The PGA Tour takes on the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club this week.
The PGA Tour takes on the Charles Schwab Challenge this week at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Wyndham Clark got back in the winner’s circle last week, gaining over 20 strokes on the field at TPC Craig Ranch. Several top guys are resting this week before the Memorial, so we’ve got a little more of a wide-open field here in Fort Worth. Let’s dive into the numbers for this week’s tournament with Bet The Number, the premier golf analytics platform.
The Course Blueprint 🗺️ As a generally difficult par 70 with only two par 5s and tough par 3s, Colonial is known to play tough. We’ve seen a good bit of rain this week already, so we’re expecting it to play slightly softer and easier than last year. The greens are small, so accuracy is necessary on approach, and scrambling is at a premium here. Last year, we saw -12 win the tournament, and with the soft conditions, we think scores will be a little lower and the leaderboard a bit more congested.
Let’s take a look at this week’s model:
OTT: With narrow fairways, plenty of trees, and lots of doglegs, accuracy comes at a premium over distance at Colonial. The course is only a 3.5/10 on the bomber’s paradise scale and has a strong rough penalty. We expect most of the scoring to come around the greens, though, and just have standard SG:OTT in the BTN Model.
APP: The large majority of approach shots at Colonial come from the 125-200 yard bucket, which is the featured distance range in this week’s BTN Model. As mentioned earlier, the course has a strong rough penalty and features small greens, which make approach play difficult.
ATG: Chipping will separate top performers this weekend. With a low GIR rate and plenty of tough second shots for those missing fairways, getting up and down will be essential to saving pars. In the BTN Model, SG:ATG is the highest weighted of any event in weeks, and we’ve also added Scrambling as a key stat to the model.
Putting: Colonial might have the purest bent grass greens on Tour. Players who putt well on bent grass will find themselves contending during this tournament, and the BTN Model has SG:Putt filtered to bent grass courses.
This week’s BTN Model favorite is (🥁 drumroll please…) Ludvig Aberg . Will the Swede get it done in Fort Worth?
This week’s top 5 in the BTN Model, with Ludvig Aberg as the favorite.
Matchup of the Week (10-5-2) 🤼♂️ Justin Thomas (-122) ✅ over Hideki Matsuyama (-108) on DraftKings
We cashed a ticket yet again last week, and we can promise we don’t have any plans of stopping while we’re hot. This week, we head to the classic Colonial Country Club for the Charles Schwab Challenge, where we’re taking Justin Thomas in one of the marquee tournament matchups over Hideki Matsuyama.
Neither JT nor Hideki has played much at Colonial over the last several years, so we’re not going to spend much time pretending course history is the magic decoder ring this week. Instead, we’ll lean on the stats, which feels like a decent idea considering we have the BTN Matchup Tool sitting right there doing all the heavy lifting for us.
Over the last 24 rounds, JT looks like the more solid player across the board. He has the edge in total strokes gained, off the tee, around the green, fairways hit, pars, and bogey avoidance. That last part matters plenty at Colonial, where you don’t have to be perfect, but you probably should avoid turning a 430-yard par 4 into a small crime scene.
JT also comes in with the better recent form, posting three top 25s in his last four starts, including a 13th at the Wells Fargo and a T4 at the PGA Championship. Hideki certainly hasn’t been terrible, because Hideki is rarely terrible, but his best finish over his last three starts is a T26 at the PGA.
We’ll gladly back the guy with the better form, the cleaner profile in the matchup tool, and a game that should fit just fine around Colonial. Give us JT to keep it tidy, avoid the big number, and hopefully drive us right back to the payout window again.
Justin Thomas vs Hideki Matsuyama in the BTN Matchup tool
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Best of luck this week!
Ryan L.
Bet The Number
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