By Chris Dell
UPDATE: I will be adding a cumulative "buy/fade" net ratings list below. This is meant to showcase our strongest buys and fades from each of our three stat categories - strokes gained off the tee, strokes gained approach and strokes gained tee to green. I also know that most books have different matchup options, so instead of just copying my picks, which I'm using from the options at betonline.ag, you might be able to shop around and fit direct matchups between buys and fades as much as possible. The more head-to-head direct matchups between buys and fades, and not just one or the other, is your best way to go. Without further adieu, let's get to our strokes gained net ratings below. I am not going to list the buys/fades separately in each category just to save time and space for this article here specifically. What you will see below is the ranked list of strongest buys, followed by the ranked list of strongest fades. At the bottom will be recommended head-to-head matchup plays that I made bets on through betonline.ag.
So far in using this strokes gained net formula at the TOUR Championship we are now 13-4-1, good for +9 units in just two days. We came into this weekend +33.5 units with a 59-26-7.5 record, and I will be tracking all of our bets on this Google Spreadsheet here. Remember, we are using new data from each day/round to determine our best buys and fades for the following round. Because putting is so fluid and varies back and forth to the mean, using this data point helps us find the best edges and target golfers who are either A - playing well but have been unlucky putting (buy candidates) or B -playing poorly but have been saved by lucky putting (fades candidates). Whenever I find two buy candidates facing each other or vice versa, I will pass. When one of our buy is offered as a dog, I will often split my unit in half between the money line and the +1/2 spread. I try to avoid the -1/2 spreads for favorites as much as possible, and I will typically only go there if it means lowering the juice from a -200 money line. You'll also notice on betonline.ag, and probably most online books for that matter, will often offer a ton of different matchup options for the most "popular" golfers such as Rahm, DJ, JT, Xander, etc. This does give us added exposure if one of these golfers makes our buy or fade list, but I will still take whichever matchup(s) give us an edge.
I made one exception below for our best bets as you will see, which was taking Scheffler over Im in a head to head matchup. Although both golfers make our buy list, Scheffler's strokes gained net rating (+9.10) is nearly triple that of Im (+3.83). Since there was more than five points separating them, I thought it was enough to show a clear statistical edge for Scheffler based on his strokes gained data from Round 3:
Strongest BUYS For Round 4:
- Cameron Champ (+20.10)
- Patrick Reed (+10.81)
- Scottie Scheffler (+9.10)
- John Rahm (+6.87)
- Victor Hovland (+5.67)
- Joaquin Niemann (+5.33)
- Sungjae Im (+3.83)
- Collin Morikawa (+3.12)
- Kevin Na (-13.44)
- Mackenzie Hughes (-13.04)
- Tony Finau (-11.86)
- Kevin Kisner (-11.38)
- Xander Schauffele (-10.17)
- Lanto Griffin (-8.03)
- Ryan Palmer (-3.89)
- *Cameron Champ > Kevin Na
- *Joaquin Niemann > Kevin Kisner
- *John Rahm > Xander Schauffele
- John Rahm > Justin Thomas
- John Rahm > Dustin Johnson
- Dustin Johnson > Xander Schauffele
- Justin Thomas > Xander Schauffele
- Tyrell Hatton > Tony Finau
- Webb Simpson > Tony Finau
- Patrick Reed > Mackenzie Hughes
- Patrick Reed > Bryson DeChambeau
- Victor Hovland > Bryson DeChambeau
- Abraham Ancer > Lanto Griffin
- Billy Horschel > Marc Leishman
- Cameron Smith > Ryan Palmer
- Scottie Scheffler > Sungjae Im