THE PLAYERS Championship is in the books with Rory McIlroy winning in an anticlimactic three-hole aggregate playoff on Monday over J.J. Spaun. He became the eighth player to win twice at TPC Sawgrass and it has been a great start to the season for McIlroy who also won at Pebble Beach giving him some momentum in quest of a Major championship that has eluded him since the 2014 PGA Championship. The PGA Tour remains in Florida and heads to Palm Harbor for the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. This will be the 24th year of the Valspar that debuted in 2000 at Copperhead which is a par 71 that stretches 7,352 yards and like last week, it demands elite ball striking. This is another positional course with narrow, tree-lined fairways which tends to yield below average driving accuracy and driving distance rankings. It once again makes Strokes Gained: Approach the top key stat this week along with SG: Around The Green and SG: Putting (Bermuda) right in the mix...

The PGA Tour remains in the Sunshine State this week for THE PLAYERS Championship taking place from TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The event has been played since 1974 and has been held at TPC Sawgrass since 1982 with the only year not played was the COVID year of 2020. The course is a par 72 at 7,352-yards, an increase of 75 yards from last year. While not considered a target course, it is a positional course as precision is a priority with water in play on 12 holes, including all three finishing holes, and 92 bunkers are spread throughout. Those final three holes have won or lost many tournaments. We saw the first back-to-back winner last year with Scottie Scheffler who won by one shot over a trio of runner-ups to erase a five-shot deficit going into the final round with a Sunday 64. He joined six other players as two-time winners, the first since 2013 when Tiger Woods captured his second victory, and Scheffler will be looking to join Jack Nicklaus the only three-time...

Each bet is Win/Top Five/Top Ten. The typical recommendation is 50%/25%/25% with odds, payouts and results based on a $1000 unit (easy round number for bookkeeping) on each of the following players. The payouts are listed right below the odds which are all from DraftKings: Justin Thomas Odds: Win 2,500 ~ Top Five 400 ~ Top Ten 190 Payout: Win 1,250.00 ~ Top Five 100.00 ~ Top Ten 47.50 After some big time struggles right around this time last year, Thomas is trending the right way. He has five top tens over his last seven starts including a pair of runner-ups and a solo third. He is seventh in SG: Total this year which is important on this course where he finished T21 two years ago and T12 last year as an average weekend of 72-73 knocked him out of contention. He comes in No. 4 in the metrics model making this a buy low spot. Patrick Cantlay Odds: Win 2,500 ~ Top Five 450 ~ Top Ten 200 Payout: Win 1,250.00 ~ Top Five 112.50 ~ Top Ten 50.00 Cantlay is another player that is overdue...

Each bet is Win/Top Five/Top Ten. The typical recommendation is 50%/25%/25% with odds, payouts and results based on a $1000 unit (easy round number for bookkeeping) on each of the following players. The payouts are listed right below the odds which are all from DraftKings: Colin Morikawa Odds: Win 1,600 ~ Top Five 260 ~ Top Ten 125 Payout: Win 800.00 ~ Top Five 65.00 ~ Top Ten 31.25 Morikawa will be our chalk this week going against Scheffler who is the huge favorite again after making a run early on Sunday last week. Morikawa has made two starts and it has been good with a solo second at The Sentry and a T17 at Pebble Beach. Over his last 18 starts, he has finished outside T28 only once that includes eight top 10s and his game is ideal here. At Torrey, he had a T21 in his 2020 debut and followed it up with a T4 at the U.S. Open in 2021 and a solo third at The Farmers in 2023. Tommy Fleetwood Odds: Win 3,500 ~ Top Five 550 ~ Top Ten 250 Payout: Win 1,750.00 ~ Top Five 137.50 ~ Top...

The PGA Tour will officially begin its season this week in the eyes of many as following a pair of destination events in Hawaii and then three straight tournaments with course rotations that also included a pair of pro-am’s, we finally have stability with a full arsenal of data and legitimate course history. While we are coming off a signature event at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am and with another signature event on deck at The Genesis Invitational, this would normally set up to be a lull in the schedule but not at TPC Scottsdale. The Greatest Show on Grass is the perfect middle stop in-between the signature events and in its usual spot on the schedule during Super Bowl week. The Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale has been a fan favorite for years and annually is the most attended event on tour, surpassing 700,000 spectators (they are not called patrons here) each year. Highlighted by The Colosseum, the par three No. 16 hole that accommodates 20,000 fans, this is...

This week marks the first signature event of the season with the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am taking place on the Monterey Peninsula, two hours north of San Francisco. Weather can be an issue this time of year and we saw that last season when the event was shortened to 54 holes with Wyndham Clark winning by one shot over Ludvig Åberg after shooting a course record 60 in the third and ultimately final round. The weather looks to be a non-issue this year with average temperatures and a slight chance of rain over the weekend with typical moderate winds. Gone are the three long and laborious pro-am rounds over three different courses from Thursday through Saturday as now being a signature event, the field has been shortened to 80 players with no cut. Players will alternate between Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill on Thursday and Friday during the pro-am portion and finish with both rounds at Pebble Beach over the weekend with just the professionals playing and it will be that...

Each bet is Win/Top Five/Top Ten. The typical recommendation is 50%/25%/25% with odds, payouts and results based on a $1000 unit (easy round number for bookkeeping) on each of the following player. The payouts are listed right below the odds which are all from DraftKings:   Will Zalatoris Odds: Win 2,200 ~ Top Five 450 ~ Top Ten 225 Payout: Win 1,100.00 ~ Top Five 112.50 ~ Top Ten 56.25 Zalatoris is off to a good start this season with a T12 and a T26 which comes after a good end to last season after a rough middle of the circuit as he was trying to get back into form following a major back injury. He is a player with a great course fit as he has a T13, T7 and a runner-up in a playoff in 2022. SG: Approach is a key metric here because of the difficulty of the green complexes but he is No. 34 in SG: Around The Green. His putting has been suspect through two starts but he is known for streaky putting and he likes the Poa. He is in the similar category with Max Homa and even better...

Each bet is Win/Top Five/Top Ten. The typical recommendation is 50%/25%/25% so based on a $100 unit on each of the following players, the payouts are listed right below the odds which are all from DraftKings: Sam Burns Odds: Win 1,600 ~ Top Five 330 ~ Top Ten 180 Payout: Win 800.00 ~ Top Five 82.50 ~ Top Ten 45.00 Burns got off to a bad start at The Sentry with an opening round 72 but closed 66-66-65 to finish T8 and after taking last week off, he comes in with good form and good course history. He started strong last season with four top ten finishes in his first five starts including a T6 at The American Express, had his ups and downs in March through most of July but closed the season with five straight top 14 finishes including a T5 and a T2. Coming off the great finish last week should propel him at The American Express as four of his last five starts have resulted in T18 in 2019, T6 in 2020, T11 in 2023 and T6 in 2024. Max Greyserman Odds: Win 3,000 ~ Top Five 550 ~ Top Ten...