PGA Round 1 Prize Picks: BMW Championship Top Props to Target on Thursday, August 18th

Intro [Music] what is going on everybody it's your boy jesus luke here with our round one prize picks preview for this week's bmw championship going to get you prepared for thursday's slate what to expect from the golf course which for this week is going to be wilmington country club and then some of the props that i have my eye on here for the first round so we'll start with the golf course it's a brand new one on tour make sure we're all on the same page we'll talk about the weather for round one which is always important when taking a look at this sport specifically and then talk about the categories that i'll be trying to dive into here for the first round so Course Overview let's start with the golf course which right here we have it up on pro visualizer and this is a little bit outdated so it's a par 71 that part is correct but a little bit longer than the 7 310 yard mark that you see here on the screen it's playing closer to 7 534 yards which for a par 71 makes it one of the longer holes or one of the longer courses i should say that you really find all year especially per shot you can see there's a few long holes like a 630 yard par 5. that's not going to be reachable by much of the field but you also have a few shorter holes right like 360 yards for example 390. a few of the other par 5s are easily reachable like 532 yards and even 614 yards that one plays significantly downhill are going to be reachable by most of the field so it's definitely a bomb in gouge type of golf course players that have that added distance off the tee are going to be in much better positions to go out there and score and one thing to note here as well is they are massive greens 8 100 square foot and just to give you a little bit of perspective there the average green size on the pga tour is closer to 6 000 square feet last week at tpc south wind they were just 4 300 square foot so nearly double the size of as what we saw for last week's event so you're dealing with a unique golf course definitely one that's long like i mentioned but also one with large greens so i don't expect it to play all that difficult a scoring average probably close to a stroke maybe even a stroke and a half under par but definitely an emphasis on the longer players so when we take a look at the Weather weather you also see that it's going to be nearly ideal there's low winds throughout the entire day in the morning single digits in terms of the sustained winds you can see anywhere between three to seven miles an hour the wind gusts don't really kick up until right around 11 to 12 pm and then throughout the afternoon it's a consistent seven to nine mile an hour wind and then the wind gusts only getting up to right around 10 to 12 miles an hour so you're looking at pretty much ideal conditions but it's worth noting that there's not going to be a quote-unquote am versus pm wave they're all teeing off within three hours the earliest tee time i believe is nine am local time and then the last guys will be teeing off a little bit towards the afternoon so you're looking at you know not a huge spread in terms of when guys are going to be teeing off so i wouldn't expect there to be a huge advantage in one direction or the other Prize Picks heading over to prize picks now let's talk through the boards because you'll see on the right here they're all going to be matchups that i'm taking but i want to give you my thoughts on the birdie or better board then of course strokes if birdie or better guys you're pretty much late to the party there's a reason why i have my patreon i'm putting out picks early all of the guys up top are already bumped and in fact i took the overs on all of them i had over on rory john rom scotty scheffler zelotoris justin thomas cantley and tony fina all of these players were guys that i took overs on and they were at four and a half birdies now they're at five at this point i pretty much think they're fades getting to six birdies is a completely different story than trying to get to five you're looking to happen to birdie 33.3 percent of your holes to go out there and make six birdies out of 18 which is going to be a tough task regardless of the golf course and with so many unknowns i'm not going to count on that right there's one quote unquote drivable par 4 that one that's 360. you have the two reachable par fives that's not enough for me to bite on guys there at five so for me it's going to be a fade at that point if not taking the under on some of the guys there at five in fact even as somebody that has the over and four and a half and quite a few players there i just think there's so much equity for these players to go out there and get to five that it might be worth taking the under on a few of them in a few cards so we'll have to see there i definitely wouldn't be taking the over on anybody at five that is just way too risky a proposition in terms of the guys at the bottom of the board i'm a little bit more willing to take the over and guys at four but it's still you know not really what i'm looking for i want an elite level player anytime i'm taking an over here on prize picks so for the birdie or better board it's mostly gonna be a fade across the board just a few isolated people that i like if you're looking for who i'm actually taking on that board make sure to check out the patreon in terms of strokes it's a similar story a lot of unknowns here right when we're trying to take down you know a prop board it's useful to know the scoring average and then of course you know what types of players succeed Matchups there we don't know either right so for us to try and take an over and under and birdies or trying to take in under and over on strokes would be guessing at the very best which means that the problem i think you should focus on at least for the first round you know before we get all of this information here on thursday is going to be matchups because it doesn't matter it doesn't matter how the golf course plays it's a head-to-head matchup where all of the players are susceptible to the same conditions so when there's more unknowns you know usually i'm a proponent of steering clear from matchups they're actually my least favorite category in all of prize picks but when we have all these unknowns things that we can't necessarily control we have to play into those right they're actually going to be our best bets for this slate so in general i don't think this is the best slate you know i'm going to be completely transparent about it especially after the bumps on the birdie or better board i would be playing lightly on the slate to say the least but if you're going to be targeting anything it's going to be these matchups where you know i'm taking the over on tony fenow versus maverick mcnealy with tony fenow his two wins out of his last three starts is gaining across all four stag categories in fact is a great putter on bent grass which is the surface that you get around wilmington country club so i like them over mcnealy mcnealy's a high birdie percentage player so it's far from a gimme but when you're looking at pedigree somebody you know you're projecting for a 50 50 type of outcome i'm going to be taking tony finau all day it's not really even a question it's the same story with jordan spieth right two players here between jordan and an hv3 that are more than solid enough when it comes to pedigree in terms of birdie percentage also relatively close but when you're looking to split hairs right jordan spieth clearly head and shoulders a better player than hv3 with some of the other arguments here right colin versus max homo that's a much closer proposition fitzpatrick versus hand that's a much closer matchup if some of the guys up top like a burns versus jt it's nearly even especially when it comes to birdie production i mean even somebody like a rory versus cam young i mean cam young's one of the best birdie makers we've seen ever on the pga tour i mean his stats in terms of birdie or better percentage are elite of all elite at this point whereas you know tony fenow versus mcnealy there's quite a large edge to be had there and especially with the spieth versus hv3 prop you're talking about an elite level guy in spieth versus somebody that's above average in an hv3 those are the type of matchups i'm looking to take advantage of phenol has the driving advantage over mcnealy and i would argue that spieth has an even larger driving edge even though he's not a good a driver was 20 fina obviously but because of his matchup against hv3 who's a relatively poor driver um should have a lot of success there in terms of a few other matchups i'm taking i'm taking the under on kevin kisner here so i'm taking the corey connor side in that matchup and that comes all down to the ball striking kisner is a lot shorter off the t not the best iron player whereas cory connors is an elite level driver has both the distance and the accuracy we're looking for and is a much better approach player and when you compare their stats on bent grass sure kisner is a better player but that's not his favorite surface whereas cory connors gains 0.2 shots per round on the bent grass surface so i like to see that he's clearly hitting the ball well and has the skill set i'm looking for at this golf course because remember it's nearly 7 500 yards you have thin fairways relatively large greens which should be easier to hit but if you're going to be 50 60 yards closer to the hole you're going to have a lot better ability to hit it close and lastly we're taking the under on set straka and we're going to be taking the alex smalley side sep straka clearly getting a bump he's even on the board this week because of his success last week and uh the last time he showed up at an event he went out there won the honda classic he went out and completely busted for like the next three four months he was absolutely dog was not playing nearly to the ability that he did at the honda classic so don't be surprised if he completely falls off the face of the earth again goes out there gets his fedex cut points ends up making it into eastlake and then probably sneaking it up again would not surprise me whatsoever he's not really that guy he's not a high pedigree player he'll pop from time to time but that's really what he is right he's inconsistent we'll show that ability every once in a while and when we're taking a 50 50 type of prop right a match up we're just looking for somebody to beat one other player it's very binary in that aspect i'm always going to take the more consistent player particularly when it's alex smalley who's not only more consistent but head and shoulders a better player i mean alex smalley is on the trajectory right now to be something up there in the top 30 top 35 on the pga tour here in the next year or so i mean he's one of those rookies this year i mean in any other rookie class you'd probably be talking about him at least in the conversation for rookie of the year but given how strong it is this year you know he's not going to have any sort of shot at that so he's kind of that forgotten last man out but still on a great trajectory has shown a lot of ability over the last few weeks and i'm clearly taking the under there so if you were to match all these up take him in a power play which i wouldn't recommend i would recommend the flex play option here um you're gonna get a 5x payout right 1.5 x if you get three right which i'm pretty confident in doing out of a four prop sample size here i mean all these matchups have at least a 10 to 15 edge to be had um that's what i would go with right it's a matchup prop they're still very susceptible to variants which is why i wouldn't power play it but like i said this whole board in general is a little bit sketchy for round one so i wouldn't be doing many power plays to begin with so go with the flex option there and like i mentioned guys fade the birdie board they're just they're too high it's a very risky proposition to go out there and try and take them at six birdies i mean even with strokes you know it's a par 71 so they've got to shoot four under par to get to a 67 i don't know if i can count on that from my players but that's all i've got here for the first round hopefully you guys feel a little bit more prepared to make your own cards we're going to be trying to do this for rounds two through four if possible sometimes with bumps sometimes just with the timing of the board it's not possible so i apologize when i can't get it out there for you but hey when i can hopefully it's helpful for you guys and uh we can continue to go out there and get some cash i'll remind you if you're looking for access to all of my picks they are on my patreon page i post all of my cards there talk about confidence levels i do write ups for a lot of the reasons i'm taking props and like the bertier better board right when they were at four and a half i was able to get those up on patreon before they actually saw that bump and it happened within an hour and a half so you have to be quick even when you're on the patreon to catch some of these props but it is the best way to go out and do so so like i said guys best of luck with all of your slips here for round one and let's get this cash [Music] you