striking, ran into a bit of a wall last week. It was his lowest total off the tee since the Players, & worst approach totals in all of 2021. He was the highest owned player in the high stakes events last week, so I'm willing to give him a pass & go back to the well. He also has sneaky course history at River Highlands despite only putting well once. 

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MATCHUP 2

Finau vs. Streelman

 Finau -107 vs. Streelman -110

My oh my what a difference a week makes. Last week the sportsbooks had Finau as a H2H fav over Spieth, Cantlay, Reed, JT, Koepka, Morikawa, Rory, Scheffler, Hatton, & Zalatoris. This week he finds himself the H2H underdog against Streelman, Ancer, AND Harman. One would have to assume the vast majority of the book's massive price adjustments is Finau is going from probably his #1 best course history stop to one of his bottom history spots. He's played the Travelers every year he's been on tour sans the week after his 1st top 5 finish in a major in 2018...so he must like the course. He's been above field average in GIR's hit every year except 2019, and even last year he hit 81% of his greens in reg & somehow missed the cut. Big price increase this week for Streelman as he goes from  $7100 last week to $9400 this week. He'll certainly be popular with the combo of good course history, and pretty good recent form. Since the RBC he's gained at least 4.7 strokes tee to green in 5 of his last 7 starts. 

MATCHUP 3

DeChambeau vs. Reed

DeChambeau -104 vs. Reed -112

I'll be honest, this H2H line was a real head-scratcher. 1st & foremost, big DFS value on Reed since he's $1100 cheaper than Bryson but an ever so slight H2H favorite. This despite the fact that Bryson has finished in the top 10 three years running at River Highlands while Reed's high watermark in that same period is a 24th. There's no doubt Reed has been building some momentum recently, having his best approach rounds the last 2 weeks, has gained strokes around the green in 8 straight, & gained strokes putting in 11 of 13 events this year. When Reed is at his best, he's finding fairways off the tee, and recently he's been above field average in 5 straight events. He even hit 60.7% last week at Torrey which is pretty impressive. Say what you want about Bryson, but he was really 2 bad shots away from being right there at the end last week. He gained 5.9 strokes off the tee, 2 on approach, 5.2 putting...he just lost 7.1 strokes around the green. Now some of that can be chalked up to his DGAF quad bogey on 16, but still not great. All in all the end results have been pretty poor since The Players, but he's still #1 in the field in DK points scored and once he puts it all together in one event he's going to win by 5-7 strokes. 

Other interesting lines:DeChambeau -110 vs. Casey -106Cantlay -111 vs. Casey -105Harman -113 vs. Scheffler -103Ancer -137 vs. Niemann +117Bradley -120 vs. Smith +103Griffin -111 vs. Cink -105Grillo -157 vs. Redman +134HV3 -115 vs. Steele -102Smith -130 vs. Watson +111 

*Remember that we've made a rule for the bomb that they have to be in the top 10 projected owned on Fantasy National.Stats about our boy this week: 

• He's played here 4 times, and has been above field average in GIR's just once

• He's been at or below field average in driving accuracy every event this year except 2

• He's lost strokes around the green in 4 of his last 5 events

• He's lost strokes on approach shots in 3 of his last 6 events

• He's gained no more than 4 strokes T2G just once in his last 8 events

• Given his DFS price & ownership projections, he pretty much has to finish in the top 7-8 to return you any value

• He loses strokes putting against his baseline on bent grass greens

• He loses strokes against his baseline on less than driver courses

• He's a H2H underdog to 4 guys that are cheaper than him

• I'm 99% sure that if he wasn't the defending champ he would not be playing this week

• I've heard about some negative strokes gained home life things going on

At 16.1% actual lineup generated % on Fantasy National (9th highest) DJ you're the Chalk Bomb! 

"Pontificate with Pat"

Random thoughts from Pat

I'm traveling today so I thought I would give you folks some of my travel pontificate thoughts this week. First off, I hate flying. Absolutely can't stand it and this is my first time doing it in the Covid era. Now I hate it even more. There are a lot of stupid Covid rules. First off though, who the F gets to use that fast TSA line? They don't give you any parameters or anything. I was in a hurry today and tried to use the line because there was NOTHING telling me I couldn't. They really didn't find it funny when I showed them an old Universal Studios Fast Pass that was in my iPhone wallet. Sent me straight to the back of the ordinary people line. 

When did they stop offering peanuts on flights? I mean, what yahoo sat up in a corporate office somewhere and said "You want us to serve individually wrapped peanuts to our customers? DURING COVID! ARE YOU INSANE! HELL NO WE AREN'T OFFERING THAT." As you can maybe tell already I don't really travel all that much. So maybe peanuts just aren't given out anymore. I don't know but I don't like it. 

Here's another thing. Why the hell do they board the plane from front to back? That is some stupid shit right there and completely unorganized. I really need someone to give me an explanation on this one because I just don't get it at all. 

People that just sit at gates waiting on their plane to board for hours annoys the hell out of me. Unless you're traveling with kids or old people your ass should be at a bar, eating some damn food in a restaurant, or perhaps shopping in the duty free shop for some shit you might not need. Traveling sucks as it is. Why make it suck more just sitting in an uncomfortable seat staring out a damn window.

Kids on planes. Let's discuss. Look people, I get it, you have to get somewhere and you can't just leave the baby at home. Could we have a special section on the plane though for babies and toddlers? It could be like an enclosed bubble with soundproof glass. Would that be so hard to build onto a plane? You could throw some little mini swing sets in there and the magazine Highlights at every seat. The world would be a better place. 

Ok last one. To the kid singing the theme music to Indiana Jones as we're trying to land in ATL today...What the F dude. This isn't some harrowing adventure we're supposed to be on here. It's not the damn Temple of Doom OK. Stop it. 

Alright, that’s all I got for this week. I hope you enjoy the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands this week. Stay well, good luck with your lineups and bets, and may your screens be green! Bome!