TPC Sawgrass does not care who you are. (No golf course does, even easy ones. This is just a dumb cliche to set the tone.) It does not care that you are the world number one, that you have won here before, or that you have been the best player on Tour for two years running. It will find a way to get to you. It always does.

The funny thing about this sort of “movie preview voice guy hyperbole” is that it’s not even the thing that’s on my mind for the top golfers this week. I’m stuck on Scottie’s yips, Rory’s back, and Tommy’s play last week. Normally, it’s the course combined with the wind and water that has me looking down the board here, but for now, I’m just worried that none of the favorites are in the proper headspace/health/form to overcome any of it.

Still, a great week with a great field (just shy of the major fields since we get no LIV golfers), but another chance for Brooks to prove himself, and a couple of dozen “second-tier” golfers champing at the bit to take the 4.5 million dollar check home.

As far as modeling/predicting this place, good luck!

I’d love to say that you should find some golfers with high floors that stay out of trouble, but even the best of those can find themselves out of position here, or worse: wet. I’ve got my picks for the week locked in and feel cautiously optimistic going in. What could possibly go wrong?

Ron breaks down everything that could possibly go wrong in the full course preview. Here is a taste of what he found:

TPC Sawgrass

Located about a mile west of the Atlantic Ocean on the site of the PGA Tour, the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course features a variety of challenging elements. Narrow fairways are lined with marshes and elongated waste bunkers, while mounds, hollows, and pot bunkers are strategically placed to punish even the smallest mistakes. Water hazards appear on nearly every hole, tall trees—including palm, pine, and oak—block shots in many areas, and the greens are firm and lightning fast.

All of the signature traits of a Pete Dye design are on full display at Sawgrass. From railroad ties to winding dogleg fairways and carefully positioned sand and water, Dye’s style is unmistakable. At Sawgrass, he amplified visual deception and the mental pressure on golfers standing over their shots to an entirely new level. A risk-taker in his youth and a paratrooper during World War II, Dye designed this course so that players would feel sweaty palms and butterflies while evaluating their options. Risk and reward defined his approach. Many tee shots at Sawgrass are best played toward hazards to allow the clearest path to the green. In Dye’s view, players either take the risk and execute the correct shot or face the consequences.

Patrick Cantlay summed up Pete Dye’s philosophy perfectly when he said that Dye “fools you and challenges you at the same time. He shows one side with trouble, and you almost have to ignore the flashy hazards while hugging them, because the worst side is the bailout. Once you bail out, the troubles start stacking up. If you have the guts to hit quality shots all day, you can score well.”

Measuring 7,352 yards, TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course is a shorter, positional course where accuracy often matters more than sheer distance. Pete Dye was instructed by Robert Beman to design a test that would not favor any one type of player, and he delivered. The course demands strategic tee shots and carefully planned approaches around intricate bunkers and water hazards. Doglegs twist in both directions, and no two consecutive holes play the same way. Some holes even require shaping the ball both left and right on the same shot to hit the intended targets.

Despite its balance, the course is full of variance. Every hole carries at least an 8% chance of a birdie or better and an 8% chance of a bogey, making it equally challenging for every style of golfer.

With so much trouble lurking, the line separating success from complete failure is extremely thin….

Read the rest before you bet anything this week

Model

Every week, I run the numbers through the model and hopefully let the data tell me where the value is. This week leaned heavily on approach play, GIR in tough conditions, total driving, and avoiding bogeys and double bogeys. Sawgrass punishes mistakes, so the model reflects that.

Here is where things landed in my course fit rankings:

1. Scottie Scheffler

2. Rory McIlroy

3. Russell Henley

4. Tommy Fleetwood

5. Harris English

6. Ben Griffin

7. Patrick Cantlay

8. J.J. Spaun

9. Corey Conners

10. Thorbjorn Olesen

That said, with some of the issues at the top and the fact that long-term form and even course history have been less than predictive here, I also ran a model looking at NOTHING but short-term approach play. I broke it down by SG: APP, GIR%, Proximity, as well as subsets of the data using filters like GIR% on tough courses and APP in tough fields. The list of names was quite different (this’ll happen when you don’t weigh ANY form or putting).

The full model with all 136 players ranked is on the site. If you are building DFS lineups or looking for matchup targets this week, it is worth your time to check out a few of the expert models on site, and of course, to build your own.

Last Days To Get $1 Access

We are currently letting users (even past users) try out the new features of the site, including the Rabbit Hole, for just $1. Just a buck gets you 7 days of access to everything!

Use promo code SAWGRASS at checkout, but this is limited to the first 500 users and will end on Friday.

Betting

Got some top twenty bets home last week to at least keep me from losing my entire outlay for the week! Congrats to Akshay, whom I did not quite trust to bet outright. Painful to see one of your top 20 bets win the whole damn thing.

As I mentioned on the show this week and in the newsletter, I’m avoiding the top of the board and looking for either great form coming in, a strong history of elite-iron play, or both. I landed on four names for the week.

Morikawa +1800
Si Woo Kim +2200
Cam Young +3500
Hideki +3851 

Don’t forget to check out Noonan’s picks for the week:

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How to Watch

TV:

Thursday: 1-7 p.m.: Golf Channel

Friday: 1-7 p.m.: Golf Channel

Saturday: 2-7 p.m.: NBC

Sunday: 1-6 p.m.: NBC

Streaming

Thursday: 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m.: ESPN+

Friday 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m.: ESPN+

Saturday: 2-7 p.m.: Peacock

Sunday: 1-6 p.m.: Peacock

Weather

Pat’s doing the Lord’s work, and what everyone else who wants to worry about the weather splits should be doing: hitting up Windfinder a few times per day. Florida is a messy state for weather, and right now, the gusts appear to be heavier than the official PGA forecast

For the most part, I’m not sure a wave advantage will exist, although the Thursday night rains could soften up what the players are saying is a course that’s already playing pretty firm.

News and Notes

The Anchoring debate was put to rest immediately!

This is wildly annoying, since injury reports in golf are basically just quotes from a player. There’s no telling how hurt he is.

Something for the hole-by-hole bettors!

As always, bet responsibly, have fun, and remember, not everything needs to be a major.

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