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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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)

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)