2023 THE PLAYERS Championship Round 3: Value on Max Homa
Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images. Pictured: Max Homa.
Another round, another failed attempt to complete the day. If the PGA Tour's strategy is to convince fans that the cut must be removed to create a seamless event, I guess it's working?
I understand some complications come into play when dealing with 140+ player fields that can be derailed by harsh weather and/or slow play. That is fine. However, we have never experienced this level of inability to get through the round in my five years working in this space.
Golf is a sport highly driven by the new-school approach of gambling being front and center, pushing unique users to the game. While it might not impact the recent additions to the space that don't know any better (I guess that is what they want after partnering with sportsbooks), it is generating massive issues for die-hard fans who need to crunch numbers that have been compiled each day.
It is an argument that will fall on deaf ears. I understand that. But this structure of removing stats and changing events to fit their narrative should be viewed as highly unfortunate, especially since fans are the ones who "grow the game."
If you haven't already, you can find me on Twitter @TeeOffSports. There, I will provide a link to my pre-tournament model, a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs to create custom golf rankings. That sheet is released every Monday, so be sure to check it out and construct your own numbers from my database of information.
THE PLAYERS Championship
Max Homa -110 over Jordan Spieth (bet365)
There are 10 players this week who have gained strokes off the tee and approach during both rounds of THE PLAYERS Championship. In fairness, that number isn't even entirely accurate since only three currently in the clubhouse have accomplished that feat.
Regardless, it goes to show that Max Homa's performance has gone under the radar since he has only managed to fire even-par rounds on Thursday and Friday after performing as one of the steadier players in the field.
This is one of those things as a bettor that's always meant something to me since it can often allow us to land on a pre-tournament value that has shifted too far from an in-tournament sense. We see that heavily in the numbers when we dive into Homa grading around -130 before a ball was struck on Thursday when pairing these two together.
That is fine in a vacuum since in-tournament data should make a difference. Nevertheless, the market has generated this belief that the duo has merged closer to each other after the first 36 holes, even though the math indicates there should be a 3.69-shot discrepancy when taking some of their baseline totals in the more volatile areas and merging it with their ball striking.
My math has shifted this wager up a little since Homa has seen a slight increase versus Jordan Spieth's nine-spot decrease, and I feel like we are now in a spot where the win probability is up to around 58% (six percent higher than we need it to be to place this wager properly).
Finding edges does seem to be more of a grind than I would care to see, but I am still trying to grab any edge I can when doable.
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