This week, the PGA Tour travels to Jackson, MS for the Sanderson Farms Championship. It’s still early in the season and most of the big names are either teeing it up overseas or spending time at home visiting their families and working on their craft for when they make their eventual start to the season. That leaves us with short prices on golfers whom we’d rather look elsewhere on betting. Despite the lack of star power, there is money to be made in these limited fields. This week, I found two golfers whose prices provide value in the position market.
Emiliano Grillo Top-20 (+170)
There was a time when I was on team-fade of Grillo. Early in the season, he went through a stretch where he missed nine cuts in 12 events. In that stretch, his biggest issue was with his putter. Good golfers who generally putt well don’t have poor putting stretches for too long. Hence why Grillo became a golfer whose name is constantly at the top of the leaderboard. He fixed his putting woes and made five out of six cuts and had two runner-up finishes.
In his last 10 events, Grillo has been good on the putting surface, gaining +0.8 strokes putting. That number improves significantly to +3 when measuring just his previous five tournaments. He’s also been great off the tee and very strong on approach. He’s fourth on my primary model largely due to his strong ball striking, his efficiency off the tee, and his ability to get birdies in bunches. Grillo has yet to finish inside the top-20 at this event, hence the price we are getting. This week will be the week he breaks through at the Country Club of Jackson.
Denny McCarthy Top-20 (+188)
After four straight top-20 finishes in this event, betting McCarthy to finish inside the top 20 becomes a no-brainer. The price tag justifies it as well. McCarthy uses his great putting prowess to succeed here. He’s the top putter in the field over the last 36 rounds. He’s also great at scrambling, which helps a great deal in bridie fests. Carding a bogey at a birdie fest basically puts you two back every time that happens. McCarthy has struggled a bit off the tee which concerns me, but at Sanderson Farms, I’m not overly concerned. His course history alone is enough for me to think he will have the confidence necessary to succeed this week.
