The Betsperts Golf crew breaks down the full US Open field, covering the sleepers worth backing, the names we're fading, and the best bets we're making heading into the week. We go through course fit at Shinnecock Hills, historical trends that matter, and where the value is sitting in the market right now. Whether you're playing a tournament winner, building a DFS lineup, or hunting for props, this breakdown covers every angle before the first tee shot at one of golf's four majors.
0:00 - US Open Betting Guide Intro and Shinnecock Overview
0:01:00 - Pay Attention to Player Interviews This Week
0:03:00 - Wind Forecast and Wave Advantage Considerations
0:05:00 - Scottie's Grand Slam Narrative and Whether to Bet Him
0:08:00 - 2004 and 2018 Rewatch Value and USGA Setup Notes
0:16:00 - Why Rory Fits Shinnecock and Andy's Course Fit Case
0:20:00 - Patrick Reed and the Courses He Shouldn't Model Well At
0:24:00 - Rory vs. the Field: Tier Comparisons at Current Price
0:29:00 - Cam Young and the Case for Him
0:31:00 - Fitzpatrick, Xander, and Tommy as Near Misses
0:38:00 - Brooks Fade and the Nerve Issue Playing a Factor
0:42:00 - JJ Spaun at 60-1 and the Defending Champion Angle
0:53:00 - Shane Lowry at 85-1 as Andy's Long Shot Play
2026 U.S. Open Betting Guide: Best Bets at Shinnecock
Everyone, welcome in. Betsperts Golf here for the 2026 U.S. Open, Shinnecock Hills. Andy Molitor joining me as always. Andy, I'm excited for this one. How are we doing?
It's a fun course, and it is not one in regular rotation. We see some of these major courses in other events, like Torrey, but this isn't one like that. Still, we've seen it recently, we've seen it in the past, we understand the gist of it. And it's a good week to pay attention to the interviews as the golfers start talking about what they're seeing. I think it's a lot of what we're expecting. The fairways are wide, but you can still miss them, and if you do, it's at least a half-stroke penalty, maybe a full stroke, because the first cut is five inches. That's nasty. And it's going to be super windy. The wind is obviously something you need to take into account this week. So pay attention today, Tuesday, to some of the quotes. You get a smaller event, there are like six interviews Monday through Wednesday, but there's going to be more because it's the U.S. Open. So pay attention to what the golfers are saying and make some adjustments if you need to.
I'm going to probably put something together on the weather. I already do something in the newsletter with the weather on Wednesday, once we're closer to it, and every week I'm like, hey, it says it's going to do this on Sunday, but it's Wednesday morning and I don't really know, so it's hard to guess the weekend weather. But I think we have a pretty good grip on Thursday and Friday, and honestly the entire four days looks pretty windy. I know Ron has already posted to Twitter some of the splits of guys playing in the wind. It's not going to be the biggest sample, but it was bigger than I expected. There are guys who are just able to flight it down. Even if they aren't all windy rounds, you could start looking at who's played well at the Scottish and the Opens, who's able to flight it down for those kinds of courses, because even if it's not super windy, that's a better play than the high, spinny ball we play over here at the parkland courses. It's like Florida golf, even Florida's typically pretty windy. If you just hit it low and hard and let it roll a bit on these wide fairways, if you're accurate.
I landed on a few bets, I know you have already, we'll get to those and some of the key stats. But the narrative has got to be the Scheffler one. I think coming in, maybe like five, six months ago, we talked about it last year, even after he won his third, they said, hey, U.S. Open, Father's Day, birthday, Grand Slam, it's going to be huge. And I don't know that the roar of that's kind of died down, just based on the fact that he's only won once this year. The last time we saw him, he was getting a little squirrely with Ted. So where are you at with Scottie and his number right now?
Yeah, it's a confluence of narratives, kind of overwhelming for the casual, probably. You have the thirtieth birthday, Father's Day, Grand Slam, seal the deal. The challenge is that, as someone, and Byron's in the chat, everyone go follow Back Nine Bets, having fired like Byron at Scottie at the Memorial, a track where he has dominated in the past, it just didn't seem to be as crisp. It's really hard to get back on the wagon, because it pretty much has to be either a deviation from your style of betting, which is how I approached it at the Memorial, or you're just going all in. It's hard to give yourself one shot at the apple cart in situations like this. This has Pinehurst vibes, which is actually a decent corollary course, and Pinehurst gave him trouble. He's talked about the unpredictability of those types of events and courses he hasn't played before, and kind of got unraveled. So it feels like he could win by six and I don't think we're surprised, and it's just this celebration of Scottie on the weekend, and man, that was awesome to watch. Or he just kind of continues to come around like he did at Aronimink and get these runs, and you go to Sunday and he's six back. Nothing would really surprise me. I think it's just a preflop, sort of unbettable number. I thought it would maybe even get up to like seven to one. It's just not going to get there, because you do get some casual money coming in on a bigger event like this. People are going to bet on him.
For sure. I just put together a little pools article for Golf Digest, and that's how I started it: hey, is your group big and full of casuals? You can't mess with Scottie. Are you a ball-knowers, ten-man pool? Scottie actually might be decent leverage this week, because a lot of people are just going to be like, no, I'm not going to go Scottie, I'm going to skip that. And I think there are going to be some other guys that could all of a sudden be super excited. Tom in the chat does not believe anyone's winning by six. It's fine. If somebody shoots two under, they might win by six. Correct. I'm just saying the range of outcomes for Scottie at his ceiling is still out there. We don't feel like he won by margin at Quail, but he won by four, very much cruised down the stretch. We've seen these things happen.
Look, if you're not super hardcore and don't have a ton of time, you're probably a little late to it, but the full final rounds of 2018 and 2004 are on YouTube. 2004 is probably not a great rewatch to extrapolate anything that's going to happen here, but it's an amazing watch if you want to see stuff we just don't see anymore, watering holes everywhere after every group walked off, and it still played nine shots over par. They've talked about it, they're going to water between rounds, between waves, even on Thursday. So we might get to a spot where a handful of holes are watered during the round, but we're definitely getting Thursday-morning water, and we're getting pre-afternoon-wave water on the greens. They're going to try, and the weather looks brutal, so I think you get some relatively benign pin placements on Thursday. But again, this happened on Sunday in 2018 and it still played more than two shots over par, and anything in Experts Golf over one and a half is very difficult. So it played very difficult with water mid-round. It's going to be tough, just holding on and knowing there are a bunch of holes where par is a fantastic score.
And I will say, they are going to water at least between waves, if not numerous times. It's not the same as you turning on your sprinklers and running them for an hour on the lawn and the turf gets squishy. It is not going to make it softer or easier. It's called syringing. Anybody who knows plant science understands the roots aren't terribly deep on some of these green surfaces because of how the plants are and how they cut them. It's more of a superficial watering just to cool off the plants and keep the greens looking nice and alive during the hotter parts of the day. They're just hosing it for fifteen, thirty seconds to cool off the plants. It's a "let's keep these greens alive" thing, not an "oh, that sucked, I had to play before they watered and now it's super soft and everybody's throwing darts" thing. I don't think it's going to affect play that much. It's just something you're going to see happening, and they've already been doing it a little, so keep an eye on it.
We haven't got to the wind yet, but a lot of people like Gotterup this week. Mark likes Gotterup. I think Mayo was on him. Definitely seen a bunch of people on him at that price range. And that's the thing too, you talk about Scottie winning this, or some elite player. I am of the belief that you get to some of these tougher courses, tougher events, and it does show, it's less random. When you don't have a putting contest, when you don't have high variance where everybody can score all over the place, the tougher courses and events lend themselves to the elite players ending up at the top, because they understand how to play their game. There are a lot of people who understand how to play Shinnecock, but you also have the second part of that equation, being physically able to do it and go out and execute. So I'm in a weird spot, I do want to take some of these guys near the top that I really think fit this place well. But the last ten years, we've had a couple of 250-to-1s hit here too. They're not saying you can't take a long shot. If you really believe they're coming in with the form and the fit, and it's somebody you think can play well here, you can have a pretty weird card if you want. Mine's pretty small, I only have three guys so far. I'm willing to be talked into more, but I also kind of want to be able to fire live on a couple guys, because there are some people I want to see play part of this course first.
That's totally fair. There were droppings on Wyndham Clark right before we went to LACC, which is why we were surprised there was the 120 out there, and the same thing with J.J. Spaun. We had glimpses, he was in the playoff at the Players. So you can find some spots in the odds board further down, I don't think that's a bad look. You can get a little squirrely here with someone that has pedigree and has popped at times. We've seen that more at U.S. Opens than even PGA Championships. But going back to one of your points, this is the key this week. If you're looking at corollary courses, past results in major championships, I think it's very clear we need to be looking more at Augusta, with the shaved runoffs, the sloping fairways, the sloping greens, and the wide corridors off the tee. This isn't quite as free and fair as Augusta with just clubhead cover off driver, but we saw sixty-four percent driver usage here in 2018, and I think it's right around there again. There are a lot of holes for longer guys where it's like, I'm just going to hit a driving iron, hit a four iron, pipe it in and let it run, whereas Augusta is a lot of clubhead cover off and pound driver. And then the other thing is open championships for the same premise: links-style golf, wide open, elements. That's where we need to be going versus looking at a lot of standard golf. I don't know that I'm going to grab a lot from Winged Foot and think that's a super great corollary to what we're looking at this week. So corollary-wise, I like if you've had success at Open Championships and at Augusta, because, again, strong fields, and those are the best corollary courses, because it's really hard to find corollary courses for major championship venues. They're major championship venues for a reason.
That's the biggest thing, if you can expand the sample without doing it just for the sake of making it bigger. We had a newer user hit up customer service, he was using the Rabbit Hole. It happens weekly, and we love helping people out, hit us up on the customer service line or in the Discord. He wanted to look at major championships on Poa, and our default timeframe is six months. You can change it to five years, but I had to be like, well, we've played two majors in the last six months and they were on bent grass, so this is going to return zero. And even if you expand it to Opens and Scottish Opens, it's tough to find a big sample. That's where this week I did a lot of smaller models outside my regular model, same thing Ron did. I want to look at playing in the wind, playing on tough courses, tough fields, places where the greens are really hard to hold, places where the rough was high and the rough penalty was high. So I did a lot of those sub-models and took notes on guys where it's like, hey, I love him, I like the form, but he's behind the curve in four out of five of these, and the confluence of all those is, is he really somebody I can get behind this week, or maybe somebody I have to bet against? And there are a few guys like that. Nice, it's a good way to uncover some matchup targets.
It's a fantastic test of golf. And it's not fantastic because it's difficult, it's fantastic because I'm fascinated by the design thought process, something built a hundred-plus years ago to be thinking of prevailing winds, these clusters of three holes where you're playing the overlay of where the prevailing winds are, structuring the layout so you can never really get a great feel for the wind. Now we're downwind, the last hole was a left-to-right crosswind, the next is into our face, the next is out of the southeast. You can never get a real feel for it, because every hole you have to make a decision off the tee with what's going on with the wind. You can have a great plan, and then the elements kick up. It's a mentally exhausting test. I'm thinking about the Travelers next week, like, if I'm betting the Travelers, I think I want you to miss the cut this week so you have the mental rest heading into that week versus grinding four days here at Shinnecock. I walked nine the other day and I was tuckered out, and it was a par-three course. I wonder, when William Flynn designed this a hundred years ago, if they talked to some fishermen or sailors who knew the winds best, like, that's my expert, I'm going to go talk to old fishing Bob who's out there every day getting lobsters.
Where did you land with the rest of the top of the board, because I struggled to walk past some of them. I wasn't deliberately trying to find guys that had Augusta and Open Championship history, but I did back into a card that has basically nothing but guys who have posted top fives at Augusta and top tens at Open Championships, and multiple have won majors, so I feel good about that. The Rory thing is interesting too. This is what we ran into at Aronimink, where I think we probably agree the gap between Rory and Scottie shouldn't be what it is, but it wasn't enough for me. Did you give him any consideration? I bet him here. It was hard, I kind of just went into the week and make mental numbers, and I figured Scottie five, Rory nine or ten, and there's some thirteen, I think thirteen-fifty was the best price I found this morning. It's just too much. We have the Augusta comps, the links-style comps, obviously he's from there, not the birthplace of golf but right across a little bit of water from it. The wind data likes Rory. When we talk about driving the ball here, we don't want you missing, accuracy is number one, but if you're long and straight, you're going to have a much easier time finding these greens and finding yourself some putts, you're not constantly looking at a chip from thirty yards out. He should be ten to one or less, so it's just a little too big a number. I don't like to bet stuff under fifteen to one too much, but I've hit a couple this year with Fitz. Should I just keep betting him? I looked at him pretty hard too, but I thought this was going to be on your card.
It was a really tough pass for me, and some of it is just the price. If it drifts out, if it was a little higher, I definitely would have taken it, but I bet Rory at thirteen-fifty. It's the pedigree coming in, the space, the pricing, how close he is to Scottie and how close I think he should be, and how well he's played. He won Augusta a couple times now, so if you can't keep one, make that comp, hey, I got a guy who's played well there. Florida golf's been good for him too. The wind data, the course fit. It's another one of those things, like we say about Scottie, is it a course fit? Well, it's got everything. Not a big fan of him as a human, but I bet on people I hate all the time. I had to throw that in. You know, but you've really come a long way. People watching us do this four or five years ago would be surprised how many times you've clicked Rory in the last twelve months, which, I think that's growth, I think it's maturity. Other golfers I don't like, I don't know if you can name another guy I shat on as much. No, what's fascinating is I think you really like the guy everyone hates in some ways, those are the guys you gravitate to. I like Patrick Reed. You're a bit of a contrarian in those instances. I used to be a Phil guy, but jeez, that's getting really tough now.
Quick aside: if you're a golf club and you have a major champion and a legend who is a member, that is the biggest point of pride you can have, and you are going to do everything to hang on to him. So the fact that they kicked him out and said you can't be a member here anymore, after twenty-some years, you don't do that off some he-said-she-said stuff. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not going to speculate, but they had to be pretty sure. Anyone in the comments, let me know if you watched the live from last night and watched Eamon Lynch and Randall just absolutely body Phil for like ten minutes. It was almost like they finally had permission, like they've been saving up for ten years. Eamon eased into it and then he didn't, and Paul McGinley tried to play a little contrarian, hey, Phil leaving for LIV helped and made a bunch of players a lot of money, but he didn't really want to stand on that too strongly. It was uncomfortable for a bit. This has been out there for a while. And have you read the Billy Walters book? It's funny how many bad things happened to him over his gambling career and he took it all in stride, but he was really hurt by Phil and upset with Phil. Of all the things, that's the stuff that stuck with him the most. He is not in the field again, he's not here. Tough, lefty.
So I have you mature, and I'll give you the credit on the Rory growth, but I also agree with the premise of the bet, which is that we know the hold in this market is insane, but if you're making price comparisons to the other guys in his tier, it does feel off relative to where their games are, what they've done this season and the last eighteen months. Obviously Scottie's been great, but it's just double the win probability. I'm not there, that's too much. Totally agree.
So I thought Fitz would be in your card, and you talked about the drift. The drift has gone the other way. There were like twenty-fives Monday morning, and now if you can find it, DraftKings is still a twenty-three, but even CRIS and Pinnacle and everything else is at least twenty or shorter. So we've gone that way on Fitz, and I don't think we're going back to twenty-five. He spoke yesterday, this presser, likes tough tests, won at The Country Club. He likes these types of tests and he's playing fantastic golf, got himself in the mix in Canada. A lot to like about Matt Fitzpatrick, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's pretty chalky in any format, pools, DFS, one and done. If you had Fitz left, he makes a ton of sense.
A guy that's fascinating, you could do this for any major championship, I don't really remember him in contention at all for any U.S. Open, but if you look at Xander Schauffele, he just finishes top. That's where I've looked at trying to find a plus-250, I've been shopping around for a Fitz top ten, I think he has a really high floor. I joked last week when I took Alex and Matt played better. I can't quite get my Fitz brothers right, the only place I could is the team event, but I'm looking at a Matt Fitz top-ten. Xander's worst will be his tenth U.S. Open, his worst finish is T-14 at Brookline, a T-10 here where he shot a sixty-two in round one, a T-10. The leaderboard would tell you he was very much in the mix, but these are prototypical backdoor. This T-6 is at Shinnecock in his second U.S. Open start. He was not a prominent member of the telecast, I promise, having just watched it Sunday night, there's not a lot of Xander shown in the mix, and he's got a T-6.
And that's why you see the score prop. The score prop is basically two-under-ish for the winning total. I want to say it was 277.5 juiced to the over for the final score of the winner. Par here over four days is 280, so 277.5 is a little better than two under. I would take that over. That was Augusta, around twelve. They're expecting even-par-ish. Three guys ever break par here. It's going to take a three. I'm putting that on the prop card. It's a little juicy, but something to shop around for, because there are going to be plenty of good rounds, but they're going to mix them in with some seventy-eights.
At the top for me, I feel like I bet a bunch of guys that are mentally at the top for me but weren't on the price board, which is what really matters in terms of shortest odds. I'm not going to pretend that because he grew up an hour north he has a ton of Shinnecock experience, because Sleepy Hollow and Westchester County are not Southampton, but I'm riding Cam Young. I didn't even bet Cam Young this week, I've been betting Cam Young for three months, so it's like nine tickets of bonus-max ten-dollar bets that have got me to a fine spot, cumulatively in the mid-twenties. You can find a twenty-two or so now, which was fourteen, it's twenty-six on CRIS, probably right around my cumulative number with bonus bets. That was another tough one to look past. Some of the not-great starts of late have been putting-related, which is funny because that was such an important piece of him toward the tail end of last year. You talked about it this year with the new caddy reading them for him. And then multiple times over the next few weeks he'd four-putt from six feet, like, oh no, what are we doing, buddy. So that to me is just small-sample noise. Everything else here, the driver is such a weapon, and if he's forced to club down, he's still got the distance to hang. The shot I'll remember most from the Masters this year was Cam's short-grass chip on that par five where he used the bank behind the hole to roll it back down. His around-the-green short-grass proximity grades out a lot better than just his random around-the-green play in smaller samples. So I like the Cam play, firing on all cylinders. Cam was my shortest play.
You went Rory toward the top, I went Cam toward the top, and you only got three guys, but that's partially having the card. It gets restrictive when you take one of the favorites. I'm passing on Rahm right now, I love him as a golfer, but I need prices a little deeper into the range to take him seriously here. Cam Young and Fitzpatrick, tough passes. Xander's number is hilarious, I just can't picture him winning this, super high floor, he's going to come in top-twenty like a mother and it's going to be easy, but at fifth in the odds, I'm not doing that. Aberg has been a weird ride over the last year, that's a short price. Tommy, love him, that price is a little short, he's kind of back to the thing where, oh, he's going to finish second and third all the time. Maybe we bet a Tommy top five. At twenty-three at Bookmaker right now, can't quite get there. And you have some of the LIV guys that are tougher to grade. Bryson missed both cuts this year, Augusta and Aronimink, so he's in a weird spot. Hatton had some good rounds, but it's hard to judge guys you don't get to see playing the same events. CRIS is at forty-five on Bryson, they're happy to take your Bryson.
I did take a guy I always take and he doesn't win, and he has won tournaments, not the ones I'm betting, but Russell Henley, I found a forty-four. I know you can get better prices earlier in the week, but I said, my God, if I can finally get forty, I think I have to be in on this guy. Henley, almost begrudgingly, even though he just models well. Everything I did, it's accuracy plus elite irons plus a real short game. He has the Shinnecock survival kit. If there's a guy who can grind out even par for four days and win by attrition, I kind of like him. I don't want him somewhere he has to beat a few elite players at a putting contest and go high-variance, but he can be a grinder. I'm off in the prediction markets, Novig and whatnot, because it's fun, you look at the price, put your stake in, and see if there's liquidity on your side of the trade. I've been pulling up Kalshi and Novig with my pricing too. The opposite of the point you made about Bryson, CRIS is at thirty-seven for Henley, so they're below market at a pretty sharp book. They're taking to win a quarter million right now on golf outrights at the U.S. Open. It's a one-way market, but a very liquid, sharp one. What do you need to know about Russell Henley? He's just who he is now. He shows up at big events, tough fields, and contends. Back-to-back T-10s at Open Championships, top five in two of his past four Augustas. He was part of the first-round-leader chop here in 2018, played in that final group with Tommy when Tommy went on his run Sunday, and was like fifth or sixth at Pinehurst. Another leaderboard where bombers were up top and there's just little Russ mixing in. He almost stole that Open Championship from Xander. He's going to keep his ball in play. Shinnecock survival kit is a great way to summarize his game. He was like fifty over the weekend, which made no sense considering how well he played at Colonial, so I went out and grabbed that. A Henley top-twenty is probably one of the safest bets you can make. I'm in on Henley at fifty too, north of forty is a great play.
I got six guys. One just ahead of Henley, similar style, has an Open Championship, a bunch of great Masters, a PGA Championship and an Open Championship, but Collin Morikawa, who was moving around, looked better. We didn't have the old-man gimp, the "I gotta get this ball out of the hole" walk. Looked good, played well, putted well. Still the premier, or one of the best, ball-strikers and approach players in the world, field-average distance-wise but insanely accurate. Having that Open Championship and the Augusta around-the-green play speaks to me here. A forty-eight was available over the weekend when he was making a run on Saturday, and it just seems too big for a guy that heading into Sawgrass was sub-twenty and playing great golf. There's a huge discount because of the unknown around the injury. The injury is a little scary, but you've seen him look like he's not a broken old man recently, so I feel a little better about it.
What do you think of Brooks? He came out and said he doesn't know why his fingers are doing what they're doing, he went to a specialist to look at his neck, because nerves are funny, you can have a problem with your back and get sciatica and your legs don't work right. He doesn't have a true diagnosis, he struggled gripping the clubs, and he says, nah, I'm just going to play. Most places were about plus-150 to miss the cut. This isn't an Augusta where only the olds and three people who really screw up miss the cut. Missing the cut here is not that hard, a couple of blowout holes and oh, no, I'm three off. If you fall behind early, it's a really hard place where you have to hope the pack comes back to you, it's not like, I'll just shoot a sixty-three tomorrow and chase the cut. So I'm probably going to play some, I found a plus-174 for him to miss the cut, and cheer against Brooksie again, even though he's a guy I like. I think it's dumb that he's playing with this. I'm not a doctor, but nerve stuff is scary, you're going to make it worse. What's interesting is the ball striking has been great all year, we've gone to the well a few times because of it. Watching back 2018, that was peak killer Brooks, he holed an insane amount of ten-to-fifteen footers, even a save par, one of the best bogeys you'll ever see on the eleventh, the short par three Lee Trevino called the shortest par five in the world. That's been such a problem for him this year. You're going to have to hole a bunch of putts from distance to save par and bogey, and we're worried about his ability to hole putts healthy, and now we have the nerve issue. It looked like in Canada we were trending to Brooks being twenty-five, and now with the nerve issue he's still kind of hovering around there, except CRIS is at like fifty-two, take your Brooks. It's like the BetOnline guys with the USA to win the World Cup, hey, it's shortening everywhere else, we'll stick, it's a hundred to one here, bet it, we dare you. So he's an avoid for me, too many questions, and I'll be on a little bit of miss-cut for him. He just should not be shorter than, in my opinion, Collin Morikawa and Russell Henley. And most books cash miss-cut on a withdrawal, know your house rules. I don't believe that's priced in enough, because it's not a huge liquid market, you're not betting twenty grand on miss-cut bets.
I don't know what to do with hole-in-one, I think that's a coin toss here with the winds, half of hole-in-ones are lucky shots anyway, that's more of an Augusta bet for me. Real quick, I looked at Spaun pretty hard, some places close to sixty, and again it's the dumb thing, the guy's not winning the U.S. Open again, it's so hard, but what has he done wrong? His fit at a place like this may be better than where he was last year, and he showed he can get up off the tarp. He got his ass kicked the first couple holes of round four and just, whatever, I'm going to keep grinding, and the rest is history. Kind of disrespectful on the number. A couple other long shots I looked at, big numbers, Harris English, he's like a wind grinder, tough golf courses, a huge number. And I really can't sell this one, but Daniel Berger is modeling out decent enough for a guy that's like two hundred to one, that's probably a "hey, if you really believe in Berger" top-twenty, final group here in 2018. Give me a Danny B at five or six to one for the top twenty. Aaron Rai, another one, it's hard, are we going to bet on Aaron Rai when nobody can say he's going to win back-to-back majors after just being Aaron Rai for ten years? It's a tough sell, but the course breakdown, hitting the right angle off the tee, not having to bomb it, the off-the-tee numbers and the pure fit he has for this place. He's like ninety or a hundred to one, 115 on DraftKings. DraftKings is telling you they believe it's more likely Bud Cauley goes back-to-back in events than Aaron Rai goes back-to-back in majors, which is an interesting tell I'm not necessarily believing.
I definitely thought my next guy was on your card, because I bet Patrick Reed. He's not at the same spot he was when he turned it on at the beginning of the year on the DP tour, he just hasn't played, his last two starts are the Masters and the PGA Championship. We did this at Aronimink, where's he been? He went in and finished T-10, the only person in the field at Aronimink with better strokes gained approach than Patrick Reed was Aaron Rai. He was fourth here in 2018, very much in the mix, and again, open championships, flight it, control your ball, around-the-green play. He's done decently at the Masters previously. I got fifty-five, where are we now? Still fifties maybe, right around there. The issue is just we haven't seen him, but that was the issue at Aronimink and he showed up and played pretty well. He's probably been hanging out on Long Island playing golf in the wind. There's a lot to like about Patrick Reed at a big number.
Akshay, what's your Barracuda comp here? Akshay does this at standard events where it's like 66, 68, 79, 70, and it's like, oh, Akshay only finished three shots back, why did he shoot eight over in that one round? That worries me about Akshay here, because having a day like that here is an eighty-seven. You do that at a mid course where he has these off days, comes back and shoots 66, doesn't make sense. You have an off day here, your number starts with an eight, and that's a big problem for getting back to par. Yeah, no interest in Akshay. Honestly, if you like him, it's a fine first-round-leader bomb, because he can have good rounds, but it's hard to picture four in a row here.
Patrick Reed, love that number. This is one I knew was going to drift a little because I didn't think the market sentiment was positive, and it has. And then a gentleman who's played really well at Open Championships and has a green jacket, Hideki Matsuyama. It's a big number for a guy who's still got hands around the green, the approach plays awesome, the problem has been off the tee, but you're going to give me these wide-ass corridors and fairways and some club-down selections. Hideki's pretty interesting, modeled decently well, the number feels pretty big. You hit on both points, the off-the-tee stuff is a little much, the number's crazy for a Masters winner, but he's just very hard to predict, you don't know when you're getting a good Matsuyama week, and for that reason I'm passing. If he looks like it's going to be a week, I'm fine betting him at fifty to one live, it's a Thursday bet for me. The way to hedge if you didn't jump in early is the live market when he shows he's that guy, because his ceiling outcomes when he blacks out are still competitive with anyone in the field.
So those are my main five, Cam Young, Collin Morikawa, Russell Henley, Patrick Reed, Hideki, and then my bomb is Cam Smith. He's like Hideki in a way, everything gets a little better as you get closer to the hole. A couple competitive rounds of late after not being competitive at all, he's T-16 or better in his past three starts, T-7 at Aronimink. I think he's got a sense of what's happening with LIV, do I have to be competitive again, do I have to be good at golf again, and he changed his swing coach for the first time forever, went to Claude Harmon, decent last name, and it's coincided with some good golf. One-sixty, my guy can scramble his face off, it's a big number. My pushback would be an Aronimink thing, he missed so badly it was so far out of play, oh, he's on a different fairway, it actually opens up over there, he's so bad he's good. It's like being so wrong in a tennis match and you still cash an under because the favorite gets crushed. So wrong you're right. But what did he do to save that? That's his baseline skill set, he scrambled like a crazy person. Putting is incredibly difficult here, if you look at those graphics where PGA pros make this putt at this percentage, here it's a lot less, eight-to-ten footers are a coin flip. This isn't the bent-grass flat plates at Detroit or the 3M, you do need somebody really good around the green and on the surface. You need someone to hit this squirrely, blind, fifteen-yard chip and make it sit inside five feet. It's Cam Smith, even when he sucked he's been doing this stuff. We're talking about a hundred and sixty to one, a big number, that was on DraftKings, I had to phone that one in because DraftKings wouldn't let me bet ten dollars, so I got someone to bet the DraftKings 160 on Cam, because everyone else over the weekend was eighty to ninety. Most of it's ninety or under right now.
They all have some threads tied around ability to control your golf ball, especially on and around the greens, and good Augusta and Open Championship history. I do like Matt Fitzpatrick, I do like Mav McNealy and Tyrrell Hatton, those are some guys that didn't make the card. Mav is kind of the same on-and-around-the-green guy, I worry about his ability to keep the ball in play off the tee, but he's long and can club down. Those are some I like that I didn't go to. Who's your last usual long shot? It's not even that big of a long shot, eighty-five to one, and it's again pushing on the weather narrative and links golf, somebody in the right area code, wrong island. I got two Irish, it is Sugar Shane Lowry. He didn't model that poorly for me. I'm trying to think of times I've noticed him on the broadcast or paid attention through the weekend. He had a couple decent results to start the year, good at Pebble, good at the Cognizant, missed a couple tough ones, and then it's just been kind of grinding, his average finish position the last two months is like twenty-eighth.