It was a great sweat for 10 holes and then Aberg made his first major rookie mistake finding the water at 11. A cruel game when rooting for one man, going up against the best golfer in the world. BUT, the golf schedule always provides new opportunities and we move forward to trying to find the next winner.
Coming off of the years first major, golf fans get another this week as the LPGA will play the Chevron Championship kicking off their major season (the first of 5 on the schedule). You can also find a single pick on the KFT Tour & Asian Tour at the bottom of the newsletter!
The PGA Tour is also going to have the Corales Puntacana Championship going on, which I may ignore
RBC Heritage Picks
0.4u - Collin Morikawa 25/1
0.1u - Tom Kim 110/1
0.65u - Top 10 - Shane Lowry +330
1.15u - R2 Matchup - Sahith Theegala -110 (vs Wyndham Clark) DK
As much as I enjoy this event I am going to split my energy this week between the RBC Heritage and the Chevron Championship. Below are my brief thoughts on Harbour Town GL, things I’ll be looking for, and a handful of golfers that grade out to get higher adjustments than the rest of the (small) field in this signiture event.
Par 71: 7,213 yards
Greens: Poa trivialis overseed
Water in play on 18 holes
Rough has been cut down for 2024 compared to 2023
As far as skills that tend to lead to success at Harbour, they are not largely disimilar from those needed to play well at Augusta National, with the outlier being distance off the tee. Most of the field will attack the course in a similar fashion and because of this, similiar to the Sony Open (Waialae CC) we see a lot of playoffs at this event. This will be the second year it is a Signiture event so the field is small and deep, with no cut. Looking through historical success will reveal safe drivers and plodders/approach play with a mix of around the green considering the greens here are tiny and can sometimes be difficult to find (compared to the average course on the schedule).
Despite the short length, by pga tour standards, there are still a fair amount of long irons in hand due to the amount of holes in which players do not hit driver and three of four par 3’s playing over 190 yards. Again — I’m talking about a majority of the field because there are golfers who will be more aggressive with a driver or that do not hit “long irons” from 190 yards. But in general, they’re hitting more shots from 180+ than on a usual week.
Harbour Town produces one of the lowest GIR% from the fairway on Tour, and while the shots around the green may not always be complicated, golfers will likely be chipping more often than usual so if it’s a leak in their game, it could be costly. I’m not making a wild adjustment to ARG play in particular but it must be noted. The adjustements will be down on distance, up on playing from the fairway and perhaps even looking through how golfers have drove it at Harbour Town in the past. Couple that will irons and it’s a straightword recipe for me (as always, baseline skill is always the most important of my ratings).
Collin Morikawa
Si Woo Kim
Russell Henley
Sungjae Im
Brian Harman
Nick Taylor
Chevron Championship Picks
0.5u - Lilia Vu 33/1
0.2u - Yuka Saso 40/1 each-way
0.1u - Albane Valenzuela 100/1 each-way
0.1u - A Lim Kim 125/1 each-way
The Club at Carlton Woods (Nicklaus) | Woodlands, Tx
Par 72: 6,824 yards
Greens: TifEagle bermuda
GCSAA notes that after last years inagural tournament at this course the USGA renovated greens, bunkers, an expansion and leveling of trees. There is a new greenside bunker on #7, #8’s waste bunker was lengthend, new fairway bunker on #9, and new greenside bunker on #16
There has only been one tournament played here before and I do not have shot by shot data from it, but even with that, it would be hard to take away a lot. Perhaps it could have shown some insight into how these bunker changes will affect scoring/play.
It will be the longest course played on the LPGA schedule so far this year and also the largest green complexes. Last years champion (our queen, Lilia Vu) dominated with ball striking, while runner up Angel Yin and third place Nelly Korda crushed it OTT, while still gaining with their irons, just not as much as Vu. It would appear that those with distance found quite the edge OTT and scrambling/ARG didn’t appear to be of much importance as far as gaining a leg up (in fact Vu lost strokes ARG).
I mentioned how large the greens are and from last year, only one golfer who finished inside the top 10 was worst than 25th in the field in GIR, while five were inside the top 10. This isn’t necessarily abnormal — generally in one week samples those who played well finished well in multiple statistics/categories, but it is noticable that finding these large greens with approach shots was imparative.
Driving accuracy is higher on the LPGA than the PGA Tour, but overall, distance is preferred here because even the longer women on tour are still quite accurate when it comes to the driver and playing from the fairway.
The “basic” stats have their deficiencies though, as we know. A perfect example is happening right now at The Masters, where going into the final round Scottie Scheffler and Vijay Singh have hit the same amount of GIRs…however Scheffler is gaining 0.8 strokes more per round with his approach play. This is well known but just a reminder, since often is the case with the LPGA, we work with “basic” stats quite often, despite the tour having some strokes gained data.
The elephant in the room is Nelly Korda. And by elephant, I mean superstar. What do we do here!? She has won FOUR straight tournaments coming into the Chevron Championship. She is absolutely crushing and dominating in all aspects of the game. I know I won’t get to her at her number but it may make pulling the trigger on other favorites difficult.
Patty Tavatanakit, who had been lost in the wilderness for some time after winning this event in 2021 (at a different course) has fought back into form, winning twice in a row in February (once on LPGA, once on LET). She has distance and gains quite a bit OTT, and her approach play has been positive since the Drive On Championship.
Yuka Saso, like Patty T, making a splash at a major and fizzling out. Saso didn’t disappear quite like Tavatanakit but she hasn’t won since defeating Lexi Thompson at the US Open in 2021. Her game fits what I believe is the most important aspects to play above baseline and I will be curious to see the number we are offered.
A Lim Kim, who played well here last year, is another golfer with distance/accuracy prowess and hits irons reliably well. She struggles on and around the greens, with the bad putting being a true thorn in her side. It’s tough to succeed on any tour when you can’t putt and in 2023 she only had 5 tournaments where she gained strokes on the green (this tournament being one of them). Perhaps things are turning as she already has two positive tournaments in 2024 (out of 5).
Those are some golfers I’ll be waiting to see where odds settle. Currently, Bet365 does have Chevron odds available and Patty is 28, Saso is 45, and Kim is 110. I think Saso and Kim are bettable there but not sure I’m ready to jump on the 28 being offered on Tavatanakit.
As always, thank you for reading and good luck this week!
KFT LECOM Classic Pick
0.4u - Ricky Castillo 25/1 each-way
Saudi Open
0.1u - Robin Williams 100/1
Public Results (as of 4.14.24)
2024 | +21.98u (39.7% ROI)
2023 | -23.71u (-10.49% ROI)
2022 | +80.7u (22.9% ROI)
2021 | +57.46 (8.7% ROI)