Golf Course Preview for PGA Betting: Scouting the 2024 Olympics

This piece will serve to break down every key trend and statistic I'm weighing to project a player's viability in the outright market and set our readers up to make the crucial decisions necessary on pre-week betting boards. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on Le Golf National and the Golf Competition within the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad!

The Golf Course

Le Golf National (Albatros Course) - Par 71; 7,331 yards

Past Champions (Olympics)

• 2020 - Xander Schauffele (-18) over Rory Sabbatini and C.T. Pan
• 2016 - Justin Rose (-16) over Henrik Stenson and Matt Kuchar

Past Champions here at Le Golf National (Open de France)

• 2023 - Ryo Hisatsune (-14) over J. Smith and J. Winther
• 2022 - Guido Migliozzi (-16) over Rasmus Hojgaard
• 2019 - Nicolas Colsaerts (-12) over Joachim Hansen
• 2018 - Alex Noren (-7) over R. Knox, J. Suri, & C. Wood
• 2017 - Tommy Fleetwood (-12) over Peter Uihlein

Le Golf National Off-The-Tee:

In a day and age where the Europeans continually sit at the cutting edge of Ryder Cup strategy, it should come as a surprise that a course like  Le Golf National was picked as their home venue for the 2018 Tournament. This 7,300-yard maze of water hazards, tall fescue, and deep bunkering was as effective as any venue in recent memory of stifling the traditional carpet-bombing strategy of the American team — most notably exposing the American’s most unreliable driving entities.

Captain’s picks Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, and Bryson DeChambeau combined to go 0-9 on the back of their notoriously wayward drivers (none of whom ranked better than 92nd on Tour in Driving Accuracy). Emotional leader Patrick Reed (who recorded a team-high 3.5 points at Hazeltine two years prior) managed just one point in three matches around this penal layout. He ranked 173rd out of 193 players on the PGA Tour that year in Fairway Percentage.

On the other side, the many elite total drivers of the European Team (Francesco Molinari, Fleetwood, Stenson, Sergio Garcia) were an ever-present thorn in the American’s side — combining to score 15 match victories to just two defeats in a 17.5-10.5 drubbing over three days in Paris. Each of these four players represents what I feel is the optimal skill set this week: precision ball striking to stay out of the many lurking hazards around Le Golf National.

Notably, each of these four had experienced a great deal of success around America’s most iconically penal design: TPC Sawgrass. Molinari had recorded three top-seven finishes at the PLAYERS Championship from 2014-17, Sergio and Stenson won back-to-back PLAYERS Championships in 2008 and 2009, and Tommy had just recorded a T7 result at Sawgrass and a win at the HNA Open de France (played at Le Golf National), in the 12 months leading into the 2018 Ryder Cup.

If there were ever a place to weigh driving accuracy over distance, then, Le Golf National sets up as the perfect spot for the game's premier accuracy mavens to enjoy their time in the spotlight. I'll not only be looking intently at driving stats like Fairways Gained and Good Drive Percentage, but also filtering for driving splits at similarly waterlogged courses in the States (TPC Sawgrass, TPC Southwind, PGA National, TPC Twin Cities, etc.).

Le Golf National 0n Approach:

As we should expect around a 7,300-yard golf course with water at virtually every turn, Le Golf National won't be serving up a high volume of wedge opportunities this week. Despite many of the Par 4's here sitting in the 380-430 yard range, the many forced layups required to stay short of trouble off of the tee will leave a much larger percentage of mid/long irons into the greens. As such, I project over two-thirds of approach shots to come from beyond 150 yards and at least six of 18 approach shots to come from beyond 200.

Le Golf National Around the Greens:

Although the scoring conditions have been far from easy around Le Golf National in its history hosting the best players in the world, I don't imagine this as a week where touch around the greens will play a deciding factor in the outcome. The median Green in Regulation percentage here over the last three French Open events has sat above 65%, and three of the last four champions have ranked outside of the top 50 in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens.

The simple fact of the matter is that there simply isn't a ton of buffer area around many of these greens to chip from, as Le Golf National (particularly down the stretch of its iconic back-nine) features a cavalcade of island/peninsula complexes where a missed green doesn't just mean a 15-yard pitch from thick rough or a bunker, but a visit to the drop zone to hit virtually the same shot over again.

This harsh penalty for wayward second shots makes precise iron play an even more important facet in this week's handicap while largely devaluing the importance of a reliable short game. Each of the last four Champions here at Le Albatros has managed to hit at least 73% of their greens in regulation for the week. That's the stat I'll be honing in most on -- not necessarily a player's particular proficiency on greens they miss.

Putting at Le Golf National:

It's difficult to call a venue a "putting contest" when it carries such a stiff penalty from tee to green, but from a statistical sense, putting has carried as much weight as any stat over the last two French Open renditions. Ryo Hisatsune and Guido Migliozzi have combined to gain 12.52 strokes on the greens in their successive victories (ranking seventh and sixth in the field, respectively), and with GIR Percentages projected to sit well into the 60s and 70s, players will need to separate themselves with the flat stick if they intend on keeping pace at the top of the leaderboard.

Luckily, though, bentgrass greens will be a much more comforting site for this group of players primarily based in the United States, and from the eye, the green complexes themselves at Le Golf National are far from the most striking feature. Like last week in Minnesota, I'd expect the surfaces to roll true enough to see a multitude of putts made from around these hole locations, and although putting will be a bigger factor in my modeling than scrambling or around the green play, I don't believe these complexes will require any sort of exemplary touch to navigate successfully. Besides an average weighting on recent putting splits and a long-term data point on overall Bentgrass Putting, I'll still be relying primarily on a player's ability to navigate the trickier facets of Le Albatros.

Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):

• Heavily weighing accuracy over distance off-the-tee here, with particular emphasis on driving acumen on extremely penal, positional layouts like TPC Sawgrass, PGA National, TPC Southwind, etc.
• General Approach Play -- I expect most shots this week to come from beyond 150 yards, so those proximity ranges will be weighed slightly higher than average, but I don't expect the distributions will be skewed far enough to one side to completely devalue the more general iron stats like SG: Approach, Green in Regulation Rate, or Birdie Chances Created
• History either at Le Golf National or on the aforementioned similarly waterlogged courses in the U.S. (Southwind, Sawgrass, PGA Nat'l, TPC Twin Cities, etc.)
• Bentgrass Putting

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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

The Sunday Shortlist

Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.

Collin Morikawa

An opening birdie for @Collin_Morikawa 💪

He's 2 back @TravelersChamp. pic.twitter.com/UjdjINCNkW

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 23, 2024

I managed to stay away from my guy in spite of a dream course fit due to heavy winds forecasted around Troon’s ultra-positional layout, but I don’t anticipate the same difficulties facing Collin Morikawa this week in Paris. Collin has seemingly been on the precipice of something great since his surprising stint at the top of the leaderboard in April’s Masters: recording 10 consecutive finishes of 16th or better (including five finishes of inside the top four), since coming third at Augusta National.

His traditional calling cards of precision off the tee and elite iron play are tailor-made for Le Golf National's penal design, as Morikawa leads this field in both Fairways Gained and Good Drive Percentage over the course of the 2024 season, and comes into the Olympics riding some of the hottest approach form of anyone on the planet: averaging +3.5 Strokes Gained per start with his irons over his last seven events (third in this field).

However, the facets of the game that really raised the week-to-week baselines of the World No. 6 player have been the very same bugaboos that used to haunt him in his formative years. Morikawa has made tremendous strides both on and around the greens in 2024, jumping 47 spots in the PGA Tour's SG: Putting rankings in the last 12 months and a whopping 86 spots Around the Greens!

In fact, over his last 36 rounds, Collin has become a top 30 entity on the PGA Tour in both short-game categories and has gone 10 straight starts beating the field average in the aggregate on and around the greens. It's not a stretch to say that statistically, this two-time Major Champion and seven-time winner around the world is playing the best all-around golf of his entire career. Although everything hasn't yet come together to find his way to victory lane, all the signs point to him as a legitimate top-four or five player on the planet. I believe he's got every chance to finally cash in on this rich vein of form and make it back-to-back stints at the top of the Olympic podium for Team U.S.A.

Sepp Straka

Sepp Straka’s last 7 holes 🇦🇹

• 1 x triple bogey
• 2 x bogeys
• 2 x pars
• 1 x birdie
• 1 x hole in one

2-over.

pic.twitter.com/AOjX5tbXEy

— Mark Fox (@ThePluggedLie) June 14, 2024

Another player who excels in keeping the ball in play, it should come as no surprise that Sepp Straka has delivered time and time again on golf courses with both a positional driving ethos and a heavy penalty for missing the fairway. His maiden win on the PGA Tour at PGA National was followed shortly thereafter by top 10s at TPC Sawgrass and Harbour Town, as well as a heartbreaking playoff loss to Will Zalatoris at TPC Southwind.

Since that breakout 2022 campaign, Straka has earned himself a spot on last year's victorious European Ryder Cup Team and seems primed to make his third consecutive trip to Eastlake as a top 30 points-earner on the PGA Tour. He's continued to make a living at the aforementioned Sawgrass and Harbour towns of the world while also showing himself as a bit of an Open Championship ringer (logging finishes of 5th and 22nd on two of the most penalizing Open layouts in recent memory). With top-10 finishes recorded at the likes of Oak Hill, Quail Hollow, and Muirfield Village over the last two seasons, the 31-year-old Austrian seems primed to reach yet another level from his current standing as the 26th-ranked player in the world.

Like Morikawa, Straka relies on two main calling cards on a week-to-week basis. He sits just behind Collin in many of the season-long driving accuracy stats (2nd in both Good Drive Percentage and Fairways Gained over his last 50 rounds) while also ranking 4th in Greens in Regulation Percentage, 10th in Strokes Gained: Approach, and 2nd in Approach Proximity from 150-200 yards. While he doesn't enter the week with the same short-game baselines as Collin, Straka does carry a reliable long-term floor: ranking inside the top 20 in Bentgrass Putting over the last three seasons. Notably, he also put forth the most impressive putting display of his career on this surface last summer: gaining 6.8 strokes to the field on the greens in a runaway win at the 2023 John Deere Classic. If you're looking for a dark horse to emerge out of this star-studded affair, look no further than the Austrian No. 1 priced in the neighborhood of 50-1.

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