It’s API week on the PGA Tour and Club 20 are back baby (we’re a bit excited!!) 

It’s true, we have returned, bigger and better than before, harnessing the power of Stats Insider’s data with the random thoughts of marginally drunk sports lovers to create the best (illegibly) betting yarns in the universe! 

First issue of note, who in their right mind leaves just five cans of jimmy for Wednesday Night Prep. My god. The rust is evident! 

Second order of business, a big f*ck you to the COVID virus that failed in its attempt to kill us, and a massive cheers to all of you, the Club 20 faithful, who never stopped enjoying a bet and a beverage despite the obvious pain that our absence caused you. 

I’ll be bringing you a PGA yarn each week starting right now, as well as some AFL betting and possibly a tipping yarn so stay tuned for what we’ve got coming up. Oh and be sure to share these around, maybe even print them off and read them with your nan, whatever it takes people! 

Stats Insider Golf Model

Before we rip into our Bay Hill bets, lets talk Stats Insider and golf data for a sec – if you haven’t visited this page, do yourself a favour and check it out. 

Behold, the Stats Insider Golf Model!

Now, this is a 2-beverage gander, because you not only get the percentages (and ‘Fair Odds’) numbers for Outrights/Top 5/10/20/Cut, but you definitely need to have a play in their 3-Ball probabilities page, and the H2H Matchup Tool.

Almost all of the bets we have below are informed by these pages, and I don’t mind telling you the Club 20 PGA Yarns sub-committee is sh*ttin kittens about our results this week already!

Right, to the Golf…

Course

We’re in Orlando, Florida this week, at Bay Hill, Arnie’s Place, and it’s a loooong bloody course! 

At some 7,500 yards with fast, firm Bermuda greens and THICK (thick as in thick-shake, not those bullshit milkshakes with no ice cream that people should go to jail for serving) rough, players are going to have a lot of shots with long iron in hand, and good luck if that shot is not from the short stuff. 

The good news is that the fairways are (relatively) wide here, but with some weather expected on the weekend I’ll be surprised if the winner gets to -12. It’s gonna be a grind. 

The full complement of Par 5’s are playing the four easiest holes on course, and you MUST score on the Par 5’s, then just play as many holes to par as you can, as the Par 4’s here have real teeth, as do the Par 3’s (all 200+).

Here’s a decent flyover, giving you a good idea of length and water hazards, wind susceptibility. 

Weather

In terms of tee time splits for the Thur/Friday, current forecast gives a slight edge to PM/AM because that Friday morning looks like it’ll be just perfect, but overall it doesn’t look like a massive advantage one way or the other at this stage.

The weekend is vastly different with decent wind Saturday, and major, Riviera-ending wind on Sunday. 

The Bay Hill course Super will want to be making sure that everything, media towers, corporate signage, grandmothers, Bryson’s ego, everything and anything is nailed down come Sunday because if we get another bullshit ‘it’s too windy, stuff is blowing around in the wind, we didn’t know’ excuse as to why play has been stopped, I’m just going to snap. 

The Club 20 ‘PGA Pineapple’

With $50 to splash, we’ve selected two each-ways, a Top 20, and a few multi’s so let’s get into it shall we. 

Harris English $5 EW @ 51.00/10.00 (top 8)

Yes he sucked last week, and that suckage was off the back of two missed cuts, and no, if we hadn’t been using the Stats Insider model we wouldn’t have looked twice, but there’s a big case for English here and we want some. 

A winner just five starts ago at the Sony Open, English is ranked #3 in Proximity 200+ Yards in this field, LOVES Bermuda, and has great long-term bogey avoidance numbers. 

In other words he hits his long irons well, putts well and stays out of trouble relatively well. 

The SI model has his Fair Odds to win at about $26-1, which looks a massive mis-price against markets who have him at 50’s after 3 rubbish weeks. 

Getting a great price on a world-class golfer here who has had a bad fortnight -- big bounce-back week for Harris who obviously just dropped 10% after his win last month.  

Will Zalatoris $5 EW @ 41.00/8.00 (top 8)

What’s not to like? Ranked #4 in this field in Proximity 175-200yrds as well as 200+ yards (fairly bloody amazing) which are distances he (and the whole field) will have on about 14 of the 18 holes here. 

Zalatoris has great bogey avoidance stats and is coming in in great form, he striped the absolute shite out of it at the WGC last week. 

Lost a career-high 4.8 strokes putting and still finished 22^nd in that field, and is now at 40’s in a vastly weaker event. Yes please. 

Wyndham Clark T20 $10 @ 5.00

Interesting player who has a rare combo of driving distance (ranked #3 on Tour this season) and solid putting numbers, but it’s his recent iron play relative to his price that compels the bet here.

Granted Bermuda is not his preferred surface and his course form here is not great (T68 in 2020 his only start here at Bay Hill), but Clarke is hitting his irons the best he ever has on tour (ever), gaining 2 strokes on approach in Phoenix, and 2.4 at Riviera two weeks ago. 

He is still being priced as a really poop iron player, and that discrepancy (ranked #8 in this field last 8 rounds from 200+ out) is why we’re getting on. 

Tournament Multi: Rory T5, Hatton T10, Reed T20 $5 @ 19.00

Sportsbet have been tossing up some ‘Popular Multi’s’ in their Golf markets recently and I find they are always worth a little gander just in case that you stumble on one you like the look of…which we have. No explanation really needed, all these guys will be in the mix Sunday barring an absolute shocker. 

The Cut Sweat Multi: Davis, List, Clark, Bradley $10 @ 4.40

Being an invitational, there are only 120(ish) players in this field, and at least a dozen of them are well past it / never had it. 

Add in another dozen of the bottom guys who don’t have the length to compete here at Bay Hill, and all of a sudden you’re only needing to beat 30 guys home to make Saturday. 

So we had a look at the SI ‘to make the cut’ percentages, married them with guys/stats we like and that, boys and girls, is how multi’s are made!

Love a good cut-sweat and Keegan, Cam and Luke all have the skill set we’re looking for at Bay Hill, added Wyndham in to hopefully ride those irons.

3-Ball Multi $5 @ 19.62

We love a little 3-ball action on Day 1 and with the Stats Insider model helping us out, the strategy here was to shop around some prices and see if we can find guys we already like and/or who are in great spots that the model considers relative value.  

So we’ve taken Doc Redman, Mathew NeSmith and Jordan Spieth in their respective 3-balls, the latter against Bryson who we expect will find a lot of trouble off the fairway trying to overpower Bay Hill. 

Clicks and Follows and stuff

Our fingers are crossed for a nice return on our PGA Pineapple, but until then, if you enjoyed the yarn or loved checking out the Stats Insider Golf pages, or both, follow Club 20 on twitter and be sure to check out the myriad of awesome content and data on Stats Insider.

Time to stock the fridges and clean the Club 20 pools, have a great weekend!

Come join the Twitter party @Club20 for our most up-to-date bets