DeepDiveGolf - David Bieleski 
Before getting into The Players Championship Round 2 Best Bets, I recommend going back to read my tournament preview article here. This provides context behind The Players Championship Round 2 betting tips and 3-balls below. You can catch up on all my deep-dive golf course analysis of TPC Sawgrass and important course comps for the tournament.
What a first round it was for our selections! An unfortunate withdrawal by Tom Kim (citing illness) aside, we couldn’t have asked for a much better start.
5/7 of the “healthy” players are 22nd or better. Most impressively, Nick Taylor continues to impress and is right in contention once again this week. We secured him earlier this week over at WinDaily Sports at HUGE odds of 175/1.
Ryan Fox (200/1) was an obvious eye-catcher. He became the first golfer to eagle 16 and make a hole-in-one at the 17th at The Players Championship. Kiwi magic right there!
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The Players Championship Round 2 Best Bets
Mark Hubbard over Dylan Wu & Keith Mitchell +190
I included Oakdale Golf & Country Club as part of my analysis this week. I suspected that correlations of a driving accuracy wedge-fest would suit well to The Players Championship. It was part of the reason for including Nick Taylor as I spoke about in our article.
Look at the rest of the 2023 RBC Canadian Open leaderboard compared to Round 1 at The Players Championship though. Beyond the obvious names of Fleetwood, Hatton, and McIlroy there were a few other golfers, but they performed above their expectation. Namely CT Pan, Eric Cole, and Mark Hubbard. They sit 22nd, 37th, and 13th respectively after Round 1.
Hubbard gained +3.48 SG: APP in Round 1 to sit third in that metric, as well as 2nd for driving accuracy and 9th ATG to lead the field in SG: T2G. Basically, he still managed to win this 3-ball on Thursday despite ranking 138/144 for putting.
However, Hubbard has actually been putting very well of late. He ranks 24th in this field for SG: PUTT over the past 3 months. Mitchell ranks 88th and Dylan Wu ranks 107th in that same metric. Previously, he has putted well here as well being at or above field average in all appearances at The Players Championship except his first.
This seems a prime spot for some positive putting regression and like the number on the middle odds in this group.
Byeong-Hun An over Matti Schmid & Patrick Rodgers +115
I’m not sure I need to speak about the credentials of Benny An here too much, as he made our betting card and Premium subscribers will already be well aware. In short he has a 2022 Korn Ferry Tour win came on a comparable course at the LECOM Suncoast Classic, a record at the highly comparable Sedgefield Country Club reading 18-MC-3-35-2, and he is a winner at another comp course at Wentworth where he has never finished worse than 33rd.
Driving accuracy is the real key at The Players Championship and Benny An ranked 2nd in Round 1 as well as 27th for SG: APP. Of his two competitors, Matti Schmid actually holds the more concern for me. He was a promising talent on the DP World Tour before struggling with the jump in class in his rookie PGA Tour season. He was 22nd in his first look at Sedgefield and finished 10th last week in Puerto Rico. However, I do wonder if he gets the speed wobbles here. Two eagles is unlikely to happen again and neither is sitting 9th for SG: PUTT, all whilst waking up finding himself in 13th at The Players.
As for Rodgers, he has an abysmal record at this track with 5 MC, a MDF, and a 65th. The same can be said at Sedgefield, he has never finished better than 24th in 8 attempts with half of those not seeing four rounds. More looks on the cards for him this week where he lost strokes across the board in Round 1, including hitting only 8/14 fairways.
Corey Conners over J.J. Spaun & Davis Riley+100
A relatively simple play here. Corey Conners is clearly the class of this 3-ball, which he demonstrated in this group on Thursday beating Spaun by 4 shots and Riley by 6.
Riley has been out of form for quite some time, having a best finish of 28th in the last 11 months. It is a real shame to see when he was such a promising rookie in 2022.
For J.J. Spaun, he was 130/144 players for SG: APP in Round 1 and actually 41st for putting when gaining 0.82 SG: PUTT. We should give the putting anomaly some perspective. Outside gaining putting at Pebble Beach, his sole cut made in his last 6 tournaments when finishing 54th, he has lost a combined -8.75 SG: PUTT in the other 10 rounds. That recipe isn’t going to inspire anyone and gives no confidence it can continue. Negative regression can be expected.
Despite the well-known putting struggles of Conners, he has actually been a net gainer when putting at The Players Championship. That includes when finishing 7th here in 2021 and gaining in 3/5 appearances. He also was 10th for driving accuracy and 4th for SG: T2G in Round 1, suggesting a more sustainable method to continue to win in this group.
Nate Lashley over Ben Kohles and Robby Shelton +162
Again, I’m not sure too much needs to be said about this one. Lashley opened with a 68 (-4) on Thursday, whilst the other two in this group both finished +8 leading to a massive gap of 12 shots between the competitors.
Robby Shelton has never made a cut here, at Sedgefield, or at Oakdale. He was dead last for putting in Round 1 and 139th for SG: T2G. Kohles has never played The Players Championship before and has a record at Sedgefield of 70-MC-54. Additionally, the aforementioned correlated Korn Kerry Tour tournament the LECOM Suncoast Classic is also poor. He missed 3 cuts there with his sole made cut a 67th place finish. He was the 2nd worst putter in Round 1 and 141st for SG: T2G.
Certainly, Lashley was just clearly a lot better including being 8th for SG: APP in Round 1. I don’t actually expect Lashley to keep up his current pace. However, I’m not sure that will be required in order to achieve the desired result here.
The Players Championship Round 2 3-Balls
Suggested Staking
Singles
1.5u Hubbard over Dylan Wu & Mitchell +190 Bet365
1.5u Byeong-Hun An over Schmid & Rodgers +115 Various
2u Conners over Spaun & Riley +100 FanDuel
1.5u Lashley over Kohles & Shelton +162 Bet365
Parlays/Mutis
0.5u All 4 +2552 Bet365
2u Boxed Trebles (4 x 0.5u each) Bet365
6u Boxed Doubles (6 x 1u each) Bet365
15u Total Invested
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