Prop Farm: Recency bias impacting wagers on top players from casual bettors at Travelers Championship

The Scottie Scheffler crop finally dried up last week at Pinehurst, as the world No. 1 struggled with the putter all week long and ended up finishing 41st at the U.S. Open. Scheffler made only four birdies in total, all week, and did not shoot a single round under par after making the cut right on the number. Of course, this all came on the heels of a historic run of five wins in eight starts for Scheffler.

He was the leader across the board last week at BetMGM Sportsbook for ticket count, handle and liability as far as outright winner and First Round Leader.

“With the poor showing from Scheffler last week, I was curious to see how bettors would react to it,” said Thomas Gable, director of race and sports at The Borgata, a BetMGM property in New Jersey.

This week, the TOUR serves up another Signature Event in the form of the Travelers Championship, taking place in Cromwell, Connecticut. Scheffler finished fourth here last year and Keegan Bradley is your defending champion.

“We’ve seen them continuing to bet him, no matter the price in the previous weeks, but it seems like that public sentiment has dried up a bit this week,” Gable continued. “With no Rory (McIlroy) in the field, Scheffler is back in familiar territory at +400 in the outright winner market but the recreational money that was so prevalent has seemed to dry up on him.”

I drank the Kool-Aid last week and was on Scheffler to win at Pinehurst myself. His current form, combined with what I felt was a perfect golf course for his game, had me believing. It was only the second time all season that I have bet him pre-tournament. This week, I am back to looking to swerve the favorite. At the same time, however, I firmly believe Scheffler is not to be completely dismissed after one bad week at an extremely difficult golf course. This guy isn’t going away for a long time. Think about that: Scheffler was at a lower price last week with more than twice as many players in the field.

TPC River Highlands is a shorter course and is a Pete Dye design. I am looking at some players who were popular choices last week as I believe some of the same skill sets will apply this week – Driving Accuracy, Ball-Striking and Par-4 Scoring. That led me to Tommy Fleetwood (+3300), Corey Conners (+3300), Sepp Straka (+4000) and Tom Kim (+4000).

Oddsmakers are also seeing bettors diversify their outright options.

“Ludvig Åberg (+1600), Patrick Cantlay (+2500) and Hideki Matsuyama (+2300) are all more popular choices this week and not surprisingly, had better showings at Pinehurst last week,” Gable said. “Recency bias is a thing in all sports when it comes to betting.”

I like the current form with my four selections too. Fleetwood finished strong at Pinehurst on Sunday to record a top-20 finish, his fourth top-21 finish in five starts. Conners took ninth at the U.S. Open, his second top-10 finish in three weeks. Straka has finished top 8 in three of his last five starts and Kim continues to be a very steady factor each week, having not missed a cut in over two months.

Interesting results in the First Round Leader market were reported by BetMGM senior data analyst, Drew O’Dell.

“Scottie Scheffler has the highest ticket percentage (7.6%), followed closely by Åberg (6.6%), Cantlay (6.3%), and Straka (6.1%),” said O’Dell. “Our highest handle percentages, however, are with Tom Kim (11.2%), Sahith Theegala (10.7%), Conners (7.3%) and Scheffler (7.2%), in that order.”

Gable chimed in regarding the First Round Leader market at his shop, too. "Åberg at +2000 is pretty popular,” he said. “We’ve seen some respected money on Wyndham Clark at +5000 and Thomas Detry at +6000.”

Gable noted a sharp money play on a head-to-head matchup as well, as his shop has seen bettors come in on Tommy Fleetwood in a matchup with Sahith Theegala.

It will be very interesting to see what Scheffler does this week. When the majority has backed away from him, will he get win No. 6 on the season – or will last week carry over a bit here in Cromwell?

The Travelers Championship has been decided by a playoff in five of the last 13 editions, although this week there are only 71 players in this Signature status field. With high temperatures expected to be in the low 90s, no matter who comes out on top this week, it ought to be another sweaty few days out on the farm.

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