It’s always fun to go back to a field like Bay Hill and see the best players in the world put to the test on a difficult track. Today was no different, as the field average was about a shot above the pair, and only a third of the field was able to break the pair in the round.
In these types of events, the cream seems to reach the top, which certainly happened when Rory McIlroy set the starting pace with a 6-under 66. Bryson DeChambeau remained on his heels during the morning wave, but ended up getting a shot below the lead. Instead, it would be Corey Conners who would catch, pass and tie again with Rory in his final hole in the opening round.
Several other big names fill the leaderboard with under-par rounds on Thursday, allowing a lot of movement to happen before the weekend. Bay Hill is a place where the winners usually come a little behind the leader after Day 1. Let’s see who stands out in the group’s strokes won in Friday’s round.
Strokes Gained Explanation
Gained strokes can give golfers, DFS players and fans a lot more detail about how a golfer is really playing measuring each shot in relation to the rest of the field.
Using the millions of data points it collects, TOUR calculates how many kicks an average player takes to place the ball in the hole from all distances and situations. If a player hits these averages, he is winning strokes on the field.
Every situation in golf is different – Strokes Gained measures players’ performance in relation to the situation.
In this article, we’ll cover a variety of metrics for earned scams …
- Scams obtained: off the tee
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green
- Strokes Gained: Putting
- Strokes won: Striking the ball (which is off the tee + approach)
- Strokes obtained: Tee-to-Green (which is Striking the Ball + Around-the-Green)
In general, the shot on the ball and the tee-to-green are the most stable in the long run, while the putt is more subject to volatility.
You can often find advantages in live betting by identifying golfers who are hitting the ball well, but failing to make the putts drop. Likewise, players with a high SG: the placement numbers may regress in the future.
3 golfers to buy in the second round
If the story is true at Bay Hill again this year, then we need look no further than those who infiltrated below average on Thursday. None of the last five champions had more than five pitches back to start the second round, highlighting how difficult it can be to climb the leaderboard on this track. Since we have the numbers to make our choices, I will also not try to go against them in this story.
I really can’t advise you to run and jump on the available number, in fact, I would probably wait until the morning wave publishes some scores, but if I’m betting on a winner of this tournament, it’s Bryson DeChambeau. He was someone I was looking at last week, and he showed some form at times, but he just couldn’t get any consistency.
He now enters the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he performed well, and leaves with a great round of 5 under, where he led the field in strokes winning from the tee to the green. Bryson was well ahead of the field off the tee, as expected, but more importantly for me, he won more than two strokes with his irons. Bay Hill is a place he can take advantage of with his additional distance, but only if his irons and chocks are in place.
Bryson also has one of the most underrated short games on TOUR, he did well in those aspects today, as has been the case with him on this course. He never won less than 1.1 strokes in this event and twice exceeded the four strokes won on the green. I love the position he is in to bring back the hype and get a win this week, but I just wish the chance creators could give us a little more.
The first player that caught my attention in this Top 20 is Jordan Spieth. He still has some value available on the +3300 betting markets on FanDuel and really made a big mistake on the opening shot. He cost himself one of the few scoring holes in Bay Hill when he hit his starting shot in the water at Hole 6. That starting shot was a big reason for him to miss almost a shot off the tee onto the field.
His approach to and around the green game was good, but not as good as it has been in recent events. Spieth won just over a shot on the field with his irons and was almost in the middle of the field around the greens. I hope to see Jordan improve in all areas in the second round, and if that happens, this will probably be the last chance for a good bet on the main winner three times.
If I’m falling for the bottom group with 1 down for someone to load up and be in the fray this weekend, it starts with Justin Rose. He had an unstable start on Thursday, and even landed a bunker shot on his third hole. His two-point front nine was pretty ugly, but he really seemed to find something in his inside nine.
Rose’s shot statistics are distorted by that opening nine, where he placed the ball in the water as he approached the fairway bunker on his second hole and had that shank on the next. In total, he hit just two greens on his way out, but he turned around and hit eight of his final nine greens in regulation. Even with his fights in the first rounds, he was able to manage a round below par and put himself slightly above the average of the pitch in strokes he won from the tee to the green.
I will embark with Rose in the second round of Friday, especially the attractive +9000 available at DraftKings. He certainly seemed to have recovered after some initial fights on Thursday, and this is a field he played well in his career with four submissions in the top 10, including three in the top 3.
3 golfers to disappear in the second round
Corey Conners gave a fantastic display of golf on Thursday as he stepped out of the gates with four birdies and an eagle on his first seven holes, before launching a shot at the last hole of his nine outer holes. He recovered before falling into his final hole to tie Rory in the lead for the first round.
I don’t want to rain on his parade with a fade after such a good round, but my concern for Conners is the same every week: his short game. He was able to win more than two strokes on the field with his putter on Thursday, which is a fantastic round for a player who currently occupies 118th place in the TOUR placement. This rating is a good improvement over the 181st rating he had during the past season.
His game around the green is no better, which will require the high-end iron game he played today for the rest of the weekend. On two previous trips to Bay Hill, Conners missed 7.5 strokes in and around the greens in two missed cuts. These types of problems do not change overnight, and I will put my cards in the beginning so that they appear sooner or later.
There are many ways to get into trouble around Bay Hill, and often the data obtained from strikes can be drastically distorted by a serious error in a solid round. Unfortunately for Matt Wallace, that was not the case. Instead, he hit five birdies on the eight greens he hit in the regulation.
Wallace managed a solid 2 under to open his tournament, but, as mentioned above, he did it without having many hits with the ball. The lack of hitting greens resulted in more than a lost loss to the field in the approach, and he was also slightly below average on the tee. Wallace ended up losing strokes to the green field tee, but made up for more than three strokes won with his club. He certainly has the talent to turn the ball around and make his short, remarkably strong game continue to help, but he is a fade to me until I see it.
I always liked Max Homa’s comments and interaction on Twitter and on his podcast during his young career. It is not always that you receive such an open conversation from an active professional athlete, let alone on a daily basis. He converted a big win at Genesis two weeks ago and turned around to finish 22nd in the WGC. I was honestly shocked to see him on the pitch for this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, as it is seven consecutive weeks of action for Homa.
Despite the crazy extension of the tournament, he continues to show up and perform well. Homa posted a 2 under 70 on Thursday at Bay Hill, and will tie for 15th place to start the round on Friday. My concern with Max going into the second round is that he lost his strokes to the field tee to green today and really had problems with his irons. I don’t know if it was the beginning of tiredness or just a bad day, but Homa lost 1.44 strokes to the field with the irons that day.
He was able to save the round by having the best club on the field today, winning 4.11 strokes with the flat stick. Obviously, this level of hot putter is not sustainable and, unless he finds the rest of his game quickly, he will be falling on the leaderboard.