Golfbet Insider: Jason Day, Tom Whitney, course rotation all worth watching in La Quinta

If you’ve never dabbled in live golf betting, the West Coast Swing presents a special series of opportunities to give it a whirl.

The American Express, next week’s Farmers Insurance Open and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am the following week are all contested across multiple courses. This is done to maximize available playing time when daylight hours at those latitudes are at a premium at this time of year.

The first two tournaments will host 156 golfers as usual, but the third now is a Signature Event with only 80 golfers, and it will be reduced to a two-course setup.

The exercise as it concerns live betting is how to understand the fluctuation of outright odds in real time. Aside from the typical values based on talent and influences on the houses, odds will reflect not only the course a guy is playing but where he’s yet to play.

For example, Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA WEST generally is the most difficult of the three co-hosting The American Express. So, for any of the 52 golfers on it in the first round who get off to a good start, his outright odds should be lower relative to others of a similar class who open on either Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA WEST or La Quinta Country Club. Conversely, if a stud who opens poorly on either of the latter two, you might see longer odds than expected, both because he’s not capitalizing on an easier track and because he’s yet to face the Stadium Course.

All that said, the correlation in scoring across all three courses is pretty tight, or at least not variable enough to stack units on a specific combination. The better feel for real-time exploration will occur next week at Torrey Pines Golf Course where the North Course has averaged more than two strokes easier than the South across the first two rounds in each of the last five editions of the Farmers.

For PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf gamers, Nicklaus Tournament Course remains your target to make sure to total the maximum six starts among the 12 you’re afforded across the first three rounds. That is, plan on playing each of your six charges as they cycle through the Nicklaus Tournament Course.

PULL QUOTE

Tom Whitney (+500 = Top 40 at BetMGM Sportsbook) … Another week, another membership debut for a hometown hero. And in his case, literally.

The veteran of the United States Air Force Academy also is a Korn Ferry Tour graduate and a native of the Coachella Valley. Because of that, this isn’t even his first appearance in the tournament. That came in 2018 when he finished T67 after gaining entry via a sponsor exemption. Of his three prior PGA TOUR starts, it’s his only payday.

Despite his rise to this level, Whitney has already carried himself with the maturity and resolve of a 34-year-old with four kids. In a comprehensive conversation with the media on Tuesday, he touched upon how different this opportunity hits than others that preceded it.

“There was more pressure coming here in 2018 on a sponsor's invite,” he said. “Now, I was chatting with my caddie earlier today, and it feels like I belong out here, I've earned my way to hold this card."

“We're all peers out here, we're all trying to get to No. 1 spot, we're all going through highs and lows and we're going through it together," Whitney continued. "It's, honestly, pretty similar to the stuff I learned at the Academy, going through basic together, everyone has highs, everyone has lows, everyone needs help from different people at different times. We're trying to beat each other, but we're also all trying to get better at the same time.”

My take: If you’ve experienced the transition from a single guy in your 20s to married with children in your 30s, then you can relate no matter your background. It’s just that Whitney has a special bonus of discipline learned in the military, and he’s putting it to use with his approach for his new job, which really isn’t new at all after logging years on the mini-tours.

“I wouldn't trade it for getting here any sooner, I think the timing is perfect," he said. "God's got me right where I'm supposed to be. Yeah, just looking forward to entering my prime.”

If any strengths of his game can be drawn from his time on the KFT – on top of grit after amassing 117 starts spanning several seasons – it’s a reliable tee-to-green game. Hitting full shots is just pure golf, but now he has the unique pleasure of what can be a soft landing in familiar digs, so why not take this prop out for a spin for at least a fraction of a unit.

Learning the greens likely will present as his biggest test, and with 54 of them in the first three rounds this week, it’s baptism by fire for all newcomers, but perspective forever is a secret weapon.

POWER RANKINGS WILD CARD

Jason Day (+320 = Top 10) … If you’ve read me long enough, you know that I rarely force it. There’s no point because there’s always next week. And now that odds have worked their way into the analysis for a couple of years, the context has an even sharper tilt when it concerns a household name like the Aussie’s.

In the last 10 months, Day has only three top 10s in stroke-play competition. While the last one occurred in his most recent start – a T10 at The Sentry – there were only 59 golfers in that field. That grades out to the 83rd percentile. Still, it’s not wholly the finish and its relativity to the macro, it’s how he got the job done. It was a consistently strong performance that aligned with all of his previous five trips to Kapalua.

A year ago, he opened his calendar year at PGA WEST and placed T18 during what was an extended run of solid form. Perhaps the eventual arrival of his fifth child later in the year contributed to distractions and a regression on most scorecards, but I believe in the fight. There’s been enough evidence, and that includes sharing the victory with Lydia Ko at the Grant Thornton Invitational a month ago.

TAP-INS

NOTE: Not everything needs a setup. For a variety of reasons, these lines are too enticing to ignore.

• PARLAY: Rickie Fowler, Stephan Jaeger and Andrew Putnam (+240 = All to Make the Cut)
• Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+138 = Top 40)
• Harrison Endycott (+250 = Top 40)
• Tony Finau (+150 = Top 20)
• Wilson Furr (+450 = Top 40)
• Tom Hoge (+125 = Top 40)
• Nicholas Lindheim (+130 = Top 40)
• Roger Sloan (+300 = Top 40)
• Erik van Rooyen (+125 = Top 40)
• Jhonattan Vegas (+275 = Top South American)

RETURNING TO COMPETITION

Daniel Berger (+110 = Top 40) … You gotta hand it to the 30-year-old winner of four PGA TOUR events. It’s so rare for a talent of his ilk to remain as quiet as he was, not to mention everyone else who was in the know about his condition and status, until very recently of this week’s return. What’s been described to him as a slight bulge in a lower disc and deep bone sensitivity has prevented him from competing in earnest since the 2022 U.S. Open 19 months ago. He’s fully exempt via the winners category through 2024, so he’ll be able to build a reliable schedule and without a medical extension hovering overhead. Although the kickback for this finish won’t yield a retirement for you, consider limping in if for no other reason than to care more than a casual fan as he restarts his career.

Andrew Landry … In the fourth year of the allotted 10 consecutive return trips promised tournament winners, the 2020 champ ended 2023 with an unceremonious mid-tournament withdrawal at The RSM Classic due to an injured wrist. He lost his fully exempt status, so this year’s short-range scheduling will include a blend of opportunities on the PGA TOUR and probable time on the Korn Ferry Tour. While he stayed busy in 2023, his form didn’t match the intent, so it’s possible that he’s either still bothered at times by soreness in one or both shoulders (as a result of impingements dating back a couple of years) and/or he’s continuing to battle through bad habits picked up along the way to play through the discomfort.

J.B. Holmes … Making his first appearance since his debut as a PGA TOUR rookie in 2006, the 41-year-old played sporadically throughout 2023 and not since the Fortinet Championship four months ago. He cashed only twice in 10 starts all year, neither time for a top 65. He has 16 starts on his Major Medical Extension due to a back injury.

Erik Barnes … This is his first PGA TOUR start since the Valspar Championship last March, though he remains fully exempt via a medical extension in the new reshuffle category that includes 2023 KFT grads. Last year he had reconstructive surgery on his left knee that included a repair of his MCL. The 36-year-old eschewed a start in the 2024 KFT opener in The Bahamas at which he originally was committed, so he’s had singular focus on his return to PGA WEST (MC, 2023), albeit as the last man in the field as of Tuesday. With 17 starts on the medical, long-term formats should pencil him down as a potential piece to add provided he races out with an inspiring start.

Bronson Burgoon … Slotted three clicks ahead of Barnes in the reshuffle but hasn’t played on the PGA TOUR in over 21 months. He missed an entire year of action with a shoulder injury, and then went 3-for-7 on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2023. He’s cashed five of six times at The American Express but he’s a trap this time around.

Bill Haas … The two-time winner of The American Express is the tournament’s all-time earnings leader, but he’s missed the cut in each of the last six editions, so he’s a no-play for us. He has 10 starts via a Non-exempt Medical Extension due to time missed with a shoulder injury in the second half of 2023. He hasn’t pegged it in competition anywhere since the RBC Canadian Open seven months ago.

NOTABLE WDs

Denny McCarthy … The 30-year-old has been a fixture at The American Express since debuting as a PGA TOUR member in 2018, but it’s fair to surmise that he’s managing at least part of his 2024 schedule in real time what with the promise of all Signature Events on the horizon. He opened the year with a T43 at The Sentry and answered with a T24 at the Sony Open in Hawaii, so his form and fitness are not concerns.

Seamus Power … The Irishman also faces schedule management with exemptions into all Signature Events, and he played both legs of the Aloha Swing, so this is a well-timed respite. The best news is that he felt well enough to erase residual doubt over his recently injured right hip.

MEMBERSHIP NOTES

Maverick McNealy … After an eight-way T57 at the Sony Open in Hawaii, he has nine starts to clear 15.986 FedExCup points and retain position in the Major Medical category for the remainder of 2024. To erase the deficit at The American Express, he needs no worse than a solo 40th-place finish worth 16 points. If he fulfills the terms of his medical before THE PLAYERS Championship, he’ll earn an exemption into the PGA TOUR’s flagship event.

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