Moving Day didn’t quite live up to its name today at the 3M Open, as the two most important golfers enter on Saturday – Michael Thompson is Richy Werenski – still holds the lead ahead of Sunday’s last round.
There has been some movement, however, particularly with guys like Charl Schwartzel, Max Homa, Cameron Tringale is Denny McCarthy, who organized excellent rounds to enter into legitimate contention in Twin Cities.
Who should you buy and sell tomorrow? Let’s analyze it, but first a brief note on Strokes Gained, which we will mention a little in this piece.
(Click here to jump to the analysis section.)
Explanations obtained by shots
Strokes Gained can offer golf bettors, DFS players and fans more details on how a golfer is really playing measuring each stroke in relation to the rest of the field.
Using the millions of data points it has, the TOUR calculates on average how many shots it takes to get the ball into the hole from any distance and situation. If a player beats the middle ones, he is gaining hits on the field.
Every situation in golf is different: Strokes Gained measures how players manage them in relation to the situation.
In this piece, we’ll touch on a variety of Strokes Gained metrics …
- Hits: off the pitch
- Acquired strokes: approach
- Hits achieved: around the green
- Acquired strokes: mass
- Strokes Gained: Ball-Striking (which is Off-the-Tee + Approach)
- Traits acquired: Tee-to-Green (which is Ball-Striking + Around-the-Green)
In general, hitting the ball and tee-to-green are more stable in the long run, and you can often find live betting benefits by identifying golfers who hit the ball well but don’t drop the put, which is more casual. Similarly, players with high SG: putting numbers can regress going forward.
More information on the Strokes obtained here.
3 golfers to buy in round 4 of 3M Open
Call me a masochist, but I’ll mention two guys I talked about after Thursday’s opening round: Tony Finau is Ryan Moore.
At this point, they are two of Strokes Gained’s top three golfers: Tee-to-Green for the entire week. The problem is that they have been fairly average with the short stick, which is why they have continuously had a couple of lead shots in the head for three days.
But man, if they had been able to put things together on the green, they could certainly have launched themselves and won this thing. Talent, form and course are definitely not a problem, especially for Finau, who has strangely lost a lot of hits off the pitch on Saturday. Regression to his usual game would have worked wonders; we’ll see if it happens.
Another interesting guy – more in DFS than in betting – is Matthias Schwab, a 25-year-old Austrian golfer who played college in Vanderbilt and is currently a member of the European Tour.
Schwab is there with Finau as the best this week in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, but unfortunately it was a big negative for the greens. To be honest, in his short career he was absolutely not a fan of the lights out, but it was not as disastrous as the results of this week would suggest.
More importantly, however, the rest of his game has been really damn good this week, especially for hitting the ball. If he is able to get something on the green, he could make a surprise on Sunday to win someone’s money in DraftKings showdown tournaments.
All in all, Finau and Moore are guys I’m looking at in terms of their chances of winning. Finau remains only two throws back and is the most talented golfer on the field; he is third in probability entering Sunday at +350 at DraftKings, which tomorrow will give a 30% increase on golf bets. This means that you can actually wager it at +455; approaching 5/1 is decidedly intriguing.
Meanwhile, Moore has four throws but at 28/1, which means you could bet him at just over 36/1.
[Bet now at DraftKings. CO, NJ, PA, IN and WV only.]
3 golfers to dissolve in 3M Open Round 4
These three boys – Denny McCarthy, Alex Noren is Matthew Wolff – are all golfers who have suffered most of their damage with the putter during the first three rounds, which is difficult to bet on moving forward.
Noren seems particularly ready to regress as he gained a stupid 4.04 hit with his short stick on Saturday – almost double the next highest score on the pitch. He was essentially a neutral ball shooter, which means that if that putter regresses, he probably won’t throw a 5-under again.
McCarthy and Wolff are among the best on the field this week in SG: Putting as well – their own with Werenski and Thompson, in fact. The problem with all these guys is that they’re actually all pretty good putters in general.
It’s a bit of an enigma with these guys: sure, their putting will certainly not regress to zero since they are positive almost every week, but it also means that they will have to remain incredibly good there given their other metrics. It will happen? Who knows … golf is random, and they have already continued it for three days.
It is difficult for me to purchase them, however, given this data. And in the case of leaders, it is really difficult to put them in DFS since the best are usually dominated and play more conservatively, which leads to a lower score. I guess I’m going down the tee-to-green ship this week.
Okay, just talk. Here are the figures for all Saturday players.
Hits obtained for each player in Round 3
(Note: the chart below is interactive. Click / hover to view the data.)
