The PGA Tour stays in Florida this week, and we’re looking at the best bet for The PLAYERS Championship.
As many of you know, it’s played at TPC Sawgrass, which is a Par 72 that plays right around 7,200 yards. If you’re racking your brain trying to remember what course that is, it’s the one with the famous island green.
We’re coming off two straight wins in our best head-to-head bets following an easy 6-stroke win for Rafa Cabrera-Bello last week and a tidy little W by Jason Kokrak before that.
TPC Matchup
This week, I’m looking to a head-to-head on offer between Keegan Bradley and Cam Smith which is available on MyBookie and Betonline.
At these numbers, I think there’s quite a bit of value on the Smith side.
| Golfer | Odds | Implied Probability |
| Keegan Bradley | -155 | 60.8% |
| Cameron Smith | +135 | 42.6% |
Course History
Smith hasn’t had a track record of success here, with two missed cuts in his only two starts.
Keegan is 3-for-5 in cuts made with his most recent performance being a T7 in 2018’s edition of this event.
While that might make you lean towards Bradley, my model this week takes into account all rounds played at Pete Dye courses, not just TPC Sawgrass. In that run of the model, Smith has a 33% chance of a Top 15 compared to Bradley’s 30% chance. Not a huge margin, but with better odds in the model and getting a plus number, we’re leaning towards Smith from a value perspective.
Recent Form
If you look hyper-recent, Smith completely lost it at Bay Hill on Friday last week.
He shot 79 with a brutal blow-up hole, but I’m willing to forgive that because Smith has been outperforming Keegan for some time now.
Since the start of 2018, Smith is 34-34-7 straight up in rounds where they both played the same course on the same day. When we expand that out to tournament results, Smith is 12-10, which would put his fair odds at -120 against Bradley.
If that’s too long of a stretch, since January of this year Smith is 5-1 in tourney results straight up against Bradley.
Conclusion
With my model suggesting that something closer to -120 should be the actual odds on offer for Smith in this head to head, I’ll gladly take that overlay in what should be a +EV bet in the long run.
