I came close to hitting a winner last week but Tommy Fleetwood fell apart late. This week the PGA Tour has the final WGC Dell Match Play at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas with one of the few alternate format events of the year.

Course Breakdown

Par 71, 7108 yards, Pete Dye design so accuracy and placement off the tee is more important than distance, 3 reachable Par 5s and a reachable Par 4, 5 Par 4s are under 400 yards, 110 bunkers on the course and 5 water hazards, the front 9 is much tighter off the tee and the back 9 is much wider and trees line the fairways a bit more on the back than the front, bunkers are in play off the tee with there’s also water on a few holes, rough isn’t too penal, wide array of green sizes with greens guarded by pot bunkers, water and multiple runoff areas, firm and quick Bermuda greens with lots of undulation

Tournament Format

• This event starts on Wednesday
• Golfers are split into 16 groups of 4 players (each group with a golfer seeded 1-16, 17-32, 33-48, 49-64). Each group plays in round robin format on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Golfers get a point per win and a half point per tie. The winner of each group moves onto the weekend (with sudden death stroke play playoffs to determine any ties within a group).
• Standard match play tournament with round of 16 and quarterfinals on Saturday with the semifinal, 3rd place playoff and final played on Sunday.

Tournament Notes

• This tournament has been held at Austin Country Club since 2016
• This will be the final WGC Match Play with this event coming off the schedule next year
• The winner of this tournament has only defended their win once (Tiger in 2004)
• Historical strokes gained data doesn’t help much this week since there really aren’t stats for a lot of these since you don’t play full rounds when winning matches
• #1 seeds have less than a 50% rate of moving onto the single elimination rounds on the weekend
• 17% of the lowest rank players in their group on group play advance
• There’s a ton of variance in this tournament with random winners coming out of groups
• Leftys have had success here
• A lot of golfers that have success here in the past are now on the LIV Tour, so the field is a bit watered down
• I don’t build a model out this week since strokes gained data doesn’t reallly determine much with the variability of this even with the format of the event

DraftKings/Betting Notes

• DK scoring this week is: 3 pts for every hole won, 0.75 pts for holes halved, -0.75 pts for holes lost, 1.6 pts each to the winner for holes not played, match won 5 pts, 2 pts for a match halved, 5pts for 3 consecutive holes won, 7.5 pts for no holes lost in a match, if someone WDs the non-WD player in the match gets 33.8 total pts
• Fill out a bracket, build your core on DK around the four guys you think make the final four and then fill in the other two guys from there so that all you can get one guy from each quadrant to try to maximize guys that can move on
• Don’t roster two golfers from any single pod from group play or even two golfers that could face each other in the round of 16, you want the most opportunities to move the most guys on to later rounds
• Bombers that that aren’t accurate off the tee and are down in a match that starts on the front 9 could be a decent live bet going into the back 9 as the course widens up
• Depending on who you bet if some longer shots come through, you could find some nice hedge opportunities on favorites
• I’m personally taking the week off golf for this tournament with the unique format and how much match play leads to random variability, plus I like all the chalk. I might throw in some live bets but I doubt it

Key Stats

Birdie+ Gained, Opportunities Gained, Approach

Main proximity distance range on approach: 100-125 yards (wedges, who can get themselves close for nice scoring opportunities)

Corollary Courses

Pete Dye courses: TPC River Highlands (Travelers Championship), TPC Louisiana (Zurich Classic), TPC Sawgrass (THE PLAYERS), PGA West Stadium Course (The American Express), Harbour Town Golf Links (RBC Heritage) 

Field

Top 64 players (with fill ins) ten days prior to the event from the OWGR

Defending Champion: Scottie Scheffler

Runner Up Last Year: Kevin Kisner

One and Done: Scottie Scheffler

One and Done Considerations: Scheffler, Cantlay, Rahm

Bracket

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