2026 PGA Championship Betting & DFS Preview

[Music] All right, welcome in inside Golf Podcast, PGA Championship, betting and DFS preview. This podcast before we get started is brought to you by the six of six at six of six.com. This is a real-time analytics dashboard built exclusively for golf DFS on draft kings. It is not a line-up optimizer, not a projection site. It is what you use during the tournament to actually track what's happening to your money. More and more, it will also become a spot to see your DFS history and DFS history as a whole to help inform your decisions. We're going to be talking about it a lot on our podcast going forward because it's got some great data that we're excited to have at our fingertips. The ownership piece is really the core of the app. When you've entered in 10 different contests on a Sunday, you really have no idea what the field is doing. Six of six pulls live ownership data across every contest you're in and shows you exactly what percentage of the field has of each player. So if you've faded Scotty and he goes low, you know in real-time how much equity you're gaining, I apologize if you faded Scotty and he shoots a bad score, that's when you would be gaining equity. The reverse would be when you played Scotty. You can learn just how much you're actually gaining in terms of win equity in that contest when a player in your lineup shoots a good score or even just makes a birdie or an eagle. You know, if you've loaded up on a a chalk guy who's struggling vice versa, you can see that damage immediately. That information is frankly not available anywhere else in one place. So if you care about tracking your DFS lineups in real time and seeing exactly how they're doing, six of six is the only place for you. It also is a leaderboard tracker. Every contest you're entered in live, you can see where your lineup sits, what your best and worst performers are doing, and how your stack is performing relative to the field. You know during a major when you've got 50 lineups, 150 lineups across 15 contests, this is really the only way to actually follow your action without losing your mind. A lot of people in the ISN Discord are already onto it and loving it. And I'll tell me the guy who developed it is a long term ISN Discord member as well. But over time, six of six builds, a picture of how you play which golfers you overweight your average ownership versus the field, which contest you're winning in, which contest you're bleeding in. This data will continue to grow as the seasons years go on and will become super, super invaluable to an EDF as player. As you know at ISN, we don't like to do a ton of partnerships. Most of our advertising spaces for in-house ads, you know. And so when we partner with a place, it's generally someone that we know really well and the guy that who's developed this has been a long time ISN member since day one. He's an awesome guy. He's tested it out for a couple weeks now with a bunch of our Discord members and some of our higher stakes, DFS players that are super in the weeds and playing a ton of lineups, you know, your wrecks and canis and souls and rishis. And the reviews have been absolutely outstanding. I started using it a couple weeks as well and I love it. So go to sixofsix.com. You can download the six of six app and the app store as well. We have a discount code too. It's the only discount available. The discount code is very simple. It's ISN. So just type in ISN and you actually get 33% off your first month. Give it a shot for a month. You're getting a really good deal in month one. And if it's not for you, if you're not enjoying it, if it's not something that you find absolutely necessary to track, you can cancel after the first month. But it's only 20 bucks for the first month if you type in code ISN. And I genuinely believe that this is going to be the type of tool that if you are a golf DFS player, you just need to have. Or at least if you're a degenerate like our folks at ISN in the Discord and us who are just living and dying with every putt and love to track, this is an app that's tailor made for you. You can get that real time data to figure out how your lineups are actually doing. Not, you know, not just what the six of six percentage is, but what is really happening on a per shot basis when one of your players is doing well, what is really happening when one of your players is doing poorly, what you really need to happen on a given week in DFS. And it's going to the more data that it gets, the more useful it's going to be because you're going to be able to figure out very, very easily what your ROI is in certain contests are, what your ROI on certain players are, which players per dollar have actually been the best for their price point. You can start to kind of figure out some like macro trends, for example. I felt like when Scotty was in the 14k range this year, he was overpriced based on what I was seeing with like lineups that one playing Scotty or lack thereof. And now he's been priced back in the 13k range. He's actually in the 13k range with the 5k range this week. But you can kind of find out, you know, how successful these players have been at their price point and who has been good macro DFS plays for the season. It's really, really good data to have that I think is actually going to tangibly help people become better DFS players because if you're kind of just throwing in your your lineups in random contests every week and not actually tracking your ROI and what contests you're good at and what contests you may have a more difficult time winning money in. I think it's just a lot harder to win. It certainly was for me before I started doing that by hand. And so now that I have six of six attracts all of that data automatically. So it's just a wonderful app. The person who created it is just like a really awesome hardworking guy. He wants to say anonymous and kind of unassuming. But please support him. Six of six.com. Six of six app on the App Store typing code ISN for 33% off the first month. Okay. Let's get into it. Major week feels like yesterday was the Masters. But here we are again for the PGA championship. A tournament that would be a lot better if it was in August. But here we are in May in the Northeast on a fantastic golf course with what's probably going to be shitty weather and a golf ball that travels far too far for a golf course of this quality to really test the best players. But I already did a bit of a PGA championship preview, which is a little more. If you didn't listen to that, I thought Joseph was incredible. He's one of my favorite people to talk golf with just a wealth of knowledge. He is the guy I go to bounce ideas off of on golf courses and data. And he shares some really interesting perspective on the course. There are a few things I think I see a little bit differently. Then him on a runman. I'm probably a little bit lower than him on perhaps the importance of distance at this golf course. Maybe compared to other PGA venues. Other PGA venues being the key word here. Because well, I'll talk about it as we get a little bit further along in the podcast. But mainly since I already talked about the golf course, going to definitely talk a little bit more about some of the data that I'm seeing and some of the things I'm valuing in my modeling. But mainly trying to dive into some of the players that I've bet and what stands out to me on the DFS light since we have pricing. It's not as clear a picture for me as I record this on Saturday afternoon as it was for the Masters where I came on this podcast and I was like, "Two man card, it's John Rom and Cameron Young for me." those guys, one of those guys are going to win the Masters. That's that's what I'm feeling. You know, in terms of who I think is going to win and how my betting card is going to fill out, I have some futures bets. I have one or two bets. You know, I have a bet that I, well, actually I didn't make it. My friend made it and then I realized how insane of a number it was. I begged him to give me part of it. A bet that I made, I think 12 days ago that I don't even know if it's aged that great based on the way that he's playing at the Wells Fargo. And another bet that I made a couple days ago, which again, he didn't even play that great the next two days at the Wells or excuse me at truest. But I'll talk about those guys while I like those guys. And you know, as far as the risk my betting card plays out, I need to see the end of the truest. I want to see, I want to even see how liverginia finishes. I even, you know, my outright card at Myrtle is a hell of a lot more alive than my card at truest with Ludwig and Xander. Not great. So I want to see how Sunday at a couple of these golf tournaments play out. And, you know, you'll have plenty of opportunities to hear me later in the week. We're really blowing it out for the majors on Inside Sports Network now. So, and I'll talk about my final bets. I'll probably hopefully have those finalized by perhaps Tappen Birdy with Brian on Monday night. So, you know, the, the, a couple of specs of the golf course that just to stay in line with what we always do on the Sunday pod and give you the most comprehensive breakdown of the golf course that you're going to see. It's Aronement Golf Club. It's in Newton Square, Pennsylvania, designed by Donna Ross in 1928. It's a par 70 7,329 yards. I think it's going to play a little bit shorter than that based on what I know about the PGA of America. It can stretch to almost 7,400 yards. The greens are A1 bankgrass measuring 8,200 square feet. They're really large greens. The fairways are L93 bankgrass with average landing areas of 30 yards. Quite a bit more narrow than the landing areas that you actually even saw at Aronement in 2018. These fairways have been pinched in. The roughest tall Fescue Poana measuring 3.25 inches. I think they'll let that freshen up as the week goes on like they did at Oak Hill. Water comes into play on only two holes if that and there are whopping 180 bunkers on this golf course. So Aronement. Well, we've seen this golf course before in 2018. And Keegan Bradley won here at 20 Underpar in a play I've ever just en rose. A couple of things to note about what happened in 2018 because I would not be running to care deeply about what we saw in 2018 because there are a couple of things that are going to be really different this week. First of all, the fairways measured 40 yards wide on average for that BMW. A number of these fairways have now been pinched in to about 30 to 35 yards ahead of the PGH MPGM. Those are still wider fairways than much wider than you see it like winged foot or Oak Hill. But some of the mowing lines have been pinched in on this golf course from what we saw at the PGA that produced a 20 Underpar winning score. You know, the driving accuracy percentage was a lot higher than we should expect to see this week in the Greenson Regulation percentage was a sky I 77.4. So, you know, that was really a punting contest and a wedge fast with almost 50% of all approach shots coming from under 150 yards. The golf course actually only played that week a buck a little bit over 7,000 yards. So, it's going to play potentially 300 yards longer this week. And there was also a ton of rain ahead of this event. It was described as tarantial. More than three inches of rain fell over the weekend. The final round was actually played on Monday due to the amount of rain and this really crushed the course and it just became like a total punting contest. Pudding moved the leaderboard in a really, really extreme way that week. And so, I would be, you know, I'm going to talk to the data golf map from data golf about how he's modeling this golf course on Monday afternoon. That'll be a premium show on ISN because I'm really curious to see if they're going to make changes to their radar plot based on what we saw in 2018. Because I would argue you're going to get an extremely different golf course this week. So, I'm super pumped to talk to him about that. I've got a number of questions for him. But, you know, we're certainly going to see firmer conditions at this year's PGA and a tougher setup. You know, the golf course can play 300 yards longer. Prefer lies will not be utilized. In fact, the 2018 PMW championship falls in line with one of the most rain-affected tournaments of the last decade. So, you know, I'm going to throw some cold water on that comp. I don't think that it's something you should be looking at too heavily this week. And there are a couple other comps I've heard from a narrative perspective that I think are baloney, frankly. And I can talk about why that is. But I just see the golf course for better or worse a little bit differently in my research. It's important to talk about the weather though before we talk a little bit more about the golf course because it, you know, as Joseph talked about often on the podcast, you know, whether this golf course plays firm and fast is going to make a really massive difference in scoring. And what we're looking at right now is a golf tournament that is definitely not going to be half as rain soaked as it was in 2018. But there's still a good amount of rain in the lead up to this event. Certainly more that I would be hoping for. Certainly more than I know some of the members at Aronement, how would imagine are hoping for the Philly, Delphia area. You know, they had seen a dry couple of months heading in, but there's significant rain in the forecast for Monday of tournament week. You know, we're going to see a dry Tuesday. And then it's going to rain throughout the day again on Wednesday. You know, these greens do not have subair. And if it rains during the day on Wednesday, the golf course is simply not going to be as firm as you would want for a major championship. We may even see some rain overnight on Wednesday night. Once the tournament starts at least, there's very little rain in the forecast and actually a decent amount of wind up to 20 mile per hour. Gus, the golf course is going to be damp highs in the low 60s on Thursday and Friday will not really give the course an opportunity to dry out. You know, because the wind and the chillier temperatures are, they're not going to make the golf course exactly easy either. In fact, I'm really, really interested and excited to see where they open up the winning score at. Because and Steve is going to be the best at this in the discord. These are the weeks where he's really the most valuable. But I feel like narratively based on some of the podcasts that I've listened to, people are already on to the fact that this is going to be an easier PGA championship. You know, I'm not breaking any news by telling you that this is not a golf tournament that's going to be one at single digits under par. It's not going to happen. And you know, I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't say it's impossible, but they would really have to put some pins in spots that I frankly don't think the PGA of America is comfortable doing. So given the fact that like if everybody starts to tell you, oh, it's going to be super easy. The golf course isn't going to be able to defend itself. And then the books make the winning score like minus 14.5. You know, I don't think that this golf course is going to play easier than Bajala. It could. I don't think so personally. I need to talk to Steve Moore. I need more accurate weather forecast. And you know, I want to get some insight from Josh on site as well, who'll be there for us on site. But as of now, you know, looking at this weather, for the golf course to play over par, you know, the PGA of America, like I said, they're really going to have to. you some, some avant garde, I will say pen positions. And an aeronomic has those on these greens. I mean, you can really put the pens in some dicey spots and they did that at Oak Hill. They set up, Oak Hill is a golf course. I really, I know obviously really well. I play it 10 times a year. And that was a PGA championship where they put the pens in some really inaccessible spots. And in some ways, almost made the golf course a little bit more boring because guys just couldn't go at pens and that's why you saw a conservative golfer like Brooks Capka who's so good at letting the golf course come to him and not being overly aggressive and hitting the ball to the fat part of the green every time. That's why Brooks Capka won is because they just put these pens in like these daring spots that you'd kind of be an idiot to go out of and Brooks played the smart shot every time and to put it from 30 feet on his way to a, you know, 900 par win. They can, aeronomic has some shelves and some really difficult places to put these pens. But I think the golf course is gonna be set up for birdies. You know, the PGA usually takes what it's given with the golf course and what they really seem to be trying to do is they're not beholden to a winning score. What they really are looking for is letting the golf course come to them and getting a really exciting finish on Sunday. And for the most part, they've done a decent job of that. I thought like I couldn't stand Quail Hollow or excuse me. I didn't mind Quail Hollow as much. I couldn't stand Valhalla, but you can't really argue that they got a really exciting finish on Sunday. And basically what happened with Valhalla is they realize that they were never going to get the golf course to play hard or over par. So why even try, you know, like let's make it super exciting and make a bunch of birdies available and put pens in these really accessible spots and move up some teas here and there and get a really exciting finish. And so they kind of let the golf course come to them, right? And if they realize that it's a golf course that is best suited for birdies or a golf course that, you know, they can get kind of the finish they want to by putting a bunch of landmines out there and growing the rough up and making the golf course play super, super challenging. They're going to do that. And I just think the canvas that they have this week at Aronomic is that it's probably a golf course that's going to be more conducive to an easier setup based on how far the golf ball travels. So, you know, follow along in the discord. I am, I'll say if I had to guess a winning score right now, I would say that I would put it at 14 under par, wins the golf tournament. And the scoring average is even par. You know, if you compare that to some pre, that's, that's quite a bit easier than, than Valhalla, by the way, or excuse me, then Quail Hall, a Quail Hall, a plate 1.5 and over par, Valhalla played minus 0.72. And I'm kind of in between those golf courses, you're not going to get something like O'Kill, which was plus 2.43. That golf course is just so much harder than Aronomic. It's not close. And so, you know, if you split the difference between Quail Hall and Valhalla, you know, I think maybe even par 2.5 over par sounds reasonable as it stands now. Steve will have a super, super dialed on all that stuff though. As far as a couple of other things on the golf course, you know, it was founded in 1896. It's a really old school classical Donald Ross golf course. And he built this golf course at the height of his career. And Philadelphia was already this super, super well established golf town, you know, this is the town of Pine Valley and Marion to the greatest golf course in the world. Not to mention Philadelphia Cricket Club, one of AW Telling House, most renowned golf courses. It's the hometown of William Flynn, who designed Chinacock, which we'll see next month. Then it is the genesis of the Philadelphia School of Architecture, you know, which produced not just William Flynn, but also George Crump, who designed Pine Valley. He Wilson, who designed Marion, George Thomas, who designed Bill Ayer, Riviera and Los Angeles Country Club. And Donald Ross came to Philadelphia as this well established architect, but an outsider. You know, he came from Scotland. And this was his opportunity to make an imprint on such a golf rich area, you know, and he was gifted with this really incredible piece of property with a ton of great land movement and rolling topography. And you know, the golf course, you know, has been largely unchanged. It was largely unchanged for 75 years until 2003 when a local architect, Rob Pritchard, led a restoration to bring back Ross's original bunker placements, you know, his, his green shapes and fairway contours. And then ahead of the 2018 BMW championship, Gil Hans led a further restoration, removing a ton of trees and further restoring the original Ross Greens. And these Greens will really be the star of the show next week. They're extremely challenging, large, unjoying lag puddings, going to be a really important ancillary skill this week. And Aronement is littered with, you know, a whopping 180 bunkers. Sandability is really going to play, pay dividends this week. You know, although they're not deep bunkers, like they're, these are really nothing like the Andrew Green bunkers that you see at O'Kell. And this would truly be a phenomenal golf course to host a major championship of the golf ball traveled 275 yards in the air, instead of 300 yards plus, is a lot of these fairway bunkers. And this is one of the reasons why I'm a bit lower on the importance of distance. Perhaps compared to others is that, a lot of these fairway bunkers just aren't far enough down the fairway. And these are fairway bunkers that are going to be able to be carried by not just the longest players in the field, but also those with average distance. And on the scorecard, Aronement is just as long as O'Kell, but it's not gonna play half as long as it, you know, because a lot of the holes at Aronement are straight back and forth instead of dog-legged. And the fairways are also demonstrably wider than O'Kell. And the greens are nearly double the size. It's just a much easier golf course than O'Kell. And those extremely narrow fairways at O'Kell, that were almost impossible to hit in some spots. And that produced a driving accuracy percentage of 45%. The driving accuracy percentage last time we came to Aronement was 20% higher than that. And I think it's be lower than that, but certainly a lot higher than 45%. And the fairways at Aronement, like the biggest difference here and why I think, you know, one of the reasons why I think the O'Kell comp is just irresponsible. It's not a good take. The fairways at Aronement are actually wide enough that accurate players are going to have an opportunity to separate themselves with their accuracy. And the main, to put a bow on the O'Kell thing. You know, O'Kell, I talked about this with Joseph a little bit, but O'Kell really changed the Donald Ross essence of that golf course. It's not a Donald Ross golf course at all. It is a championship golf course that is really, like impossibly hard. It's not a member's golf course at all. None of the members play the East course unless they're hosting guests. And the guests want to play the famous East course. You know, it got with that. Andrew Green renovation. The goal of that renovation was to host major championships for the next 50 years. And they did a really good job of that because the course is a total, total ballbuster. And the fairways are super narrow and the greens are super small. And when Oak Hill hosts a PGA championship, I go back and plays the same way for members. I don't, I just hit driver on every hole at Oak Hill because I don't have, I don't feel like even if I club down, I would have an opportunity to hit those fairways with any form of consistency. So I'd rather be farther down in the rough than I would potentially missing some of those fairways like farther back having to hit long irons in out of that rough. And it was really great to hear Rory say the same thing. And that was a golf course that strongly strongly favored bombers. And the greens are so small and perched up and the bunkering scheme is like the bunkers are really, really deep. And a lot of those holes are big dog legs where you can't, it's very difficult to cut the corners. And the golf course just plays long, small greens, narrow, and it was renovated to like I said, like, you know, they have US open aspirations. I don't think the USJs are ever going to go there, but, you know, it's a, it's a real ballbuster. And the entire nature of the renovation and aronement was a lot different, right? It was not this golf course that they've hosted majors in the past, but, you know, it's not a membership obsessed with hosting major championships. The way that O'Kell is it's a member's golf course. It's a playable members golf course. It's a golf course that I know many people, I've never played aronement. I know many people have played aronement and played O'Kell and they're like, it's like, O'Kell, I'm hanging on for dear life. Like, aronement, you can shoot a score if you're a decent player. And so that's kind of the concern that I think that you're going to hear is it's like, it's an amazing golf course. It's an amazing golf course to be a member of. It's an amazing golf course to play. I would love to play the golf course. I probably have more fun playing that golf course than I do playing O'Kell. I certainly have a better opportunity to shoot a score there, but is it a golf course that has the ability to challenge pros at the highest level? And, you know, I think Joseph and I shared some concerns about that's kind of one of the reasons why we think it may not. It just is it's not it was not renovated in a way that is going to test players at the highest level with equipment the way it is. A lot of that's not the club's fault either. And, you know, they're they're maxed out on land. There's really nowhere else to go. But, you know, like I said, I hope they return here when, you know, if we get some sort of golf ball roll back. Philly cricket club is a comp that makes a lot more sense to me than O'Kell. That is a easier shorter golf course than aeronomic certainly, but it's a far more similar comp off the tee. And, you know, the fairways are a little bit wider similar to a run a month. And, you know, the Roth that we got at Philly cricket over the weekend. I think is very similar to what we're going to get this week at a run a make the bunkering scheme at Philly cricket and a run a make a lot similar playing field is another great Donald Ross golf course that hosted the barclays in 2015 and 2010. And, that is going to play very simply to a run a make off the tee. You know, so Philly cricket and playing field are really so much more similar golf courses to a run a make than the other recent host of the other Donald Ross that recently hosted a PGA. And, and I think that and I, I'm not going to do this whole thing right now that that can be in my article. But what I did actually was really excited to talk to the data golf guys about this too. But I kind of built like a Frankenstein off the tee comp for this golf course and took basically made projections for miss fairway. This is potentially paralysis by analysis, but I basically took averages of all of the golf courses that I believe are going to play most similar to a run a make off the tee. And then use the specs of a run a make to identify what the longer hitter the shorter hitter the accurate player the inaccurate player kind of created my own Frankenstein bomb a meter. And my projection for a run a make off the tee is that longer hitters are going to average point one eight above their baseline at this golf course. So longer hitters are going to get a boost here. Short hitters are going to average plus point oh three above their baseline. So short hitters are going to be fine. They're going to be play about to their baseline. Now putting noise is going to these are kind of metrics of like if they played the PGA championship 10 times or 50 times this would happen. And you never know what's going to happen with putting noise, but that's how you have to model accurate players are going to gain point one eight above their baseline. So accurate players and long hitters are going to get the exact same boost almost a quarter struck in accurate players are also going to be fine. They're going to gain a point one five boost which kind of speaks to what Joseph talks about which is that I think it's great to hit fairways. But if you're going to miss I think you can miss beg in some spots on these holes. So my projections for a Rodmeck are 65% driver usage 30 to 35 yard wide fairways point three five miss fairway penalty which would rank middle of the pack on the PGA tour. Point three one rough penalty which would rank 12 out of 40 courses on the PGA tour. And a driving accuracy percentage of between 55 and 60%. Let's go with 58%. So when you add up all of this data. This is a golf course that is probably should help longer players more than it helps shorter players. Well golf course doesn't do that, but I think there will be plenty of shorter players that are going to play well here. And I would not be afraid to bet shorter players this week. Not be afraid to play them in draft kings. The golf course simply does not have the bunkering scheme or the length to penalize short golf courses. And I talked about this with Joseph. The main reason for this is very excited to get the data golf guys point on this too because they've talked about this really eloquently in their newsletter. And golf courses that favor distance the most are golf courses that are long. And that's not rocket science. The reason for that is when golf courses are long. Then players long short are going to have more long iron approach shots. And when everybody has more long iron approach shots dispersions pattern start to widen dispersions patterns start to widen at the 175 yard mark. That's why typically you see better players, you know, better players play better at major championships, right? And a lot of the reason for that is major championships are long. And generally some of the better players in the world are long and it's easier for those longer players to separate themselves on longer golf courses because dispersion patterns are longer with long iron. If you get a golf course where you know, Scotty Schaeffler is hitting every single approach shot or let's say Rory, a longer one of the longest players in the world is hitting every approach shot at 100 yards. That dispersion pattern is not going to be all that different. Rory at 100 versus a player of average length who maybe is a very good wedge player and very easily is a better wedge player at 125 than Rory is at 100. We can use the call more call example where more call at 125. is better than Rory at 100. Rory's length advantage isn't going to be that much because the shorter hairs just aren't getting penalized. But if you take a golf course where the average approach shot for Rory is 175 yards and the average approach shot for the shorter players 200 yards, that gap grows the difference between 175 and 200. It's a lot different than the average between 100 and 125. And the reason why I'm not as high on distance on this golf course is much as some other players might be, it's just when I broke down the proximity buckets, I just don't think that the holes are long enough for longer players to really have the ability to separate over the shorter players. You know, when I look at the proximity, let me pull it up here. I mapped this out. I've got 11% inside 100 yards. 27, excuse me, 33% from 100 to 150. So 7% more shots from 100 to 150. 22% from 150 to 175. So 3% more, 6% from 175 to 200. So if you combine the two, 28% from 150 to 200, compared to the tour average of 36%. So a lot less middle irons than average, a lot more short irons than average. And right at the average, long irons, 27.8% from 200 yards plus. And all of that's mainly coming in the final four holes of the golf course. So you know, I just the front nine, like if you go whole by whole, if you go whole by whole on this golf course, let me give you the average approach shot from a player that, well, let's just use the driving distance from like Philly Cricket on average, 300 yards. And this is even, you know, with some of these, my expectation is that they'll be clubbed down 100 to 125 yards, 125 to 150, 150 to 175, 150 to 175, 150 to 175, 100 to 125, 100 to 125. The eighth hole is 200 yards plus. The ninth hole is a par five that I think is going to be reachable by some. The first seven holes, a player like Rory McElroy is going to have wedges, a wedge in his hands or a nine iron in his hands. The first seven holes are the golf course. And Rory, when he was at a Ronmin class week, told Bradfax and it's like, I have so many wedges on this golf course. So anyway, let's put a bow on, is there anything else I really want to emphasize about a Ronmin that I may have missed? Yeah, let's take a quick break. And then let me give like the kind of the final word on what I really think is important at this golf course from, you know, my modeling and a projection standpoint. Okay, we are back. So what is it that really matters at a Ronmin? What do we really want to focus the majority of our attention on from statistical standpoint? So I took the radar plots of a couple golf courses that are a couple golf tournaments that I think we're going to play as close to a Ronmin as possible. And I kind of reverse engineered like I mentioned, a Frankenstein radar plot. And then I took the variance decomposition from those tournaments as well and see what it was that was actually moving the leaderboard here. And I came to an average of 27.4% off the T, 2.4% below average, 28.2% approach, even with tour average, 23.8% around green, 1% above average, and putting 20.6 percent, 1.4 above average. So for me, I actually came to a point where off the T was not going to be as important at this, at this event compared to the importance of short game and putty. And I kind of wanted to anecdotally come in there and think about what it what would actually make the most sense from, you know, based on adding in the fact that this is still a PGA championship setup. And my waiting of this golf course might be a little too easy. I think it can play this way. I think this is the correct waiting. You know, if we see a really soft golf course and, you know, winning scores 1500 par scoring averages minus 0.5. But I think it's more likely that there's still some challenge to this golf course. And while I am a lot lower on the predictive power of driving here and the importance of off the T here, probably than most. I think there's some important context to consider given the added length of a run a bit compared to some of the other golf courses that I'm looking at as comparison points. And I also believe that because of the size of the greens, the greens and regulation procedures are going to be higher. Black putting is going to be very important not to mention the fact that the predictive power of around the green tends to be a lot lower on golf courses with thick rough. So I kind of manually went in there and I downgraded around the green by 2% in exchange for putting an approach play because when it really comes down to it, aeronomic seems to me most like an approach in putting golf course. I think there are a couple of different styles that can succeed here off the T. I think that we're going to see some bombers and some shorter hitters at the top of the leaderboard. There for sure like three to five holes when I went through them, I was like, this is a good hole if you've got some extra distance. You've got a big advantage. But then there are a lot of par fours where I just don't think that you're going to be really hurt at all if you're a shorter player. And again, like that, that's kind of more of the lens that I'm looking at off the T is that when you're determining and modeling whether or not, you know, to favorite distance over accuracy or how much you want to favor off the T, you can't really look at if distance is going to help because distance helps at every golf course. What you really need to look at is being short going to hurt. And there's a golf course that I don't think being short is going to hurt as much as some other people think. And if you look at PGA championships over the last five years, the only golf course that actually strongly favored bombers, not even Quail Hollow, which by the way is strongly favoring accuracy this week. The only golf course that strongly favored bombers over the last five years is O'Kell, which is so different off the T than Aronement, like incredibly different. As I've mentioned earlier in the pot. And this is why off the T is actually getting the biggest downgrade for me because I think when the rubber hits the road, regardless of what players do off the T and I can't emphasize this point enough, whether you're hitting a million fairways or you're taking advantage of the distance, bombing it up there and hitting wedges out of the rough. This is not a tournament that I believe is going to be one with your driver or what you do off the T, just like, you know, O'Khmat would be the opposite of this, where that was a golf course where what you did off the T mattered so much. To really attack this golf course, to score on this golf course, you're going to need to hit your approach shots to the correct tier of greens. And whether that is hitting shots from 150 from the fairway or 125 from the rough, you're going to need to hit the correct tiers of the greens. The greens are so big and when you don't hit the correct tiers of the greens, you're going to need to be a really dialed potter. And so I really just think when it comes down to it after digesting all this stuff and I've went a little crazy with the data this time because, you know, it's not a golf course that I've played before or know really well like O'Kill or even Chinnacock and you know, that's kind of why I emailed the data guys, the data golf guys and was like, hey, can we talk? You know, you know, I, I, I really am curious to get your thoughts on the way that I'm conceptualizing this golf course. But to me, I really think that this is going to be a tournament where you really want to highlight a lead approach play. A couple really high lepers, long iron shots on this golf course. But on the front nine, like the guy who's the best from 100 to 150 yards, combined with putting skill, I think it's just going to be so, so important on this golf course. I really, really, really think that it's a second shot golf course at Aronomic. I really do believe that. And I know that my rent contrary to how some other people look at it. But I just, I just think that the way the greens are set up and the way the bunkering scheme is off the tee, think that this golf course is going to be one with a lead approach play and elite putting. That's me. I can't let you look at the data at the end of it. And I will happily, happily admit if there were some flaws in my, in my logic when, when the rubber meets the road and we, we come back and recap this thing on, on Sunday night. But, you know, I put all this together in a model and if you want, if you're interested in data and you, you want to chatter, you've got some questions, feel free to DM me. I'm definitely modeling in different way, you know, learning how to decay. You know, it just turns out as you get more deep into this, you know, taking the average of 20 rounds, it's not a model, unfortunately. And I model that way for a long time, but it, there just has to be some sort of decay feature because you cannot reasonably believe and probably 99% of the people that model in the golf industry do this. And I did it for a very long time. And that's why I've been more interested in talking to the people of the, people at Data Golf and Rufus who will be back on the pot on Wednesday because just this is my living. I, and I'm doing this and providing the best information for subscribers, you just need to evolve and modeling in a way where a round that happened three months ago or even three weeks ago has the same weight in a model of a round that happened yesterday without any natural decaying feature. It's not a model, unfortunately. So I put all of this together and I'll, I'll tell you where I net it out. And again, this is in, this is in my article, which has a more, a whole much more detailed breakdown of, of every player in my model, but I'm going to give you the top 20. And there was something that I kind of reverse engineered here because Scotty was coming up lower for me than I would have expected. And I'm going to explain why that is. But number one for me is still Rory over Scotty. Despite all of what I've said about how I don't even think that this is like a crazy off the tee golf course. And despite the fact that I really liked what I saw out of Scotty for a ball striking perspective on, on Dorao, especially with the irons, but Rory Scotty, Matt Fitzpatrick, Zander, more Kawah, Cameron Young, Ludwig O'Bare, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, Deke Matsuyama. This is pre-true as stated, by the way, 11 Sepstrakka, 12 John Rahm, 13 Adam Scott, 14 Minwoolay, 15 Shane Lowry, 16 Russell Henley, 17 Hovelin, 18 Cory Connors, 19 Ricky Fowler, 20 Keegan Bradley. And I think some stuff is going to change here after the truest, but you know, it's really interesting to me about Scotty, one of the reasons why he was getting dinged. And before I put a little manual adjustment, I don't even know if I feel comfortable with this. Like I really just want the data to speak for itself here. But what's been really interesting about Scotty this year, and I talked to Joseph about this a little bit. But the key ranges that I need at the moment are the ones that are on the ground, are the ones that are on the ground. And I think the majority of shots are going to come are 100 to 150 yards and 200 yards plus. And it just so happens that this year, Scotty Schaeffler has not been gaining any coming from like 150 to 200 yards where he's still been the best middle-wire player in the world. So it's very interesting about Scotty this year. And I've noticed this a little bit as well, especially with the wedges. His wedges are off and his long irons are off. He's still been very good with the middle irons. And if you're looking at poke calls in Scotty and I said to Joseph, I actually like this golf course, I think this Scotty's best chance to win a major. And I'm not going to be betting him, I'm not going to be betting the without market. I'm having interest in MNDFS, but I think aeronomics is best opportunity to win a major. More than Chinacock, more than Berkdale. I think it's the most controllable outcome for him. Where I think there could be really weird weather stuff at Chinacock. Wave edges, Berkdale, I think this is like the most controllable outcome for Scotty Schaeffler compared to those other two potentially very win-defected major championship chips. But if you're poking holes in Scotty, you'd start by saying, well, aeronomic is a golf course where you need to be a really great short iron player and you need to hit a couple really important high leverage long iron shots down the stretch. And Scotty Schaeffler has been a little off with his wedges and he has not been gaining a bunch of strokes with his long irons either. Now, is the data like, is it a large enough sample size for me to really feel comfortable with that? It's tricky. Like that's, you know, it's one of the number one questions I'm going to ask Matt from Data Golf when I talk to him on Monday. But, you know, that is a potential reason to be a little more concerned about Scotty this week. Now, the reason why you would be very excited about Scotty this week, the irons look so much better for a Meterow. He gained six strokes on approach at Jeral. He's been a phenomenal putter this year. And for all of the people that I think are saying Scotty's off and, you know, disappointing this season, they're, I agree with a certain part of that, right? Like, there's some stuff I'm seeing in the data too that is not typical Scotty Schaeffler. Like, I just talked about it, right? Like his wedges and his long irons haven't been anything crazy. His driver has been very good, but there's been some cracks in his driver as well. But Scotty Schaeffler is the same amount of wins heading into this PGA championship that he did last PGA championship, worry one by five. And his number got up to plus 550 that week. That's why I bet it. And, you know, I think it would be a mistake to put Scotty Schaeffler more than plus 400 at this golf course in this tournament. I didn't put a win-equity modifier into my numbers yet to get my fairs because I'm waiting to see what happens at truest first. But I, I think it's, I think that he's, he's right on schedule. And this is, this is going to be potentially his best major of the year. I thought the Masters was his best shot, but he wasn't playing that great, hanging in the Masters. And to me, he's playing better, even better than he was heading into the Masters, at least with the irons recently. So the bats that I've made, Cameron Young, I have a future 70 to one or 80 to one thanks to Kyle. Can't really take credit for making that bet. You know, once Cameron Young started playing great, Kyle had all these futures. And I was like, dude, please, you bet bigger than I do. Please give me a bet on Cameron Young 80 to one. He said absolutely. And he even gave me FETS Patrick, a hundred to one at the US Open. I don't have FETS at a, at a rock. Although if you have FETS anything over 25 to one, you should be feeling phenomenal about that. As you can see, he's started my modeling. But Cameron Young, 70 to one, I don't have any reason to believe that he shot eat under today at truest, by the way. It was a lot actually more short game and putting, but I think that's totally fine on this golf course heading forward at Aronement. I don't have any reason. I think he's going to be me. He was Joseph Speck. I probably bet him at anything around 20 to one this week as well. I don't know what the number is going to go down to. I think he should probably go off at like 12 to one in this championship. I haven't decided if he's my pick to win yet, but pretty much everyone in the discord is holding these big Cameron Young numbers. Most of them are holding big Fitzpatrick numbers. Pretty much if you've got Cameron Young over 20 to one in this golf championship, you should be feeling unbelievable outstanding about yourself because he's at worst the third or fourth best golfer in the world right now. I think based on how he played, how he and Rory both played today, he beat Rory by 12 strokes. Rory winning the Masters is still more impressive to me than Cammy Young winning the players, but I cams nip and at nip and at those heels for the second best player in the world. I haven't decided if he's my official pick because for him to be my official pick, I feel like I would if I didn't have a future, what I want to bet him at whatever his number is. And I don't know if I'm totally there yet, but Cameron Young, if you have a future on him like so many in our community do and outside of our community do as well, you're still on this week because the guy, there's really nothing to poke holes in the game right now. The other two bets that I've made and I don't even know if I'm going to get CLB on these based on how these guys are playing at the PGA or excuse me at truest. Let's see what CWU's number is right now on draft kings. I bet CWU Kim at 80 to 1 and I think that kind of, that number was on FANDULE. I also bet I'm 120 to 1 at the US Open, which I just thought was a totally wrong number. But I just think the guy's been playing out of his mind this year. I don't think there's a golf tournament where you need to be golf course again where you need to. Okay, he's 47 to 1 on graph gang. So that 80 was still a great number. I don't know if I've been a map 47 to 1 based on the way he's playing, but CWU Kim has been awesome, awesome with those short irons. Like he has just been absolutely electric, you know, from both 100 to 150 and 200 yards plus. He's a super, super accurate driver of the ball. He's going to hit a million fairways and he's going to give himself a ton of chances. It just comes down to whether or not he can make enough pots. That would be the big concern here. I would like the CWU Kim bet a little bit more. He probably, that's why he gets hurt in my modeling is because this to me is more of a lag putting golf course than it is a short game golf course. Short game is not super predictive. Typically on golf courses with really thick rough and with CWU Kim in this field, he's 23rd in my around the green metrics and 89th in my putting metrics and he's going to need to make some pots and these are tough greens, but I think everything else about his game is really, really exciting and he kind of fits the type of player that's just been like playing really, really good all year. Maybe his breakout comes in a major championship, but Sky is one of the players before. And the other bet that I made is Sep Strakka at 82 to 1. Let's see where he's at on draft Kings right now. That was on Calche, by the way. Strakka is 84 to 1. So that number is available right now. If you like Sep Strakka, he had a really good first day at the truest, then he is shot plus four over the last two days. But Sep Strakka actually rates quite a bit higher than CWU Kim in my modeling. Really, really, really good approach play as well. That's kind of what I'm looking at and caring about the most. The number one player year to date in 2026 in this field with his long irons has been Sep Strakka. Sep Strakka has been unbelievable. His approach play is excellent. He's a much better putter than CWU Kim. He doesn't have that great major success, but he's played OK at PGA's before. I don't really like the O'Kill Comp at all, but if he can play well at O'Kill, on a golf course that heavily favors bombers in the Northeast, give me Sep Strakka on a golf course. I think it's going to be a little bit more neutral off the tee and give him the opportunity to really separate with his iron play. I love Sep Strakka this week. I talked about that on the pod with Joseph as well. You know, I haven't made a decision yet on how else I want to fill out the card outside of these three guys at 80 to 1. I like Fleetwood quite a bit. I like the way he's playing this week. I'm probably higher on market than, you know, how people feel about Tommy Fleetwood. See, is he still 30 to 1? God damn, Fleetwood went down to 25 to 1 on draft kings. You know, I cashed out of a 33 to 1 on Tommy Fleetwood. So dumb. All right. We're at the hour mark. That is more than enough for me, given the amount of extra pods I'll be doing throughout the week. So we'll talk more about the, my, my betting card, the guys that I end up leaning towards from that perspective and certainly in DFS on InsideSportsNetwork.com. We are really, really blown it out for the majors. If these free pods help you and you want to support them, but you've never been an ISN guy in the past, take the leap for the majors and then cancel in a week. Or, you know, if it's total dog shit and it's not worth, it's not worth your, your $15 for the week or it's a much, much better rate if you do a longer term commitment monthly or nearly. But it's not worth it for these majors. Let me know because between Steve, I'm doing an extra premium show on Monday with Matt from DataGolf. Another extra premium show with Steve, Q&A on the weather on Tuesday night and then again on Wednesday night, we're bringing back Rufus and the gang from bad. I promise you're not going to be disappointed with the, with the information that you're getting and the community to bounce ideas off of and sweat your bets with and, and freak out with over the weekend when, when your guys crumble. Give us a shot on the majors we'd love to have you join that community. I promise you will not be disappointed in the information that you're getting. We're going to have Josh on grounds all week talking to him on the Tuesday show as well from the golf course. It's going to be awesome. I'm super fired up. I cannot wait for this major. So again, share this pot around if it helps you at all. If you don't want to join the ISN squad behind the paywall, like and subscribe and maybe leave your winner of the PGH Championship down in the comment section. Maybe I'll give away some stuff later in the week or we'll do that on on the Monday show in terms of a single entry or something like that. Thank you for listening. Best of luck with your bets tomorrow at the truest. Go next and we will see you back on this podcast feed for the DFS show tomorrow. Cheers. [Music] [MUSIC]