Flag Hunting: PGA Betting Picks - BMW Championship

After a white-knuckle finish in red-hot Memphis, Lucas Glover's playoff victory has fashioned a comeback story for the ages. Glover, who sat outside of the Top 100 in the FedEx Cup Standings just two weeks ago, now ranks fourth, and as things stand, is the biggest threat to topple the "Big Three" of Rahm, Scheffler, and McIlroy next week at Eastlake.

However, before the final invites to Atlanta are issued, one more hurdle must be overcome to officially set Eastlake's starting blocks. The BMW Championship has long been one of the most exciting events on the Tour calendar, and this year's site at Olympia Fields played host to one of its most thrilling recent finishes. Just three years ago, a 65-foot sidewinding putt on the iconic 18th green settled an epic battle between two titans of the game, and in 2023, the stars are back in Chicago to settle old scores.

One thing is for sure: the winner this week will have to conquer far more than just the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup Standings, as Olympia Fields could well provide the most grueling test of golf we've seen outside of the major championships. Get ready for one last bare-knuckle brawl before year-end celebrations are had in Atlanta - here's everything you need to know about Olympia Fields North and the 2023 BMW Championship!

The Golf Course

Olympia Fields CC (North) - Par 70; 7,366 yards

For the first time in nearly three years, the Windy City has a place on the center stage of the golfing world. Over the last 100 years, Olympia Fields has been the host of five Major Championships, a U.S. Amateur, and a U.S. Senior Open, but it is its recent role in the 2020 rendition of the BMW Championship that we’ll be focusing most closely on. As not only does the short gap in time provide us with plenty of crossover between the two fields, but the 2020 BMW is the only event in the history of this course for which we have strokes gained data.

For newer golf fans, here’s a quick refresher on the 2020 leaderboard:

• Jon Rahm (-4) - Winner via Birdie on First Playoff Hole
• Dustin Johnson (-4)
• Hideki Matsuyama (-2)
• Joaquin Niemann (-2)
• Tony Finau (-1)

And out of 70 players in that field, those five were the only ones to finish 72 holes in the red. The scoring average over the four days at Olympia Fields sat at 72.66 (+2.66 to par), which ranks as the 5th toughest venue played on the PGA Tour since 2015. Surpassed only by:

• Winged Foot (2020 U.S. Open) +4.45
• Oak Hill (2023 PGA Championship) +2.94
• Quail Hollow (2017 PGA Championship) +2.84
• Bethpage Black (2019 PGA Championship) +2.84

Olympia Fields in 2020 played harder than any iteration of Bay Hill, Torrey Pines, Augusta National, or Muirfield Village, and with its narrow fairways, thick rough, and heavily contoured greens, it's as close to a Major Championship test as anything we’ve seen in a regular Tour event.

As such, I’ll be looking extensively at a player’s proficiency in difficult scoring conditions - with particular emphasis on the likes of Winged Foot, Oak Hill, Bethpage (all recent Major Championship venues with similar setups and agronomy), as well as Muirfield Village (specifically the 2020 and 2023 iterations that played exorbitantly difficult).

This is a strong week for scoring stats like Bogey Avoidance and Scrambling, and like many Major Championships in recent years, Olympia Fields leans much more heavily into driving distance as opposed to accuracy.

At just 26 yards wide on average, Olympia Fields features the second narrowest fairways on the PGA Tour. 4+” bluegrass rough surrounds these tight ribbons of short grass - providing an effective penalty of 0.4 shots compared to a comparable drive in the fairway. These tight landing areas would initially point you in the direction of players with exceptional accuracy off-the-tee, however, Olympia Fields’ fairways are so narrow, that even the straightest drivers of the ball in this field will be missing an inordinate amount of fairways this week.

Fairways this narrow actually tend to favor players that are capable of bombing the ball off-the-tee in order to leave themselves a shorter club coming in out of the rough. We’ve seen similar formulas used at venues like Winged Foot and Oak Hill, and recent rains in the Chicago area will have softened this golf course to the point where carry distance will be the only accessible method of advancing your ball.

This recent moisture will also make balls in the rough much more difficult to advance, and with a driving accuracy percentage of just 48% in 2020, players will be highly incentivized to push the ball as far as they can off the tee. Controlling your middle/long irons will be a nearly impossible proposition out of the rough.

Despite the ridiculously high scoring average, Olympia Fields isn’t a course that accomplishes its difficulty through a collection of 500-yard Par 4s. In fact, only three of the twelve Par 4’s here measure over 460 yards, and four holes on property measure <415. As such, I don’t see this as a week to lean too far into a particular proximity range. Unlike courses such as Sedgefield which feature a majority of holes that all play at similar yardages, there is enough variation in this week's layout to project an even distribution of short, mid, and long irons. 

If anything, I’d put a slight emphasis on 175+, since all four Par 3’s fall roughly into this bucket, and softer conditions will increase the effective length of many of these Par 4’s, but in general, I’ll be leaning more on iron stats like SG: APP, Greens in Regulation Gained, and Rough Proximity. 

Greens in Regulation isn’t a stat I generally look at at your typical PGA Tour venue, but given OFCC’s historic GIR % of 57% and the fact that 10 holes on this property played to a scoring average of at least one-tenth of a stroke over par, this isn’t a place to underrate players that show a particular aptitude for peppering greens in regulation. 45 feet to the safe side could well be the winning formula on many of these holes.

I’ll also be placing a higher-than-average emphasis on scrambling stats. With a Fairway % and GIR % that both sit well below the Tour average, it’s safe to say players will be forced to scramble for par much more frequently than we’ve become accustomed to in recent weeks on Tour.

While elite around the green play can certainly keep you afloat, I still consider it a supplemental skill when compared to the two ball-striking disciplines. Three of the Top 7 back in 2020 were able to attain that position while losing strokes ARG, and only Hideki gained more than 2 shots in this category in that group. I still weigh ball-striking far above stats like SG: ARG or Scrambling %, but it’s a much bigger factor than it has been in weeks past.

Moving on to the greens themselves, which feature a similar bentgrass/poa annua blend as what we’ve seen recently at Detroit GC and TPC River Highlands. It’s possible that recent rains will take some of the sting out of these historically fast and tricky complexes, but it should also be noted that since 2015, only six courses have made it harder to putt from outside 15 feet (Winged Foot, Augusta National, Chapultepec, Glen Oaks, St. Andrews, and Quail Hollow). 

With some of the extreme contouring around Olympia Fields, as well as the limited opportunities I expect players to have from inside 20 feet, this is not a bad week to include some 3-putt Avoidance/Approach Putt Performance into your modeling (in addition to the long-term splits on green complexes with similar agronomy):

• Detroit GC
• TPC River Highlands
• Bethpage Black
• Winged Foot

Key Stats Roundup: 

• Total Driving/SG: OTT (Weighted heavily towards Distance > Accuracy)
• Solid Recent APP play (SG: APP/GIR’s Gained over the last 3 months)
• Proficiency in Difficult Scoring Conditions (special emphasis on recent results at Oak Hill, Muirfield Village)
• Bogey Avoidance/Scrambling 
• Putting history on East Coast Poa Annua
• 3-Putt Avoidance/Approach Putt Performance 

Scouting the Routing

For those looking to dabble in the live market this week, it will be imperative to contextualize a player’s position on the leaderboard alongside where he is on the golf course and which holes he still has left to play.

As you’d probably expect given the scores I referenced in the Course Breakdown, Olympia Fields doesn’t exactly hand out a ton of premium scoring chances. Only two holes on the entire course feature a birdie or better rate of 20%, while 12 of the 18 holes feature a comparable Bogey/Worse rate.

In particular, the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 9th, 16th, and 18th are all holes I’d consider “Bogey Avoidance Opportunities,” where par would cut the average field by two-tenths of a shot. Four of those holes come on the front half of the course, but they’re also paired with the easiest hole by far (Par 5 1st; Scoring average of 4.78). 

As a result, the difference in scoring averages between the two nines is inconsequential (35.9 vs 35.88), and the shortened field of 50 means that players will not be going off of split tees in Rounds 1 and 2. For the second straight week, my usual insights on potential birdie/bogey streaks will have to take a back seat in the live-betting process.

The good news for live bettors is the extreme difficulty of this layout opens up a lot of possibilities for the chase pack. As we saw with Jon Rahm in 2020, a round in the mid-60s can erase a large deficit in a hurry when leaders are fighting for par on every other hole, and the leading number isn’t likely to jump up significantly from day to day.

As such, I’d be keeping a close eye on underlying ball-striking splits from round to round - even if a player finds himself 5-6 shots back early in the week. With the amount of volatility I expect at the top of the leaderboard, it’s very difficult to be completely out of the mix as long as the case can be made for an outlier round.

Three of the top four players on the 2020 leaderboard opened their weeks with over-par scores and eventual champion Jon Rahm found himself seven shots back of co-leaders Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay heading into the weekend. I believe this angle gives us the clearest edge when projecting value in the live market, and players that have been particularly prone to spike rounds hold the greatest upside in these no-cut formats.

Did you know RotoBaller has a Premium DFS PGA subscription? Like what you read today? You can show your support for Ian by using the discount code BALLER when purchasing a PGA Premium Pass. You get 10% off and full access to all of our Premium PGA articles, DFS tools, and Lineup Optimizer! You also get access to weekly betting picks from Spencer Aguiar, one of the top betting minds in the industry.

End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

BMW Championship Betting Card

Rory McIlroy (15-2)

After leading the field in total ball striking and coming one shot short of joining the playoff last week, McIlroy continues to make a lock-and-key case as the most consistent player in world golf. He’s recorded eight consecutive Top 10 finishes since the PGA Championship and has gained at least five shots on Approach in five straight starts. It’s the best stretch of iron play we’ve seen out of McIlroy since his pre-COVID run of seven consecutive Top 5s in 2020, and Olympia Fields is yet another dream fit for his power game. 

Rory’s one of three others in this field to finish in the Top 10 at both of my primary comp courses (Oak Hill and Muirfield Village), and unlike Scheffler and Hovland, there isn’t a glaring flaw to pick out in the all-around profile. In addition to the world-class ball-striking splits, Rory’s also been a Top 10 Scrambler in this field over his last 50 rounds and ranks 2nd and 3rd in two of my most crucial scoring stats (GIRs Gained & Bogey Avoidance).

Rory also comes into the week having gained strokes putting in 8 straight starts, and these east coast poa annua complexes have suited the Northern Irishman very well through his career. Since 2019 at River Highlands, Winged Foot, and Bethpage, Rory has rated out above field average on the greens in each of his five starts - gaining a cumulative total of 12.1 strokes in those 20 rounds.

His post-round interview last Sunday in Memphis said it all: “My game’s in really good shape. Ball-striking-wise, tee-to-green it’s been really good since the PGA, and I’m starting to hole a few more putts on the weekend to find my way into contention. I wish I could have done a few better today, but I’ve got nothing but confidence going into Chicago.” He’s in peak form both mentally and physically, and a confident Rory McIlroy spells nothing but trouble for his fellow contenders at the top of the FedEx Cup standings.

Viktor Hovland (18-1)

With a win at Muirfield Village, a runner-up at Oak Hill, and Top 20s in each of the other three Major Championships, nobody on the PGA Tour has proven themselves more capable of conquering 2023’s most difficult setups. Hovland comes into this week on the back of his best iron week since the aforementioned PGA Championship (+6.0), and likely could have put himself in the thick of contention in Memphis if not for a career-worst week off-the-tee (-2.5). In fact, over the course of his PGA Tour career (spanning 96 starts), last week marked the first time Hovland had lost more than a single shot with his driver in a given tournament and broke a string of 26 consecutive events in which Vik had gained strokes to the field off the tee.

With very little in the way of hazards or penalty areas or here at Olympia Fields, Vik will be able to swing much more freely knowing a bad swing won’t result in an automatic lost ball. In addition, the sizable difference in penalties available will greatly reduce the variance in play off-the-tee. I don’t expect the driver woes to follow Hovland to Chicago, and there’s another recent development in his game that excites me even more for his future prospects.

Much has been made on recent broadcasts about Hovland’s recent work with short-game coach Joe Mayo, and the results are beginning to finally shine through in the underlying stats. Over the last three months, Hovland has rated out as a Top 10 player in this field Around the Greens (12th in Bogey Avoidance; 4th in Sand Saves). He’s gained strokes with his short game in five of his last eight starts, and if we look back through his 2023 campaign, you’ll see he’s shown a propensity to raise those baselines further on difficult golf courses:

• +3.2 SG: ARG at LACC (U.S. Open)
• +3.2 at Oak Hill (PGA Championship)
• +2.2 at TPC Southwind
• +1.2 at Muirfield Village
• +0.64 at Augusta National

For a young player who can already count himself amongst the best pure ball-strikers in the game, the proposition of a reliable short game does wonders for his long-term outlook. In my mind, Hovland has established himself as the biggest threat we have to the three superstars entrenched at the top of the World Rankings, and at 18-1, his all-around profile is too enticing to pass up.

Best of luck guys, and Happy Hunting!

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