RADIO
Had I known we were laying +2500 on Billy Horschel to be Aaron Rai's personal hype guy, we would have bet on somebody else. But in all seriousness, Horschel truly seems to represent the camaraderie these professional golfers have with each other, for the most part. It can be tough to win on tour, but with Billy by your side and the guy leading by four strokes making a quadruple bogey AND a four putt on two of his final nine holes, winning finally became easy for Rai at a wet, wonderful Wyndham Championship.
If we ignore the Open Championship, Rai entered the week with five consecutive top-20s and three consecutive top-10s, which was the kind of form that we should not have ignored on the outright side of things. He is one of the hardest workers on tour and was very deserving of a win on US Soil after a several Sunday's where he seemed incapable of handling the leaderboard pressure. Just like Xander, the guys who frequent the top of the board but struggle to get across the line, typically tend to do so at some point, with the likes of Morikawa, Fleetwood and Lowry still trying to prove that point.
For those of you who are new to the article, Breaking $100 is a comprehensive PGA betting guide on how to squeeze every cent out of your $100. We will be breaking $100 into a betting card of outrights, first-round leaders, placings, and a "farewell fiver," all in an attempt to turn a structured betting strategy into a profitable and entertaining Sunday sweat. $100 is easily divided or multiplied, so please only bet amounts that you can afford to lose. You can find me on X an unhealthy amount of the time @TheModelManiac if you have any questions, compliments, or insults for me.
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Recap of last Week
Sometimes you just have a weird feeling about a week and with the weather resulting in the remnants of R2, R3 and R4 all taking place on Sunday, this was no typical week. As usual, we took our $10 in the outright market and handed it to the golfing gods as our weekly penance for great fortunes in the placement market, which treated us poorly last week too. Cameron Young (T10) was in contention to win the tournament with R4 still ahead of him, ejecting from contention within the first five holes of the final round and never sniffing the top 20 thereafter. Sungjae was on the bubble of a top-20 with 1 round to go and also shot over par in his final round.
Davis, Bhatia, Kitayama and Kim all missed the cut, which can happen with weather like we had. Si Woo missing the cut at an event he has thrived at in the past was the difference between profit and loss for us this week, although we never want to have our weekly success hinge on a single golfer. Horschel managed to cheerlead Rai to a T10 and T40 for us, while also sneaking into the top-10 himself after getting stuck in neutral in R3. Eric Cole went nuclear on the final 9 and snuck back into the top 10 for us to limit our damages in case any of you were wondering if I was just going to harp on about all the bad breaks. We are focusing on the good ones too, with Billy and Cole both coming through for us when those bets looked dead as well.
- Outrights -$10
- Placements -$15.52
- Farewell Fiver -$5
- Total -$30.52
Below is where we stand for single stake bets on the season. We know that our strength is in the placement market, which is doing an almighty job of holding up the lifeless corpse of outright betting... were this not something people wanted to bet, we likely don't even bet outrights as it has never been a profitable market for me since doing this. Placements, though, are my jam!!! This is why it is important to track your bets!
- Outrights -$199
- Each ways -$24
- Placements +232
- Head to heads -$22
- Total -$-14
Outrights $10
Ludvig Aberg $4.23 +2000
Don't over think it, Byron. When your model has Ludvig Aberg as the third-ranked golfer, but there are four other golfers priced well ahead of him, you make the bet. The winner of the RSM thrives on these shorter venues. Aberg has a 2nd at the Masters, a T5 at the Memorial and a T4 at the Scottish Open (which he should have won) three starts ago and as has been the case all year, he will once again be playing TPC Southwind for the first time. He is the fifth-best approach player from 150-200 yards has gained the 2nd most strokes OTT on courses shorter than 7,200 yards.
If we can just have the Sunday scaries take a back seat this week, we have a top-3 golfer in this field looking to stamp his name on his second tournament win in less than 12 months. In his last half-dozen final rounds he has lost an average of -2.07 strokes to the field, with finishes of T10, T5, T12, T27, T4 and T18 in that stretch despite the Sunday slides. At 20-1 the talent is just too good to pass up with hopes that Rai rising above his Sunday scaries gives Aberg the confidence to seal the deal for us. Heck, maybe we can have Aberg paired up with Horschel in the final round?
Sahith Theegala $1.70 +5000
Theegala has a pair of 13th-place finishes in his two starts at TPC Southwind so far. He also has three top-10 finishes on courses that possess similar characteristics to that of Southwind. A T9 at the PLAYERS, a runner up at Harbour Town (RBC Heritage) and then a T6 at a watery 3M Open. His comfort around these kind of venues with tons of water and forced layups is a lot better than you would think when watching him play in a way that makes you wonder when the single strand of golden glue holding his round together is going to snap. It hardly ever does. We have bet Sahith religiously this year, with a 50-1 giving us that opportunity again as the regular season winds down over the next three of playoff golf.
Aaron Rai $1.70 +5000
On my show last night, one of my regular chat participants claimed that Rai is going back-to-back this week. I tend to agree. Especially when thinking that Rai is the only golfer in the top-100 that wears two gloves and a guy called Lucas Glover went back-to-back at the very same tournaments last year. Now, we are not just doing this to fulfill the "Glove of Love" prophecy, but also because Sedgefield CC is a decent warm up for TPC Southwind with is narrow fairways and tricky approach shots out the thick Bermuda rough.
Rai thrives out the rough from 150+, ranking inside the top-20 in both SG and good shot rates. He also gains the most strokes on approach from the 150-200 yard bucket, which we will see 7% more than tour average with 44% of shots coming from that range this week. Despite being so solid out the rough, Rai is hardly ever in it, leading this field in accuracy off the tee while gaining the 11th most strokes OTT on courses shorter than 7,200 yards. He checks both the course fit and the recent form boxes this week, with both his gloves looking to get in touch with another trophy on Sunday.
Wyndham Clark $1.31 +6500
A lot of people gave Clark a tough time for earning his spot on the Olympic Golf team for USA. I was one of those people after his abysmal performance in R1, ending the day a shot or two out of DFL. However, over the final three rounds of the Olympics, nobody gained more strokes than Clark, who roared up the leaderboard with the 10 strokes he gained on the field in R3 and R4. If we can avoid losing -5.1 strokes in R1, Clark has the ceiling game to win any event on any course, as validated by his three wins at Quail Hollow, Pebble Beach and LACC.
He also has a runner up finish to Scheffler at this year's PLAYERS, with a T3 at Harbour Town another feather in his cap that can somehow dominate shorter venues, which we will be expecting from him again this week after flashing some solid form in his last four starts, finishing T9, T10, MC and T14 in his last few starts. He is knocking on the door of another win, but the knocks are soft enough to warrant a disrespectful +6500 price tag for the three-time winner on Tour who just needs to string together four good rounds now.
Byeong Hun An $1.06 +8000
Byeong Hun An has five top-10 finishes on the year, with his playoff loss hurting us and him early in the year at the Sony Open, another short, positional venue. An is a volatile player, with his results ranging from playoff loses to 67th place at Harbour Town the week after the Masters. Having gained the seventh most median strokes this year, An is surprisingly consistent when removing his absolute worst events. At 80-1 he has the ball striking (18th) qualities to pair up well with a putter that tends to show up sporadically since moving to the broomstick. A volatile putter is more appealing on an outright ticket than a consistent putter slightly above average all the time, never giving his Tee-To-Green skillset any boost to gain those extra strokes needed to win an event. An was a four-foot putt away from victory in Hawaii, with Memphis providing him another opportunity to put a redemptive W on his PGA Tour resume heading into the off season.
Placings ($85)
These are placement bets for the week, with some of them finding themselves on our outright card too.
These are the numbers we will be using to determine if we have an actual edge on these bets.
The Farewell Fiver ($5)
We are not going to be betting on a bunch of two-ball matchups for this week's farewell fiver, but instead we will be going with a few First Round Leaders that we like.
- Justin Thomas $2 +4000
- Patrick Cantlay $3 +3000
Good luck this week, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!
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