Previewing The Waste Management
A Super Bowl Party on a Golf Course
For the second consecutive year, The Pebble Beach event didn’t get to finish on Sunday. It was really a worst case scenario for The PGA Tour - with almost no other sports to contend with, LIV had their debut event of the season. I have to imagine this will be LIV’s biggest television success by far, made possible by the scheduling and weather combination on the PGA side.
Wyndham Clark will unceremoniously win another designated event. He earned it with a course record on Saturday. In my opinion, the PGA needed to play 36 holes on Saturday - the weather was not a surprise to anyone and they logistically could have made it happen on Saturday.
We did great on our bets though. 4-1 finishing position and 1-1 matchup, none of our outrights in contention.
Waste Management Phoenix Open Preview
Purse: $9 million
Course: TPC Scottsdale
This might be the most fun non-major of the season. While it’s not an elevated purse in 2024, we’ll always have a strong field for this event. The Waste Management (WM) is traditionally played on Super Bowl weekend and is known for raucous crowds and exciting finishes. We’re still out west, but leaving the ocean breeze to head into the firm and fast desert.
The most memorable hole of the event is undoubtedly the par 3 16th. Equipped with massive grandstands, it’s really a tee shot that cannot be duplicated. This is definitely the hub of all crowd excitement, people are encouraged to kind of lose their minds, especially for any hole in one. Tiger aced it in 1997, the crowd of course going extra insane. In 2022, a flood of beer cans rained down after Sam Ryder’s tee shot found the cup.
It’s not behavior you’ll see from a crowd at any golf event for the rest of the season, but it adds to a really fun event in Scottsdale every year. This serving as an appetizer to the Super Bowl always adds a bit of excitement too. The weeks of golf going against football are officially over, football giving golf a little boost on it’s way out - you love to see it.
The list of past winners reflects the typical strength of field the WM brings out:
2023: Scottie Scheffler (-19)
2022: Scottie Scheffler (-16)
2021: Brooks Koepka (-19)
2020: Webb Simpson (-17)
2019: Rickie Fowler (-17)
At the time of their win, each of the above were Top 50 OWGR players. Winning scores all have been around the same range: not a huge test, but also not a straight birdie-fest.
Like the past few weeks, I have a few trends for the winner’s profile:
12/13 finished 7th or better in 1 of last 5 WMs
15/17 had at least one PGA win in their career
18/21 were 34 or younger
That top one is the one I’m going to value most this week. It will come out in course history stats, but I’m likely only going to play outrights on guys who fit that trend.
Course Preview: TPC Scottsdale
TPC Scottsdale is not nearly as famous as Pebble Beach, but for me, being on one course the entire event is welcomed with open arms. This place opened in 1986; within a year, it began hosting the Phoenix Open. The course was designed by Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish, the former being pretty well-known as a resort course designer. TPC Scottsdale is a resort, so this is another course playable by anyone reading this.
Surrounded by the nearby McDowell Mountain range, we’re going to see classic desert conditions this week. I’ll factor this into the model in the form of comparable courses. We only see so many desert courses on the schedule, so it might be wise to target guys who have thrived at TPC Summerlin, PGA West (AMEX a couple weeks ago), Summit Club, and Silverado. According to Datagolf, this is the 3rd strongest correlation between past success and future success of the entire season (Augusta is first, Waialae second). All of this gives us something to focus our strategy around at the WM.
TPC Scottsdale is a 7200 yard Par 71, so it’s about average distance. Due to elevation and firm ground, this is actually the course that has the longest driving distance of all PGA events - 305 yards, 16 yards longer than average. Distance always helps, but I wouldn’t focus on it this week. Good drivers have done well here, but it’s more of a total driving skill than pure distance - someone like Tom Kim is not really hurt by his lack of power off the tee. From a modeling point of view, I’m going to use pure SG: OTT this week instead of weighting something more specific.
Approach game rules the day like most events. The rough is not too penal, but I do think we need to respect the challenge a firm and fast course presents. The data is filterable by those conditions and you’re going to see that weighed in my Course Fit model. Firm greens typically reward those with a higher ball flight on approach shots, so this angle might prove useful in finding a few guys who could pop this week. From a proximity range perspective, 150-175 yards is the most common range - I’ll add that into consideration with a small weight on it.
Compared to last week’s miniscule greens at Pebble, Scottsdale’s greens are slightly larger than average (7000 square feet compared to the average 6000). I don’t see a lot of value in Around the Green (ARG) stats in weeks like this. For Safety Fit modeling, I’m going to use Scrambling stats instead. It’s just a more broad way of rewarding the guys who get themselves out of trouble. The rough isn’t really penal, but wayward tee shots can find waste areas - Scrambling should help us identify who can manage this best if needed.
If you look up the grass type this week, most places will say Bermuda. It’s really not any one type though. We all know growing grass like this in the desert is kind of silly, and certainly challenging. With that, the strains on the greens should not be put in a bucket with other courses. I think a much smarter way to look for putting stats this week is by simply using stats from other fast greens, agnostic of grass type. Putting history at TPC Scottsdale itself could also be a useful stat, so expect to see that rewarded in some way this week in models.
As always, let’s summarize what we know about the course and event history to think about who we want to target this week.
This player consistently gains strokes off the tee. They don’t have to be long or overly accurate, but they do need to be consistent. He needs to be well above average on approach, especially when hitting into firm and fast greens. I’d like them to be a good putter on fast greens, but am open-minded to betting on a bad putter if he’s shown to perform better at TPC Scottsdale specifically. Going back to our trend, this player has finished 7th or better in 1 of his last 5 trips to the Waste Management.
Early Leans
He’s going to be extremely popular, but I’m looking at Justin Thomas first this week. His form is looking really good, a huge improvement from last year. We’re at a course he’s played as well as anywhere. I don’t like how short he’ll be priced, but he’s the leader in my mind right now.
After JT, I’ll be looking at Sahith Theegala and Hideki from a course history point of view. I’ll be curious on the price for those two.
Scheffler will be unbettably short, but if anyone can three-peat, it’s him.
How to Watch
We have a lot of streaming opportunities now, but I still want to know the TV schedule (all times EST).
Thursday: 3:00-7:00pm, Golf Channel
Friday: 3:00-7:00pm, Golf Channel
Saturday: 1:00-3:00pm, Golf Channel; 3:00-6:30, CBS
Sunday: 1:00-3:00pm, Golf Channel; 3:00-6:00, CBS
Closing Thoughts
Last week was a complete disaster for the PGA Tour. I get that weather is out of anyone’s control, but choosing the schedule is very much in the PGA’s control. Their glacial speed when it comes to change is playing out in the schedule having obvious issues with many of the events - we have the rainiest time around Pebble Beach right now and we’ll be struggling to finish rounds on time when we head east in a few weeks. To make matters worse, LIV had a playoff finish between two well-known players and there was zero competition for eyeballs in the sports world.
LIV is not going to become the more watched Tour any time soon, if ever, but this weekend represented their biggest win since their inception in my opinion. Coverage went from start to finish and bounced around more players than the PGA broadcast. In a week where both tours played a 54 hole no-cut event, it’s clear LIV gained a lot more exposure and attention. I personally had a bet on Niemann, so I was paying attention to it myself - I don’t use any data for LIV bets (there is none), so I won’t typically cover that at all in these pages. If they someday have shots gained data, I would kick the tires on some smaller bets.
That will do it for the preview this week. You’ll no doubt be prepping for the Super Bowl by the weekend, this is kind of a perfect sports appetizer to have planned. We’ll be back on Wednesday with the usual data and my favorite bets this week. Until then, best of luck with all your bets.
Matt / Ziggy