PGA Money List Projections (Aug. 1st)

These projections are derived through Monte Carlo trials of the remaining seven tournaments in the PGA Regular Season. The Fall Series has been left out due to most of the top players not widely participating in those tournaments. Including them would not materially change the results of the simulation. The FedEx Cup tournaments were simulated using my FedEx Cup simulator and the latest standings. This is not perfectly representative of what the standings will be when entering the FedEx Cup Playoffs, but considering the top golfers on the Money List are also the top golfers in the FedEx Cup standings, it should not materially change the results (except the better players should be considered marginally more likely to advance to the Tour Championship). The results below are derived from 5000 iterations of the simulator.

Recap of the last week: Phil Mickelson was the only golfer of the twenty I tracked that teed it up at the Greenbrier, and he missed the cut and earned no money. Every golfer I am tracking is projected to tee it up this weekend at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational except Steve Marino and Webb Simpson, who barely missed qualifying. Every golfer I am tracking is projected to compete at the PGA Championship in Atlanta, but only Brandt Snedeker, Webb Simpson, and David Toms are expected to enter the Wyndham Championship. Beyond that, every golfer I am tracking is considered a lock to make it at least as far as the BMW Championship; almost all the rest are at least 75% to qualify for the Tour Championship.

I have a caveat about these results; they obviously will not be correct for individual members if the individual ratings are not correct. My main concerns on this front are Luke Donald and Steve Stricker. Donald was given a rating of -0.57 and Stricker -.65. For Donald, this is approximately his three year average; his strong play in the last year is reason to consider that this should be higher. For Stricker, this is lower than his three year average to account for his continual downgrading by the offshore books and any effects of age that may manifest themselves. I am confident of my ratings for all others except Tiger Woods. I have assigned him a rating that makes sense given his odds posted offshore for the next two tournaments. If, and this is not a likely scenario, he has recovered to his talent level of two years ago he should be considered much more likely to win the Money List, but still would need to win approximately four of the next six tournaments and preform well at the remaining two to win. I ran the sim with his ranking modified and it sees him as around 4% to win the Money List. That should be considered his absolute maximum and represents a supremely unlikely scenario.

Aside from that caveat, Steve Stricker looks like a phenomenal bet to win the Money List. He’s offered at +575 at 5Dimes and +400 at SBET which would be a solid return for someone who is 26% to win the whole thing. That 26% is based on both his high placement in the standings so far and the fact that he is substantially more likely to win and finish high in the remaining six big tournaments than most of his competitors. Nick Watney is the definite favorite considering his almost $500,000 advantage, but Stricker is more likely to win than any other competitor.

Speaking of Watney, I see him as also providing value over the +400 offered at 5Dimes and +300 at SBET.

K.J Choi may currently be 2nd on the Money List, but he is not the caliber of player of Stricker, Donald, Mickelson, or Watney, having played around -.1 standard deviations below Watney and -.2+ below the other three in the last three years. He should be viewed as much less likely to deliver the high finishes and wins that will be required to win the Money List. Bubba Watson could be substituted in this paragraph almost verbatim and has around $700,000 more to make up than Choi.

This will be a re-occurring weekly feature until the FedEx Cup Playoffs have concluded at which time I’ll consider whether it’s necessary to continue it into the Fall Series.

Farmers Insurance Open

Let’s get a few things out of the way:

1. Jhonattan Vegas is not suddenly a consistent contender on the PGA Tour. The guy hits it a long way, which is obviously important, but he was only 14th on the N’wide Tour in scoring average relative to the field and the authority on these matters says he’s basically PGA Tour average over the past two years. Those kind of guys can be expected to win about every 250 tournaments (or every 8-9 years). Vegas is certainly young and now has a two year exemption to develop into an above average PGA golfer (he certainly has the hitting it 300+ part down), but his college track record (never above 95th in Sagarin rankings) suggests it’s unlikely we have the next Fowler, Kim, or Johnson here.

2. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, opened at ~+250 to win the Farmers this week, which if I recall correctly, is lower than in any tournament since Thanksgiving 2009. The books certainly believe he’s back, maybe not to the level of sustained dominance of pre-knee injury and pre-layoff, but definitely to being the undisputed most likely to win every tournament he enters. He’s won six of the last seven times he’s teed it up at Torrey Pines and may use the next few tournaments he plays as events to dick around in, so there’s literally zero chance there’s value on him here, but he’s back.

3. Martin Kaymer won again this past week which should come as no surprise; he’s been disgustingly good over the past calendar year (probably right there with Stricker behind Westwood) and should be assumed to still be getting better because of his age. However, when discussing all of his recent wins, we need to keep in mind that he faces easier fields on the European Tour (I mean, KLM Open?). All of this means I hope we see a #2-#3 matchup in the Match Play semis between Kaymer and Woods.

Fantasy garbage:

Yahoo:
A: Tiger; Phil
B: Allenby, Mahan; Na, Villegas
C: Kim; Holmes

You can only use each golfer in 10 tournaments, so there’s a bit of risk using Tiger here, but this is probably the easiest field he’ll face all season (no Stricker, Kuchar, Furyk, Westwood, Kaymer, McIlroy, Casey, Donald), he’s likely only going to play ~15> tournaments anyway, and I plan to use Westwood for the four majors. I really don’t see any reason not to use Tiger here, besides that he might fool around and not try to win.

The choice for back-up is simply who has the best chance of emerging as a top three finisher, and that’s almost certainly Phil and not Dustin Johnson or Nick Watney.

There’s so many good options on the B-List that my strategy there is simply to pick the four best guys each week. There’s pretty much no doubt that three of those guys are Allenby, Mahan, and Villegas. Past that, Kevin Na has been playing well lately (for what that’s worth) and is at least as good as Rose, Crane, and Watson.

Anthony Kim is head and shoulders above the other C-Listers this week and with enough other guys (Zach Johnson, McIlroy, Kaymer, Day, etc.) to start in other events, I’m not worried about burning starts on him early. Of the rest, Holmes is barely more likely to be in contention after Saturday.

NG Nation:

For this, you pick four golfers, one of which must be sponsored by Nike, and receive points if they finish 1st, Top 10, and Top 25. The ~10 or so golfers I considered follow with expected points.

Woods, Kim, and Glover are the Nike golfers to choose from. The expected points table says that if Tiger plays seriously this week, he’s far ahead of Glover and Kim. In fact, the 2010 version of Tiger is probably at least as good of a play as either of them. As wary as I am against picking Tiger because he’ll be so popular, not picking him gives everyone else an absurd advantage.

After getting that out of the way, picking the best three remaining guys is the strategy because there’s no limit in how many times you can pick each golfer. That means three of Phil, Mahan, Johnson, Allenby, and Watney. Watney is a defending champion so I’ll avoid him. Beyond that there’s a lot of reason to not pick Mahan and Mickelson (honeymoon, flying from Abu Dhabi), but they look to be unpopular, so I’m in. In addition, I’ll take Allenby who’s hardly below Dustin in expected points and who no one is going to pick.

Tiger, Allenby, Mickelson, Mahan

Gambling:

Pretty likely you can get a good number on Lucas Glover (+8000) and Kevin Na (+10000); also, if you’re into lesser lights, Chad Campbell (+20000), Bryce Molder (+22500), Ben Curtis (+38500), and Angel Cabrera (+20000) have decent prices. If you’re into pain, Villegas (+7500) and Allenby (+5500) can provide it.

In match-ups, I’ll be going against Bill Haas, Ryuji Imada, and maybe others. Those two fit the recent winners, recent over-performance, past success, overrated by the numbers, etc. categories. I’m going to avoid Phil, Tiger, Dustin, etc. because the numbers look fair and who really knows at this point of the season.

College Football – Week 1: Part 1

This is what I’ve come up with after looking over the weekday card for the past 30 minutes (blatantly ripping of am19psu’s categories):

Strong lean:
Hawaii +21 USC

Weak lean:
USC/Hawaii over 53.5
MTSU +1 Minnesota

Volume play:
Toledo +16 Arizona

Literally everyone on Covers is backing USC in this game and the consensus numbers on Sportsbook Spy and SIA reflect that fact. The common thread seems to be “USC was bitch-slapped, Lane Kiffin will have this team ready to roll Hawaii”. I’ll feel comfortable on Hawaii in a televised game (albeit at 11pm on ESPN).

The over is getting some nice action presumably on account of the previous line of thinking and the idea that Hawaii still has an offense. Good chance I play that if I can get a decent number. Dwight Dasher is MTSU’s entire offense and the line’s only moved 5.5 points? That’s a steal. I liked the Blue Raiders before the suspension and probably like them more now.

There’s two games being played Friday; Temple vs. Villanova (Nova is a road fave BTW) and this one. This game is prime-time on ESPN, pits a shitty MAC team against a BCS conference team, and features a home dog. The Consensus numbers seem to be in line and this will have volume on a night where the only other thing to bet is baseball for the fifth straight month.

I’ll consider anything else I can get a stupid line on, but these seem to make the most contrarian sense. I’ll spit out my weekend leans probably Friday.

PGA Championship mid-2nd Round

I whipped up some overnight odds using The Saw’s numbers and a bastardized system that accounts for pretty much everything but the difficulty of the holes left to be played in Round 2 (if any) and differences in difficulty based on time playing the course (which may or may not matter). These may or may not be accurate (I personally think the overrate those who have posted higher scores because Kuchar comes out as essentially even value when there’s no way he’s going to be released that way by the books after his year and first two rounds), but they’re at least something.

Zach Johnson and Phil Mickelson are likely listed erroneously by 5Dimes. These odds like Dufner, Furyk, Villegas, and Molder to be value over what 5Dimes has, which makes sense. Villegas’s game has been a mess lately, Furyk is very underrated, and Holmes, Molder and Dufner don’t get really any press and are mediocre in general (though Holmes and Molder have had solid years). Depending on how much you trust Rickie Fowler’s standard deviation, he might be a look, but I doubt the books would offer value on him.

WGC-Bridgestone Gambling Picks

The WGC event this week at Firestone kicks off a legitimately amazing two months of golf including the season’s final major, four playoff events, and culminating in The Ryder Cup in October. To kick that off, I’m modifying my strategy concerning choosing outrights; rather than trying to pick a few guys randomly for top tens or top fives, I’m going to just play everything with a decent edge and a decent reason. My bankroll can absorb 20x on the line each week unless I have monumental bad luck (which is likely if not certain).

To win outrights:
Stricker +2800
Furyk +3700
Villegas +9000
Z. Johnson +9000
Ogilvy +13000
Sergio +14000

Stricker and Furyk are pretty standard. They can seemingly win/finish top ten all the time and they’ll never be viewed as two of the best five golfers in the world. They should complain to their PR guys for that. Villegas, Johnson, and Ogilvy have all played below expectations this year, though none of them have played genuinely poorly. All three are around ~1.5-2% per The Saw’s numbers, which is good enough for me getting around 100-1. And Sergio has to be value in any event where he doesn’t have to make a cut. Considered a bunch of long shots, but I’m sticking with the prior strategy of avoiding 400-1s in hopes of keeping variance down. I’ll be on Soren Hansen, Ben Curtis, Lucas Glover, Alex Noren, Mike Weir, Kenny Perry, and others if they start off strong.

And this brings us to Anthony Kim. Kim has played the 2nd best golf of anyone on the planet this year, and is a legit top 10 golfer when he’s healthy and sober. However, there’s no real guarantee he is healthy this week. Sure, he’s had awhile to recover, but I have no idea how long it takes for a golfer’s thumb to heal after surgery; hell, neither did Will Carroll/@injuryexpert when I DM’d him on twitter. I think it’s definitely possible Kim is in this event to secure his Ryder Cup spot and bolster his chances to win the FedEx Cup when he’s healthier in September. And the guaranteed $36,000 doesn’t hurt either. For those reasons, I’m not going to back him this week or next week (when he’ll likely be value again).

Top 5/10s:
Most of the guys I looked at to win the event I took for top 5s or 10s (or both).

Camilo Villegas top 10 +600
Sergio Garcia top 10 +700
Ben Curtis top 10 +1200
Jim Furyk top 5 +700
Steve Stricker top 5 +600
Zach Johnson top 5 +1400
Geoff Ogilvy top 5 +1600
Sergio Garcia top 5 +1800
Ben Curtis top 5 +2800
Kenny Perry top 5 +2500
Lucas Glover top 5 +2500
Soren Hansen top 5 +3500

I’m considering Alex Noren top 10 +2200, Soren Hansen top 10 +1400, and Kenny Perry top 10 +1000. And by considering, I mean waiting to see if I can get a better price.

None of these require much explanation; most fit into the “good, unknown European golfer” or “good, but playing less good lately golfer” categories. All are value, I think.

Continent Winners:
Jason Day top Aussie +425
Geoff Ogilvy top Aussie +325

Appleby won last week and Scott is overrated as all fuck. Day won, but isn’t a name yet, and Ogilvy really hasn’t done shit since January.

Sergio top Euro +2500

This is obvious. There are so many overrated Europeans that Sergio is definitely value.

Round Match-ups:
Tiger -125 Westwood (1st)
Kingston +178 Appleby (1st)
Ogilvy +115 Overton (1st)

Tiger is probably -145/+145 vs. Westwood, but he’s still not BACK and Westwood has been the best player in the world in 2010, which mitigates the fact that Firestone has been Tiger’s bitch. Appleby and Kingston likely have more in common talent wise than most people think, but Appleby just shot a 59 to win a tournament and Kingston is known by approximately 3 people betting on this event. Ogilvy is better than Overton in every universe known to man – despite what 2010 numbers say.

Tournament Match-ups:
Tiger -118 Westwood
Villegas +115 Kuchar
Ogilvy +120 Overton
Z.Johnson +110 Cink
Mahan +105 Fisher

Getting a better price than the individual round match-up? I’ll take it. Tiger probably beats Westwood at least 2/3rds of the time. Villegas was +135 at one point, but reality took hold of the market. Kuchar has played quite well this year, but has a career record of being only good, not great. Villegas is a legit top 10 player in the world having a top 30 season. I’ll take that + points. Ogilvy/Overton was discussed above. I’m not sure in which universe Cink is a better golfer than Zach Johnson, especially when both have played like dog shit this year. Fisher just won and Mahan hasn’t done much since winning earlier. The gap in talent between the two is still pretty significant though.

I only have a quarter of my bankroll on these losers, so that makes me feel better.

British Open Picks – Round Two

If you had to graph my feelings about the first round as they day moved along it would look like a steady decline from elated to “blah”. Reaching my desk with Tiger at -6, Steve Marino in the clubhouse at -3, and Justin Rose at -2 more than make up for the Irish twat at nine under. Tiger promptly bogeyed 17 and everything went down hill from there, really. All in all though, a pretty solid afternoon. All my top tens are in pretty reasonable shape (didn’t lose equity at least), Stricker at least didn’t shit the bed like Furyk, and Tiger is a larger favorite than when the round began.

Looking forward, 5Dimes has some truly ridiculous 2nd round match-ups available. I literally had to eliminate all the marginal shit I normally play to avoid having 15x on the line tomorrow.

Furyk/McDowell +120 (1x)
Curtis/Hanson +155 (1x)
Clark/McIlroy +165 (1x)
S.Y.Noh/Daly +110 (1x)
Marino/Dredge +105 (1x)
Furyk & Ogilvy/McDowell -151 (1x)
S.Hansen & Dufner/Dyson -151 (1x)
Glover & Clark/McIlroy -109 (1x)

Apparently Jim Furyk playing 6 shots worse than G-Mac over a single round makes him 5% less likely to beat Graeme. That was disgusting value already and I’m more than happy to lose another two units on Furyk vs. McDowell. Add in Ogilvy, who literally hasn’t done anything since January, is even better.

Repeat that previous paragraph with Tim Clark substituted for Furyk and McIlroy for McDowell and it’s completely accurate.

Simon Dyson won here last year at the Dunhill Links Championship and happens to not be very good at golf. Hansen and Dufner are both better than him while having smaller profiles. This is the most marginal look I have, but it makes enough sense.

Bradley Dredge had a nice round today, but in what universe is he better at golf than Marino? Yeah, probably at St. Andrews. This is a guaranteed loser.

John Daly had a decent round today too, but he played early when the course was easiest and is generally terrible at golf these days. The media is having fun with the idea another long shot former winner is contending, but it’s pretty likely John fires a few +1/+2s to close out the tournament tied for 20th. S.Y. Noh has literally no profile outside obsessed Eurotour fans, but is about as good as PGA Tour average. Fading John Daly has to be some sort of cosmic crime so I’m going to go ahead and grade this as a loss now.

And that brings me to my final pick. I often wonder who this great “public” is that I bet against. You know, the idiot that is happy to lay -170 with Peter Hanson against Ben Curtis. Well, here he is in post #59. Hanson and Curtis are nearly identical in talent over 18 holes. Hanson shot a -6, Curtis a +4. Now, might Curtis be a little less motivated today than yesterday? Sure, but the cut line is likely to be E or even +1 if the course plays harder tomorrow. Curtis can make the cut if he fires a good (not even great round). I’d have to think an athlete who has made it to the point Curtis has wouldn’t just throw in the towel at St. Andrews in the British Open.

I also grabbed the following to win for 1x each.

Sean O’Hair to win +4500
Paul Casey to win +6600
Nick Watney to win +5000
Lucas Glover to win +8000
Camilo Villegas to win +5000

Casey, Villegas, and Glover were pre-tournament leans and O’Hair and Watney are good with the bonus of not having done anything yet this season.

And Rory McIlroy to lose -360 to win 1x.

British Open Gambling

Pretty short post here because The Saw wrote a pretty thorough preview. I’ll just put up my picks and fantasy shit with a bit of commentary.

ESPN Best Ball Squad:
Tiger, Allenby, Stricker, Marino – This team should be illegal it’s so good.

Yahoo Fantasy Team:
A: Tiger; Mickelson
B: Furyk, Westwood; Villegas, Harrington
C: Casey; Poulter

Was going to put Stricker on the bench, but he’s more popular than Phil and I need to distinguish my picks as much as possible. Westwood is just too good not to start even though he’s popular. The other’s are pretty basic best available.

Marino Mania:
Matt Kuchar, because I don’t have many elite golfers left (Furyk and Tiger pretty much) and am saving them for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Gambling Shit:

Outrights
Steve Stricker to win +4000 (1x)
Justin Rose to miss the cut +325 (1x)
An American golfer to win +190 (5x)
Hunter Mahan top 10 +1000 (1x)
Steve Marino top 10 +1200 (1x)
Kevin Na top 10 +2200 (1x)
Camilo Villegas top 10 +770 (1x)
Kenny Perry top 10 +1000 (1x)

I’m glad Kevin Na not only missed the cut at THE Masters and US Open, but missed in so completely that the offshore books have put him in the “dogshit bad” category this weekend. Na is, conservatively, 10-1 to finish top ten and 80-1 to win; the books have him at 22-1 and 775-1 respectively. Thanks Kev.

The Saw has gone over how undervalued the Americans are by the books repeatedly. 5Dimes’s own odds had an American winning at +140 this afternoon when the prop was up at +190. Nice work guys. Villegas, Mahan, Perry, and Mahan have all done fuck-all for the past few months, but remain really good golfers. I considered outrights on each, but held off. I’ll be going balls deep on them to win if they play well tomorrow (Steve’s first out!).

Justin Rose is supremely overrated right now. The Saw has looked at the effect of playing well in previous weeks on the next week’s results and found a very small effect. To make Rose as good as he’s being valued at you’d have to be almost a stroke better a round during a “hot streak”. That is a massive change in talent level and isn’t backed up really by any real life factor but confidence. I’m fine betting against it.

And then there’s Steve Stricker. He has, in case you missed it, won twice on Tour already and is having the best non-Westwood season of anyone on Tour, right after his fucking amazing 2009. In short, he’s the 2nd best golfer on the planet. There’s no reason he should be +4000 this week, not coming off a win. Will he win? Only ~6% of the time, but he’ll certainly do it a hell of a lot more than Els, McIlroy, Padraig, and Rose combined.

Match-ups (all 1x)
Sim/Havret -105 (1st)
Clark & Glover/McIlroy -120 (1st)
Mahan/Bjorn -120 (1st)
Furyk/McDowell +105 (1st)
T.Woods/Rose -140 (1st)

Tiger/Rose is obvious. Furyk “getting points” at McDowell is absurd. McDowell might be from Ireland and have just won the US Open, but Furyk is a top five in the world. Sim may be overrated due to playing on the Nationwide Tour, but Havret is pretty much an average Nationwide Tour pro who happened to luck into a berth in the US Open and luck into a final round pairing with Tiger, nine holes worth of shots on TV, and a 2nd place finish. He still sucks though. Mahan/Bjorn is marginal, but Mahan has done literally nothing lately unlike Bjorn who won last month. And then the 3-ball match-up. Clark and Glover are solid top 30 players in the world. There’s no way they fail to beat McIlroy 55% of the time. McIlroy would have to be the 2nd best in the world by a lot for that to be a fair line. I call bullshit on that.

Donald/Rose +110 for the tournament (2x)
T.Woods/McIlroy -148 for the tournament (4x)
Sergio/Scott +115 for the tournament (2x)
T.Woods/Rose -171 for the tournament (4x)

Just a routine fade of Rose/McIlroy at +EV prices and the standard bet on Sergio. I’m -9x when betting on Sergio, but most of those were outrights that were crazy +EV. I remember the ticky-tacky 1x losses on him, but quickly forget the 7x he made me by beating up on Ben Crane at Pebble Beach. Still, fuck him and turn it the hell around and start winning sometime.

That’s pretty much it. I’m churning through the sportsbetting.com NFL prospective lines right now and finding a truck load of them to bet on so there’ll likely be a post on that soon.

John Deere & Scottish Open Gambling Picks

Outrights

John Deere Classic:
Looking through the list, I came up with two guys who had value based on The Saw’s numbers and weren’t long shots – Steve Stricker and Kenny Perry. Unfortunately, both are defending champions of this event at this course, Stricker last year. Since the line opened at +1500 at 5Dimes, Stricker has been bet up to +1300, so there’s certainly action coming in on him as 5Dimes moves their odds down through the week. It’s times like this that I have to remember that my strategy is not to blindly follow numbers, no matter how well put together they are. There’s a reason Stricker would be undervalued at an event like the US Open where the best in golf are playing and he has little history; there’s not much reason for him to be undervalued at the John Deere when he’s the best in the field by popular perception and actual talent.

It’s a bit different for KP. Perry has been undervalued pretty much all season as the perception is he’s played like dog shit. However, he’s played about equal to his 2008-2009 numbers would suggest he would’ve. At 49, he’s going to be losing a step, but talent-wise he’s no worse than T-3 in this field yet his odds opened at +2500 and have jumped to +3300. I don’t see much reason not to take KP; he’s clearly a candidate to be undervalued and he’s slight value based on The Saw’s numbers.

I looked a bunch of long shots – Kevin Streelman, Briny Baird, Jason Dufner, Davis Love III, Michael Sim, etc – for top 5/10s. Streelman is a guy who plays good golf (~80th in the world) and is entering that mid-30s sweet spot where golfers hit their stride. Streelman hasn’t done jack shit in his last two years on tour though so he’s viewed as just another +15000 joker by 5Dimes. He’s +1000 to get a top 10, which is mild value.

Jason Dufner is approximately the same age and talent level as Streelman, with barely higher profile and the same odds. No reason not to add him for a top ten.

That’s enough digging around for picks at a really poorly fielded event.

Scottish Open:
First off, there’s no way Allenby and Villegas aren’t value at this event; the only question is the magnitude of the value. You’d have to raise the field strength of this event to equal to the AT&T National to eliminate the value on the two of them. Let’s make one thing very clear, even a Eurotour field including Phil, Big Bob, Camilo, and Marino is not going to be that good. The average Eurotour player is just nowhere near as good as the average PGA pro. This field is a tad better than the field at the BMW Championship, which makes intuitive sense (that field had Westwood, Casey, Els, and Padraig), meaning Allenby and Villegas are pretty decent value.

Second, Steve Marino is in this field and is value. I might as well continue my tradition of Steve losing on each continent by betting on him to win here in Europe. Only need him to play in Africa and South America to complete the collection after this weekend.

Third, Lucas Glover is value again, which makes sense based on the last few weeks. Four outrights at a Eurotour event is inappropriate so I’ll hold off. Same stuff with Glover. Very good golfer, poor season, value because of that.

Fourth, so is Alex Noren. 5Dimes is really trying to get me to burn a big hole in my bankroll before The Open Championship. Noren may not be great, but he’s being treated as if he’s a typical Eurotour scrub. THIS GUY WON LAST YEAR! He’s well above-average Eurotour and PGA Tour average. He should not be valued with Ignacio Garrido, Niclas Fasth, and Johan Edfors.

Fifth, I’m going to do something inappropriate here:

Steve Marino to win +10000 (1x)
Robert Allenby to win +4200 (1x)
Camilo Villegas to win +4300 (1x)
Camilo Villegas top 10 +400 (1x)
Steve Marino top 10 +600 (1x)
Lucas Glover top 10 +600 (1x)
Alex Noren top 10 +1200 (1x)

I’ll defend that with only the caveat that I’ll be going easy on match-ups this week because of the weakness of the offerings.

Match-ups

Stricker -138 Choi is really the only situation I’d bet on Stricker with with those odds (non-Justin Rose edition) right now.

I also looked at Sim +130 Day. I tend to downgrade Sim a bit as he’s been hurt this year and 2009 looks like his high water mark. Still, Day won earlier this year and played decent last week. I’m going to ease off on this one, but it’s playable depending on how confident you are in Sim’s true talent being as The Saw’s ratings have it.

Stricker -138 Choi (1x) for the tournament

Scottish Open:
Bourdy -120 Marino -110; I don’t care if this is a trap line or anything like that. Bourdy has played really well the past seven tournaments and he was barely over PGA Tour average, but Marino’s good enough to beat him at least 55% of the time.

Marino -110 Bourdy (1x) for the tournament

I didn’t see anything else here worth playing.

AT&T National Final Round

Using the Saw’s numbers and the 71.4 course average from rounds 1-3, I came up with this (golfer, score to win, W%):

Rose………………………….71.4………60.2%
Wi…………………………….67.4……….9.7%
Pettersson…………………..67.4……….7.7%
Overton………………………66.4……….6.6%
Moore………………………..65.4……….3.8%
Day…………………………..65.4……….2.9%
Van Pelt……………………..64.4……….1.6%
Watney………………………64.4……….1.6%
Furyk…………………………63.4……….0.9%
Holmes……………………….63.4……….0.7%
Allenby……………………….63.4……….0.5%
Gay…………………………..63.4……….0.5%
Marino……………………….63.4………..0.4%

Pretty standard. Rose is likely going to have to shoot over par to give anyone a chance. He is lucky that the group of good golfers is clustered at -2 & -3 rather than further up. As it is, that group is fairly weak.

Justin Rose to lose +200 (1x)

AT&T National Gambling Picks

Outrights:
When initially looking at the field, only Steve Marino popped into my head of guys that would likely have a good price. He did when the odds were released (+10000), but so did Lucas Glover. If you remember, I liked Glover as an outright a few weeks back at the US Open, but didn’t pull the trigger because I think he’s viewed differently as a major winner. However, Glover is a legitimately very good golfer and he’s being value similarly to choke artist Steve Marino and at longer odds than Jacobson, Overton, Cejka, etc. The books wouldn’t be fooling around with Glover if they’ve seen people betting on him, but I can see why people have been holding off this year as he’s only had two top-10s and has been anonymous at the two majors this year. I’m pretty comfortable taking him at +10000. As for Steve, it’s pretty sad when all I have to do is type in S-t-e and Excel fills in “Steve Marino to win”. There’s a lot of 0.00s next to those entries.

I took Marino top 10 +680 to protect my sanity on the Fourth.

Glover to win +10000 (1x)
Marino to win +10000 (1x)
Marino top 10 +680 (1x)

Match-ups:
Scott Verplank’s playoff defeat sucks for him, but provides a nice chance to fade a really underrated pro. 5Dimes has David Toms matched against him at +123. Toms is likely the most under the radar very good player on Tour; he was really good in the middle of this decade, but hasn’t won anything since 2006 and hasn’t done anything this year. I have no problem with taking him over Verplank.

One humorous thing that’s happened this year is how Y.E. Yang has actually played better than his 2008-2009 results would suggest he would. I thought the Honda Classic would end him being overrated, but he’s been a decent look at several tournaments since then. His high finish at THE Masters likely fueled that even more, but there’s definitely a residual effect from him winning The PGA Championship and Honda Classic last season. Matched up against Glover at -123/+113 is ridiculous. Glover is A. a fellow major winner and B. much better than Y.E. That he’s going off at plus money is too sweet to ignore.

Vijay +142 Justin Rose. The reasons for this line are obvious; Vijay sucks this year and Rose won four weeks ago and came within a choke of winning against last week. That Rose is young and Vijay is old would matter a bit more if this line were Vijay +115 or something reasonably sane. I’m not sure I can create a scenario where age and skill combine to make Vijay lose to Rose enough to eliminate the value in +140.

Glover +113 YE Yang (1x) T
Toms +123 Verplank (1x) T
Vijay +142 Rose (2x) T
Glover +105 YE Yang (1x) 1st
Toms+115 Verplank (1x) 1st
Vijay +135 Rose (1x) 1st

Alstom Open de France
Pretty basic here.

Alex Noren to win +15000 (1x)
Alex Noren top 10 +1200 (1x)

Travelers/BMW International

Not much going on with these events this week, even though both have decent fields. I’ll likely end up with a stake in Kevin Na to win at +7500. Na’s really good, he’s around the 6th-10th best player in the field, and Na played like dog shit last week at Pebble. This could definitely be the week Na breaks through against an average field. I considered Noren to win over in Europe at +6000, but that price moved from +8000 earlier in the week.

For match-ups, Kenny Perry at +100 vs. Bo Van Pelt baffled me. KP has “struggled” this year, even though he’s played pretty much at his ’08-’09 average, and BVP has played well this year, jumping up to around 40th in the world when you consider his five top tens since THE Masters and his pitiful play over the same stretch in 2008, but KP’s the defending champion and course historty matters a ton to golf bettors. To have him going off at even money vs. Van Pelt is pretty surprising. I’m not sure whether his perceived struggles cancel out the defending champion tag, but they might.

Aside from Perry, I’m debating backing Vijay Singh. Problem is, while I’m pretty damn confident he’s better than Rhys Davies at this moment, I’m not so sure he’s better than Adam Scott (who he’s +105 against) or Goosen (who he’s +125 against). There’s a bit of age related decline to factor into the equation with Vijay that I’ll leave to the books to figure out.

I imagine I’ll have some round plays and in-tournament stuff going on, but maybe not.

US Open Odds & Ends

The US Open is always a frustrating tournament to watch because of the mental disconnect between what is actually a good score (72 pars will usually win) and what you’re taught to view as a good score (birdies or better). This one was no different as Pebble Beach played extremely difficult (75 average). Sunday was especially frustrating as pretty much no one genuinely played well and McDowell captured the victory with a +2 on Sunday and -1 for the tournament. I don’t think this US Open will be very memorable; it certainly had the opportunity with Tiger, Phil, and Els all in the last three groups chasing a young gun Johnson, McDowell, and the dark horse Havret. Instead, Dustin Johnson shit the bed and was out of it by the turn and the big three didn’t do much besides a spirited run by Els mid-round. I wonder where this will get put in the Nicklaus ’72, Watson ’82, Kite ’92, Tiger ’00 pantheon of Opens at Pebble?

Ignoring all that bullshit, it was a profitable tournament as a whole. I had great variance on round and tournament match-ups and had a nice back door top 20 from Ben Curtis to make up for strike-outs on my other outrights, top 20s, props, and in-running bets. The weekend could’ve been much better if Tiger had birdied 18 (or really just not sucked dick Sunday for even one hole), but whatever. After the abortion that was THE Masters, I’ll take a profitable major every time out.

A few odds and ends:

Tiger
Well, everyone was quick to jump on his band wagon after his dominant performance on Saturday, and it was an extremely impressive round especially how he played the back nine, but let’s not forget that he played at field average of better all four rounds and played better over these four rounds than he’s played relative to the field from 2008 to the present. In short, Tiger had another great major in 2010 and while people will remember his third round, I’m not sure he’s completely “back” in everyone’s eyes. 5Dimes released him at +265 for the British, which sounds pretty accurate given his talent and course history. He should still be value compared to Phil, but I wouldn’t anticipate the public being all over a Phil +120 at St. Andrews given Tiger’s “dominance” of the course and Phil’s anonymity at the British.

The Money List
Furyk was expected to pick up ~$180,000, Phil was expected to earn $250,000 and Els was expected to pick up ~$150,000. Instead, Els grabbed 3rd which paid out $480,000, Phil picked up $300,000, and Furyk only ~$110,000. In short, an expected +$100,000 swing in Phil’s favor turned into a $180,000 deficit to Els.

5Dimes has Phil +150, Els +250, Furyk +950. There’s two inputs into earning money – talent and opportunities. Both players will have more or less the same opportunities to win money; both are going to play the four playoff events, the two majors, and the WGC. I cannot find a way to make Phil good enough on a talent level to beat Els while not making him value over 5Dimes’s odds. And I just don’t think he’d be value at those odds when he’s not value for winning tournaments, match-ups, majors, or anything else at the books these days.

To recap, Els has won $750,000 more than Phil, both are playing essentially the same schedule going forward and neither is hurt, Phil is certainly better than Els, but the widest possible talent disparity I can create for Phil only gives him a $250,000 lead in expected money won. I’d call them co-favorites at this point with a >70% chance of winning the money list. I don’t see how Phil can have that much better odds than Els though.

Ryder Cup
Phil was already easily in, Tiger did what he had to do here which was win points (he won 600), and Kuchar and Dustin Johnson both picked up ~450 which were well needed. Crane’s MC and Stricker’s and Zach Johnson’s 40 points hurt them a lot.

On the European side, McDowell jumped up to 2nd or 3rd on the two European qualification lists, so he should be in. He was a top 12 Euro, so getting him almost certainly qualified is nice for the European team, though Europe supporters need to be concerned about the top ten spots for McGowan, Dyson, and Davies on the qualification list. Those three are far down the list of players Europe would want to bring to the Cup.

US Open Match-ups & Props

To Miss the Cut
Ricky Barnes has played surprisingly well so far this season, earning five top tens including at THE Masters and in his last two tournaments. At 29, he’s a guy who should be coming into his own and he admittedly has a lot of talent. However, over the past two years Barnes has been something like the 120th best golfer in the world and right now he’s being given a ton of credit for how well he’s played, especially lately. 5Dimes has him at -220/+178 to make the cut, which going by The Saw’s numbers should be closer to -120/+120. Given that the match-ups fading Barnes suck this week (Ross Fisher), I’ll take him to miss the cut at +178.

K.J. Choi is another golfer who’s playing well this year, but I was surprised to see he had only managed two top 10s this year. The main attraction in fading Choi is that he has yet to miss a cut this season in 13 starts. 5Dimes has him at -315/+258 to make the cut, higher to make the cut than Villegas, Mahan, Stricker, and others with a ton more talent. I’ll bet against that every day of the week.

Dustin Johnson supposedly owns this course because of his back-to-back victories in the February AT&T Pro-am, but that dominance is built on four rounds here over two years. Color me unconvinced. Johnson is a very good golfer and should improve into a great golfer with age, but he’s heavily overrated here. 5Dimes has him at -290/+230 to make the cut, similar odds as Mahan and Stricker. That’s giving him too much credit.

Match-ups
This is pretty standard by this point as Phil is overvalued and Tiger is undervalued. The reason why can be found in other posts on the subject.

Tiger +123 Phil (3x) T
Tiger +115 Phil (1x) 1st

With Lee Westwood’s win and contention at THE Masters and The Players this spring, I think US golf bettors are finally seeing him as an elite golfer. I’m not sure how many people are prepared to back Westwood at -115 against Tiger, but it’s tough to resist a line like that with obvious value. If Tiger is value versus Phil, he’s value versus Westwood.

Tiger +108 Westwood (1x) T
Tiger -105 Westwood (1x) 1st

Sergio’s struggles this season are well noted here, but I’d really like someone to explain how he’s +165 against Ben Crane this week? Sergio is a pretty easy guy to hate with his tantrums, lack of effort, etc and Crane is having a breakthrough year in terms of results after being pretty good last season without the results, but there’s no way Sergio only beats him 38% of the time under these conditions. You have to knock Sergio down a ton to get that line anywhere close to being fair. I’m from the camp that thinks Sergio will not continue to suck at golf.

Sergio +165 Crane (2x) T
Sergio +158 Crane (1x) 1st

Another steady pro doing his best to play like dog shit this year is Vijay Singh. The popular view on Singh is that he hasn’t done anything positive this year. With that in mind I was pretty surprised to see that not only did he have a 4th at the Honda, he finished 12th at The Memorial two weeks ago against a pretty strong field. Vijay has fallen a ton this year from ~15th in the world to level with guys like Schwartzel and Angel Cabrera at ~40th over the past two years, but that’s still pretty solid for a guy pushing 50. Might this be the beginning of the end? Sure, it could be at 47. It also could be a few high profile MCs (Masters and Players) and some 20th percentile performances in a 14 tournament sample.

Rhys Davies is a young gun on the European Tour who at 25 has had a phenomenal season across the pond. He won the new tournament in Morocco and has racked up three 2nd place finishes including his last two outings in Wales and at Madrid. Only one of his high finishes was against a good field (Madrid) and while his results have been pretty good this year, his last two years have been pretty mediocre. Now, I think you should adjust him upwards considering how young he is and how he’s definitely improved from where he was in mid 2008, but there’s a limit to how good you can make someone.

With those two paragraphs in mind I present Vijay Singh +115 Rhys Davies -125. You have to consider Rhys Davies the equal of Sean O’Hair and knock down Vijay more to get that as a fair line. Let me just say I consider that a bit hasty.

Vijay +115 Rhys Davies (1x) T
Vijay +105 Rhys Davies (1x) 1st

I considered Villegas -115 D. Johnson, but that’s marginal and a lot of juice to eat. I also looked at Vijay +140 Slocum, but Slocum didn’t have the absurd recent performance of Davies.

I have to say that I’m pretty pleased to only have 22x riding on this tournament and even more pleased that my bets are more diversified than the “hope Sergio and Tiger don’t shit the bed” strategy I employed at THE Masters.

Thanks to The Saw for making his World Golf Rankings available and for all his analysis

US Open Outrights

Top-20
Lots of guys in this week’s field are going off at higher prices than they should, but most of them are in the long(er) shot range (~.005-.01). Just because of the extreme variance discussed here I’m not comfortable taking such long shots. However, this week 5Dimes is offering odds on a Top-20 finish and the same guys who have value on the to win market and have value on the Top 20 market. Here’s who I’m considering:

Michael Sim +700 – First, he hasn’t done much of anything the last few months, largely because he hasn’t played. Sim, though, is a good golfer – pretty much the equal of Cink and Gay over the past two years. He’s also young, meaning he should be getting better.

Steve Marino +500 – I’ve gotten the impression that many in the betting community know how good Marino is, it’s just they overrate the fact he hasn’t won a tournament. He comes in playing decent golf (2 top 20s in his last five), but shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar. He even does things like hit greens at an above-average rate, which is necessary to succeed at Pebble Beach.

Ben Curtis +700 – Curtis is another guy in that Cink/Gay group of good PGA golfers, but he hasn’t done anything outside of his 6th at Bay Hill in March. He’s won of my favorite looks from this group.

Kevin Na +700 – Na is another guy that golf bettors know has a ton of talent, but he’s only had two top tens this year and I don’t see anyone rushing to back him this week. All that, and there’s a legitimate argument for Na being a top 30 golfer in the world. He is my favorite look for a Top-20.

Justin Leonard +700 – Leonard’s star has fallen a lot from his late 1990s-early 2000s peak when he brought home his only major and eight wins in eight years from ’96-’03. He hasn’t won since 2008 and hasn’t had a top ten all year, but remains a good player – ~50th in the world. No reason not to give him a look here.

Soren Hansen +600 – Hansen is anonymous in the states, as he rarely plays here, but he’s just as good as Choi, Crane, and D. Johnson over the past two years. All of those three have odds of less than +200 to finish top-20.

David Toms +450 – How many people would believe Toms is right on the cusp of being a top-20 player in the world? Yeah, not too many. He right there with Kaymer and Ogilvy over the past two years though. He hasn’t done jack this season, which means I’ll be on him this weekend.

Soren Kjeldsen +700 – The other Soren is another anonymous Eurotour player who is a pretty solid golfer. He’s done nothing to make me believe he’ll be on anyone’s radar this week.

Thongchai Jaidee +800 – Jaidee plays mostly on the Asian and European Tours, venturing to the states only for majors and WGCs. He placed highly at the Accenture Match Play tournament in March, but WD from THE Masters in his last US visit. He’s just as good as Sim/Kjeldsen – right in that 60th best range.

John Senden +600 – Senden is right there with Cink, Gay, and Love III, but never gets any love from the books. He’s shown how good he is with six top-10s in 2009, but hasn’t recorded even one this year.

Of those ten, I like Na, Curtis, Soren Hansen, and Sim the best. I like Toms the worst, because of age. Depending on how loose I’m feeling, it’ll be those first four and some combination of Leonard, Marino, Kjeldsen, and Jaidee for Top-20 outrights.

To Win the US Open
I’m not sure how comfortable I am with Tiger to win the tournament, largely because of everything The Saw has written on the subject. I already have enough invested in Tiger winning at least one major to pass up a marginal opportunity. I expect to be on Tiger big in match-ups.

For the rest of the field, Stricker at +4000 is very solid. If Phil is at +700, Westwood at +1250, and Furyk at +2800, there’s no reason for Stricker to be +4000 as he’s just as good as those three. His injury issues didn’t prevent him from playing decent at Memorial (SSS I know) and he’s played great this year (equal to Phil per The Saw). Fair odds for him are something like +1450; no reason not to jump on that here.

Sergio has played awful this year, no argument from me on that, but he’s still sitting at ~15th in the world at what can only be construed as a likely low point for him. At 30, he should be entering the period of his career where he can put up his best numbers. Fair odds on him are +6500 or so, while 5Dimes has +13000. I’m a fan at that price.

Kenny Perry is the other guy I’m looking at this week. KP is pushing 50 which combined with his struggles this year is something to be concerned about, but he’s also about the 20th best in the world over the last two years. Now, could that all disappear as quick as a sandcastle in the surf? Sure it could, but he’s played at a crazy high level from age 47-49. He’s going off at +14000 when fair odds are +5500 or so. For +14000 to be fair, he’d have to basically regress to about as good as Cink or Love III, which would be a ton of regression from his last two years.

Kevin Na’s +30000 price is one of the most absurd lines of the week. He closed in the +20000s at THE Masters, and has only improved since then. The fair line for Na is +8000; even though he’s a longer shot, I’m comfortable with that value for a player that has a really great chance to win this week.

I considered Allenby at +9500, but he’s played well lately is doesn’t provide tons of value. I also considered Glover at +17500, but he’s still stained with that major win from last year. The longer shots I like (Curtis, S. Hansen, Sim, Marino) I’ll back in-running if they get into contention.

I’ll have a post up later on with match-ups and props for the US Open.

US Open Week Catch-all

Off of a terrible loss with Karlsson in Memphis, on to Pebble Beach and the US Open.

PGA Money List Projections
Pretty much exactly like last week except Allenby’s WD hurt him a bit and Westwood moved to above 1% to win it. US Open will likely deliver a massive shake-up as Phil, Furyk, Els, Stricker, and the rest of the minor contenders (minus Kim) will be in action for a significant purse. I’m likely going to add more to my Furyk bet, but I’m going to wait until after the US Open to sort that out.

World Cup
South Korea has been the lone bright spot so far. I’ve started 1-5 and lost equity on every future I’ve posted that has played a game except South Korea to advance. I’ve added South Korea to win Group B (+450), advance to the semifinals (+1350), and win the whole damn thing (+18200) because they’re still underrated even with their 7am defeat of Greece. Their path to the semis is actually pretty decent. They advance 2/3rds of the time, play one of four mediocre Group A teams in the octofinals, and then at worst play either England or Germany depending on what side of the draw they fall on in the quarters. Nate Silver has them at 34% to win Group B, just short of 20% to advance to the semis, and around 3% to raise the Cup.

As to why they’re underrated? No one believes a non-power country can win the World Cup and few believe a non-power country will make the semis. They’re Non-European and not Brazilian or Argentinian which automatically lends them to be underrated. They have only one instance of World Cup success (a semifinal in 2002), but that came on home soil. Those three things are why they’re available at value. Can you imagine if 5Dimes had released South Korea at +400 to make the semis (around where France sits BTW)? It would’ve been looked at as a complete and utter joke. I hope something pans out with this team as I’m going to need some profitable outrights with the way my game bets have gone.

Robert Karlsson
Bobby K. played very well this week and I’m so much less mad than I would be otherwise because of the absurd circumstances that led to him getting as close as he was. He got an incredible gift from Garrigus on 18 to send it to a playoff. Garrigus making triple there is probably a 1% chance maximum, more likely less than that. In at least 99 of 100 universes, that poor bastard finds some way to make six on 18 and win. That we even saw that 1 out of 100 is ridiculous.

The ridiculousness didn’t end there as Karlsson then missed an eight footer on the second playoff hole that is probably a 60% putt for someone as good as Karlsson. Missing that wasn’t unforgivable, but it goes in more often than not and the match ends. On the next hole, Westwood gives him a gift by missing a five foot par putt. Karlsson can win simply by making the exact same putt from the exact same distance that Westwood missed. Normally, I’d say Karlsson should make that at least 80% of the time, but his chance was probably higher considering he watched exactly what happened to Westwood’s putt! He obviously missed and Westwood hit a great shot on 18, made birdie, and won. The chances of Karlsson not making one of those putts is 8%. I can’t really be mad about that.

What I am mad at is that Karlsson played well enough to rule him out as a US Open pick where he likely would’ve gone off at 100/1 or higher.

US Open Outright Looks
5Dimes put out there outright odds on the field today. I like the following:

Tiger +670, really don’t need to cover this one
Stricker +4000, has been injured
Allenby +9000, sick and WD last week
Sergio +12500, has played like dog shit all year
Perry +15000, hasn’t done anything since 2009
Leonard +30000
Na +32500
Curtis +36000
Senden +38500
Soren Hansen +38500

The last six fit into the category of being in that 30th-45th group of very good players, but never doing anything (like winning tournaments) to get noticed. Maybe one of them will emerge in contention this week and deliver a crippling collapse.

I’m pretty sure I’ll have money on Tiger, Stricker, Allenby, Sergio, and possibly KP as outrights. The other six I’ll be looking at during the tournament if they get into contention.

Speaking of possible bets, The Greek currently has Tiger +110 Phil -130, a line which has moved away from Tiger since it was posted. That would currently be a 5 unit play for those who are curious.

I’ll have more views on the tournament throughout the week.

St. Jude Classic

The Tour moves to Memphis this week for the St. Jude Classic. The field is solid for the week before the US Open with Allenby, Westwood, Villegas, Z. Johnson, McIlroy, Harrington, and Goosen all playing. Few things to watch for:

Jordan Spieth
Let’s get something straight, Jordan Spieth had three below par rounds in the Byron Nelson at the age of 16. He’s likely one of the best 16 year old golfers in the country, but let’s be serious here. Everyone looking to crown him as a future stud should remember that what we saw in Dallas could’ve very easily been the tip of the iceberg (aka a 90th percentile performance) as much as it could’ve been his mean talent level. We just don’t know. What we do know is that Matt Weibring is -105 against Spieth this week for the tournament. We also know Weibring is essentially the 130th best player in the world. I feel comfortable Spieth isn’t that good, at least not yet.

So why is the line that high? Maybe this:

Thank you PGATour.com for doing your part.

Padraig and Retief
These two are right in that Villegas, Karlsson, McIlroy, Allenby group right behind Westwood in talent in this field. Why are their lines so off though? Goosen hasn’t played in two months and Padraig has played like dog shit. None of that really matters though and one of these tournaments Harrington is going to rip off a few rounds in the 60s and contend. Hopefully this week.

Bobby K.
Robert Karlsson is a top 20 player in the world who largely plays in Europe. Despite being very good, he rarely plays in the US and contends even less than that. For that reason I think he’s one of the best “sleepers” for PGA events he participates in. You don’t see Goosen, Harrington, McIlroy, etc. going off at +6000 like Bobby K, despite them being essentially as good. I’ll take that value.

Fades
Toms dominates this event and Gay won last year in a walk. I’ll be looking to bet against both as much as possible.

Picks
Karlsson to win +6000
Goosen +127 Toms (T)
Goosen +120 Toms (1)
Harrington +133 McIlroy (T)
Harrington +120 McIlroy (1)
Harrington +145 Westwood (T)
Weibring -105 Spieth (T)
Weibring +105 Spieth (1)
Karlsson +133 Schwartzel (T)

Westwood and Schwartzel are both getting more credit than they deserve for how much better they are than their opponents. Harrington is not so inferior to Westwood that he should be +145; more like +110, +115 at the very worst. Charl played well earlier this year and is pretty good, but Karlsson is quite a bit better.

Valuing Strasburg Going Forward

Well, Steven Strasburg just delivered a genuinely incredible start, striking out fourteen in seven innings and only allowing two runs. We should all remember this was against a pretty awful Pirates line-up and in a one game sample anything can happen, but altogether Strasburg showed why everyone thinks he’s going to he a superstar. The question is how the betting public is going to value Strasburg as he makes the next ~20 starts this season.

Strasburg plays for the Nationals, who aren’t very good, so he certainly won’t be -200 against teams that aren’t the Pirates, Astros, or Orioles. In fact, it’s likely that he’ll be a dog in a large number of his games much like Zach Greinke is a dog despite being one of the better pitchers in the AL. A lot of the time he’ll be a short favorite (-110 to -130), and that’s where I think a ton of people will look to back him as long as he keeps pitching pretty well. For example, tonight the Nats were -200. Even against the O’s at home in May they maxed out at -150. If we adjust for Strasburg, I could see the Nats being something like -105 against the Braves at home or -105 against the Rockies on the road with Strasburg on the mound.

How good is Strasburg is the next question. Pinnacle has set the over/under for his season ERA at 3.50 which would make him a well above-average starter, but not put him on the same plane as Jimenez, Lincecum, or Halladay. I think the books will try to pass him off as an ace right from the start, especially after his dominant performance tonight. As a contrarian bettor, fading Strasburg is almost a necessity. The Nats were attracting enough action that the line shot up from -160 to -200; that’s pretty likely to continue as the season continues, especially after tonight.

PGA Money List Projections: June 8

I’ve picked the projection model apart again because I realized I had been forgetting to cut down the standard deviation to put into the normdist function as the season went on. This is important because obviously the possible standard deviation is lower when there’s eight tournaments remaining rather than 15. I’ve set the standard deviation to 2/3rds of where it was at and will decrease it proportionally as the season finishes up (I’m aiming for a final tournament standard deviation of around $200,000). The projections below are much tighter than those of previous weeks.

I don’t really think Els is value here; the projection system certainly has error bars and the uncertainty I have in the standard deviation (not to mention the complete and utter lack of contrarian analysis inherent in the bet) makes this a non-play.

Phil benefited from his top ten this week by climbing to 23.5%. He’s skipping his normal visit to St. Jude to tune up for the US Open in his backyard at Pebble Beach. I’ll take this time to note that even Phil is going to have to come up with ~$2,000,000 in winnings over these last eight big tournaments. That’s going to require him to play at a level above what he’s established as his talent level, but it’s not out of the question obviously.

Furyk sits pretty at 22%, 2nd in projected earnings and barely 3rd in projected winning percentage. The Furyk +1150 from January is looking pretty nice.

Stricker at 7.5%, Allenby at 4%, and Clark at 3% are three guys I hold positions on who hold small chances to win. Each will have to bring home another victory and a few top 10s down the stretch to win this thing. Kim at 3% is possible even though he’s missing a few tournaments. In fact, he’s still likely going to manage to play for 60% of the purses most of his competitors are which will give him at least the chance to pull off what he needs to pull off: basically the same thing the three mentioned above need to do.

Probably no updates until after the US Open unless one of the big guns (Villegas, Allenby, Crane, Z. Johnson, or Poulter) wins at St. Jude. Allenby would do well to take advantage of the lesser field this week as he probably won’t face a similarly poor field for the rest of the season.

The Ryder Cup projection’s standard deviation was being modified each week BTW

World Cup Betting Props

Now that the groups have been covered, I’ll use this post for all other bets on the Cup. Most of these will be based on what is value using Pinnacle lines without juice, but some will involve contrarian analysis.

Teams to win:
Uruguay sticks out big time here. They’re something like 1.2% to win the whole thing, but +14300 at 5Dimes and +10000 at Pinny. That’s about a +100% EV. The only reason not to like the bet is because of the high variance in it. I like Uruguay to make the semifinals at +1460 even more. They’re 37.4% to make the quarterfinals based on SPI and they’re even 33% to defeat England (their most difficult quarterfinal opponent possible), meaning they’re at worst 12.3% to make the quarters. That’s equal return on investment, with much better chance of hitting. I’ll likely end up with a small stake in Uruguay to win at +14300 and a larger stake in Uruguay to make the semifinals at +1460.

Uruguay:
I’ll take a second to address why I think Uruguay is underrated by the public and thus by the oddsmakers. Uruguay plays in CONMEBOL where they’re overshadowed by Brazil and Argentina who are regarded as two of the seven best teams in the world and have great stars like Messi, Kaka, etc. Uruguay has highly talented strikers like Forlan and Suarez, but they’re not superstars in La Liga or Serie A. Uruguay hasn’t made it past the Round of 16 since 1970 and past the Group Stage since 1990, and people will judge them negatively for that, but this team should be considered on its own merits. Uruguay struggled to qualify, finishing 5th in CONMEBOL’s qualifying group. However, their +8 goal differential was better than Argentina’s against the same schedule. Finally, Uruguay has a starting XI where 10/11 players play for major European teams (Monaco, Lazio, Napoli, Valencia, Fenerbahce, etc.) and 9/11 have at least 21 caps. This is a team with good, experienced players, a good record of recent performance, but one overshadowed by its lack of comparative success and lack of superstars. I think them being underrated makes tons of sense and I see them as much closer to the Italy/Portugal group of teams than the Cameroon/Switzerland group of teams.

Continental Props:
If you ask anyone, the CONMEBOL hierarchy would go something like this:

Brazil>Argentina>>>>>>>Chile>>Paraguay>>Uruguay

In fact, that’s pretty much what the odds for best CONMEBOL sqaud at 5Dimes say:

Brazil +112
Argentina +175
Chile +1250
Paraguay +1425
Uruguay +1850

In reality, the difference between those last three teams and the top two teams is a lot smaller according to SPI. Uruguay and Chile sit at 81, right behind Argentina at 85 and Brazil at 89. Obviously, the dominant teams like Brazil and Argentina have the best shot to be among the final 2 or 4, but Uruguay, Chile, and Paraguay certainly are good enough squads to be there at the end. Add in the minimal juice at 5Dimes and I played each of the three for 1x.

Other Props:

SBET has a prop on whether a team will win the World Cup that hasn’t before. Yes is +180, while the same prop is 42% Yes/58% No at Pinny. That’s a 17% EV which I’ll take for 5x.

In the same vein, they have a prop on how many red cards will be shown. Under 21.5 is -150 at SBET, with juice removed the Over is 35%/Under is 65%. That’s an 11% EV. I’m still considering that one.

To sum up this post, thanks SBET and go Uruguay.

Ryder Cup Projections: June 6th

I completely forgot to put up the projections last week, so here they are without comment:

Now to the updated ones that reflect everything through the just completed Memorial tournament:

The big four for the US all played well this week, with Phil and Furyk grabbing top tens and Tiger and Stricker finishing in the top 20, so they all got 100-200 more points. Phil leads with 5120 points and 6000 projected points. He’s already a lock to qualify as they threshold is likely to be ~3250 points. Anthony Kim and Jim Furyk are both over 3000 points and close to crossing the threshold. Both should qualify barring missed cuts in the remaining events they participate in, which in Kim’s case may only be the WGC-Bridgestone and PGA Championship. Tiger did what he needed to do at The Memorial, which is earn Ryder Cup and FedEx Cup points so he’s eligible to play in the Playoffs and the Ryder Cup. He shouldn’t find it difficult to earn Ryder Cup selection as long as he plays well in the three remaining majors (which award double points).

Of the rest of the big guns, Mahan and Glover are both above 50% to qualify and Crane, Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, and Cink are sitting between 20-40% to join the team. Of those, only Dustin Johnson is far off the roughly -0.35 z-score that should be the threshold for qualifying for the team.

The big mover this week was Ricky Barnes. He sat at a lowly 4% to qualify at the start of the tournament, but now is at 12%. His road to qualification is still difficult, but if he pulls off another top-10 at a major and picks up 500 points and plays well in the remaining PGA events he could pull it off. Barnes may be better than the 120th best player in the world, but US fans should be terrified of the proposition of Barnes either gaining qualification or a captain’s invite as there’s no way he’s one of the 12 (or even 25) best US golfers for the event.

Rickie Fowler also jumped a lot from 5% to 16% throughout the weekend. Fowler will have ample opportunity down the stretch to qualify. He’s tough to pin down talent-wise as his talent says ~100th in the world, but he’s young, has a smaller sample of rounds, and should play better moving forward. Him making the US team would provide an amazing fade against lower tier Euro golfers, but I feel he’d hurt the American’s chances of victory.

I’ll have Money List projections up tomorrow plus World Cup coverage this week.

The Memorial

I don’t have much this week regarding The Memorial because, frankly, the lines offered suck big dick. The outrights are pretty much spot on for those with reasonably decent chances to win and the match-ups pair overrated with overrated and vice-versa. Essentially, this tournament will boil down to Tiger Woods playing better than Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson. That’s really all I got.

Tiger -110 Phil (T) 2x
Tiger -110 Phil (1st) 1x
Tiger -110 Els (T) 1x
Tiger -110 Els (1st) 1x
Tiger Woods to win +600 (2x)
O’Hair +118 D.Johnson

Look for some pretty large changes to the Money List/Ryder Cup projections this week.

World Cup Preview: Group F-H

Group F:

Game lines:
- Italy -0.5 -106 vs. Paraguay +380/+237
- Slovakia -245 vs. New Zealand +975; +360

Group F is very interesting from a gambling perspective because it has two of the four worst teams in the Cup, the heavily overrated 2006 champion, and another one of those solid South American sides. Italy comes in almost certainly overrated after their victory four years ago; the team they bring this year is no better than sixth in the world even if we assume that SPI is underrating Italy for some reason and there’s no particular reason to assume it is underrating them. Paraguay to defeat Italy is one of my favorite bets of the tournament and I’ll likely be betting Paraguay to win/tie also. Paraguay is a fairly decent side (similar to Mexico or Denmark) and is definitely good enough to beat Italy often enough to make +370 value. Paraguay to win the group is pretty large value because Paraguay has pretty much the same chance as Italy to earn six points and they can definitely win against Italy. New Zealand vs. Italy will be the ugliest gang-bang of the tournament (non-Group G edition). I can’t imagine what the even action line is for that game. Pinny has Italy -2 -110/New Zealand +2 +100 which I doubt will hold up through the June 20th kick-off. I’ll likely also be on Slovakia vs. Italy just because of the names involved.

Bets: Paraguay to win the group; Paraguay to defeat Italy and on the handicap, New Zealand and Slovakia on the handicap vs. Italy

Group G:

Game lines:
- Brazil -2.5 +112/-813 vs. North Korea +2.5 -121/+2369; +877
- Ivory Coast +246 vs. Portugal +134; +230

Group G has been universally called the “Group of Death”, and for good reason as their top three has a combined SPI of 83, meaning their group is basically three of Germany or the Netherlands. Brazil, Portugal, and the Ivory Coast will have a titanic battle for advancement out of the group, which may, interestingly enough, be settled by who beats up on bottom feeder North Korea the most. North Korea is the side to watch for contrarian gamblers as they’re universally regarded as a side liable to be torn apart by the top three, as evidenced by the +2.5 line versus Brazil. I’ll likely have money on North Korea + the handicap versus all three other teams. That’s pretty much the limit of my bets on this group. The other three games will have split action and North Korea is nowhere near good enough to consider backing to win or even advance.

Bets: North Korea on the handicap versus Brazil, Portugal, and the Ivory Coast

Group H:

Game lines:
- Chile -1 +104/-170 vs. Honduras +1 -113/+576; +311
- Spain -1.5 -106/-333 vs. Switzerland +1.5 -102/+1287; +460

This group has Spain, the favorites, defending Euro 2008 champs, and the 2nd best team in the world by SPI, plus three under-the-radar teams. Chile is quietly around the 10th best team by SPI, another underrated South American squad, and is the second favorite in this group. Also, Switzerland and Honduras are better than what you would expect. Vegas has Honduras as much worse than SPI does, part of what is creating such an insane value gap. I’m not sure what to say about that except that Honduras fits the profile of an underrated team: no superstar, plays outside Europe, and no World Cup history. I’m going to make an above average play on the handicap for them against Spain. I imagine I’ll also be on Chile to beat Spain as Chile is much better than people expect. I’ve already taken Honduras to win the group at +5500, only because it was absurd value (Honduras may not be 9% to win the group, but they’re closer to 9% than 2%). I’ll likely be adding Chile to win and Honduras to advance, continuing the South/Central American theme to my picks.

Bets: Chile to defeat Spain; Honduras on the handicap vs. Spain; Honduras and Chile to win; Honduras to advance
——-

I’ll have more preview stuff up over the next few weeks including some dark horses for most goals scored and some props/futures type stuff that I figure is value. For your full World Cup fix of tactics and all, check out Equaliser Football Blog, Zonal Marking, and Football Further. All three have a nice review of teams, players, and tactics to break down the Cup even further, and as a bonus are really well written.

PGA Money List Projections: June 1st

This week’s PGA Money List projection looks a lot like the one produced two weeks ago with only small modifications for most of the competitors. The most important move, though, is Steve Stricker’s jump from 7% to 10%, largely on the back of him proving he’s healthy enough to enter next week’s Memorial and the John Deere later in the summer. Tim Clark also dropped from 8% to 5% after pissing away one of his opportunities to win money by finishing ~60th at The Colonial. Projections follow with the best estimates I have for tournaments played.

I have Furyk, Stricker, Clark, and Kim as small value and Allenby as large value based on 5Dimes’s lines. Phil Mickelson’s absurd valuation is still fueling that value, plus the fact that Allenby is being valued as if he’s as good as Charles Howell III when he’s actually as good as Paul Casey. The part of that makes me laugh is that without The Saw’s ratings, there’s not much difference between the two – neither wins on Tour, is a media personality, or has a reputation of past success. However, Allenby is essentially the 10th best player in the world and until the books start valuing him like that I’ll keep taking advantage of it.

Zach Johnson jumped from essentially no chance to about 1% to win which illustrates how ridiculous the path to victory is for some of the long shots. Johnson would only jump to 5-6% with another win and only 20% with two more wins. He’d then need to add a couple more top tens to get to the $5.5-5.75 million that it’ll take to win the Money List. That’s basically what anyone sitting with 1% has to do to win which would be a Tiger worthy run of dominance over the next five months.

For anyone wondering, if we value Tiger Woods like he’s as good as he’s been the past two years and include him in the Money List projections, he’d still be 21% to win the whole thing (ie, the current favorite). Yeah, that’s right, he’s still the most likely to win the whole thing despite having banked only $330,000 so far. That’s pretty phenomenal.

I’ll have Ryder Cup projections sometime this week. Ben Crane has jumped to something like 25% to qualify over the past two weeks and I bet that he’s going to be heavily considered for a Captain’s pick based on his strong play so far this year. Zach Johnson also, obviously, made a big move up the chart.

World Cup Preview: Groups C-E

Group C:

Game lines:
- USA +1 +120/+730 vs. England -1 -140/-225; +360
- Slovenia +141 vs. Algeria +230; +221

This group features the always powerful English team (3rd in SPI) versus a decent American team and two rather poor sides in Slovenia and Algeria. I really have no idea how to approach betting on this group because England and the US can be valued in so many different ways by the public. Typically, England is seen as a choker in international tournaments, but they’re still very good and everyone knows it. The Americans are actually a solid team (if a little dependent on offense over defense), but it seems people in the states think they’re a bad team. I think the only safe bets in this group are Slovenia and Algeria on the handicap against England as neither team has a reputation and action will be flowing to England at anything better than -2 EV. I think Algeria to advance and Slovenia to win the group are the bets here as Slovenia advancing is imaginable with an American fuck up, but I don’t think anyone sees Slovenia winning or Algeria really advancing.

Bets: Slovenia and Algeria vs. England (handicap); Algeria to advance; Slovenia to win

Group D:

Game lines:
- Ghana +282 vs. Serbia +117; +225
- Australia +1 -106/+655 vs. Germany -1 -114/-195; +325

Germany always does well at the World Cup so they’re instant fade material for each of their three opponents. Serbia is a very talented third tier European team that is pretty much equal to the German team without the name. Australia and Ghana are decent sides without much footballing history so they’ll be good choices to match-up against Germany as well. For the group, Australia to advance and to win are the bets. They’re likely seen as the 4th best team in the group, but they’re better than Ghana and don’t have the African element to their name.

Bets: Serbia to defeat Germany; Australia and Ghana on the handicap vs. Germany; Australia to win and advance

Group E:

Game lines:
- Denmark +560 vs. Netherlands -164; +296
- Cameroon -0.5 +107 vs. Japan +0.5 -127/+299; +237

The Dutch are clearly the class of this group, but each of the other three teams are capable of advancing per their SPI odds. Japan is getting any credit from anyone so I’ll be backing them, but I’ll also be taking Cameroon whose potent offense will allow them to hang with anyone in the group as long as E’too doesn’t quit on them. The Danes are European which likely eliminates all of their value.

Bets: Japan to win and advance, Cameroon to win; Japan vs. Netherlands on the handicap
—–
These three are the most boring groups to bet on, but the 3rd & 4th best teams should provide good value to advance/win.

Golf Weekly Round-up: May 31

First, to the man of the hour, Zach Johnson, who secured his 7th PGA Tour victory and again proved that you can come into a tournament playing like dogshit (0 top-10s in 2010) and still win. Zach paid out at +1500 after the first round and his win was part of a really lucky Sunday that saw me go from potentially 10x down for the tournament to 10x up. Jerry Kelly played +6 to inexplicably blow a 7 shot lead over John Senden for the tournament, Ogilvy delivered a -6 to earn a push with K.J. Choi, and of course, Johnson came from a stroke back to win by two. Not too shabby a result.

I’ll just note that Ben Crane is moving strongly into the fade category after another top 5 this weekend. He’s good, but he’s going to be getting a ton of love from the books the next few weeks.

There were some moves on the money list projections this weekend, largely due to some poor performances and Stricker’s health, and I’ll post the updated projection tomorrow or Tuesday. Ryder Cup projections will also come out this week because there have been some changes there.

There’s a very strong field planned for The Memorial at Muirfield this weekend including Tiger, Phil, Stricker, Furyk, Allenby, and Villegas. I’m looking forward to a Tiger vs. Phil line that I anticipate will open at Tiger -120 without juice after Phil’s missed cut this week. Who honestly knows though.

To be posted this week: Ryder Cup projections, Money list projections, AFC East preview, World Cup Group C-E preview, World Cup Group F-H preview, and The Memorial preview with odds