Smile?

Another late-night loss in Malaysia. A Lim Kim finished one shot back of the Maybank Championship winner Miyu Yamashita. Honestly, I'm starting to lose count this year. That's 14 top 10 results from our last eight LPGA outright cards. For those who aren't excited to bet the LPGA in Japan this week, I present the World Wide Technology Championship in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Contested annually on the El Cardonal Course at Diamante, this 2014 Tiger Woods design is literally all-inclusive.

The WWT Championship has produced some exciting Sundays since moving from Mayakoba to Cabo. One of the craziest shootouts on the PGA TOUR, the skill set needed this week will not be confused with Bay Hill or Muirfield Village. The field of 120 players will be treated to 97 acres of fairway and an infinite number of scoring opportunities. A glance at that statement, what once was a 132-man field just a couple of years ago, quickly dropped a dozen players. The TOUR will say due to darkness, and they aren't wrong. The first two rounds in Utah never came close to finishing before sunset. Each day, the field had six holes left to play in the Black Desert before the cut! A shrinking fall is THE theme. The WWT Championship purse is down 20% and the winner no longer gets an invite to The Masters. Tom McKibbin, who won the Hong Kong Open on Sunday, will go instead, as Augusta National has changed many of its qualifying routes to Magnolia Lane, utilizing significant national opens overseas instead of the FedEx Cup Fall Series.

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Keith's Keys 🗞️ A couple of key skills you can claim as your own at the water cooler and cocktail party conversations. You can find complete explanations for each in the betting breakdown. Sixty shooters: Sixteen players in 2023 scored all four rounds in the 60s as compared to just five in 2024. Keep going low all four days and avoid anything in the 70s if you want to contend come Sunday afternoon. ​ Green approach: Players 3-putt an average of 71% of the time at El Cardonal. That's 17% higher than the TOUR average (54%). Be a good approach (lag) putter this week. Scoring chances: Vegas thinks you need 26 under par (or more). The player who can create 32-36 birdie chances inside 20' will give himself a great chance to win this week.

Scarcity is not just limited to future scheduling; the PGA TOUR has also reduced the number of tour cards available in three weeks. One hundred and twenty-five was the number, but it has been cut to 100. We are down to three events and two very important cutoffs. The first is top 60 on the points list. Those players ranked 51-60 come Sunday of the RSM Classic will earn entry into the first two Signature events of the season. Sitting at 60 is Wyndham Clark, who has come out of fall hibernation to test his scoring ability alongside the Pacific. Who is 61? Rico Hoey. If you love competitive professional golf, this is when the pressure feels palpable through the television screen. The second cutoff is the top 100. Adam Scott at 99, David Lipsky at 100, Billy Horschel at 101! TGL Championships won't help you keep your card, Billy. All jokes aside, Horschel is okay since he won the 2024 Corales event, but our defending champion, Austin Eckroat, is 105. What a difference a year makes! Just a plethora of popular DFS and outright names are sitting below the top 100 cutoff.

El Cardonal has a limited history on the PGA TOUR. In two editions, the field has made an average of 1,898 birdies and 58 eagles per event year. One measure I always love to look at in birdiefests is the number of players who finish with four rounds in the 60s. Sixteen players did it in 2023, and another five last year. We've got Vegas setting the final score over/under at 25.5 under par. The average top 10 cutoff after two years is 18 under par. Ha, ha those same top 10s are averaging 26 sub-par scores over 72-holes. Fourteen holes have a birdie rate over 15%. A par 72 scorecard stretching 7,452 yards sounds somewhat challenging. Six of the 10 par 4s are over 460 yards. Unfortunately, access to the fairways is unlimited, and everyone in the field hits scoring irons all day. We just dropped 3,000 feet from the Black Desert to sea level, and length really isn't an advantage at Woods’s world.

World Wide Technology Championship starts in...

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Will being able to bomb it help? Absolutely, but the scoreboards from the first two tournaments would not support a definitive trend favoring ball speed. How many birdie opportunities can you create in paradise? Speaking of which, how about the weather? Perfect on repeat, the average high temperature all week is 84 degrees. Low humidity and an afternoon breeze off the ocean create idyllic conditions for an elite golf tournament. The sun rises around 6:25 am and sets at 5:40 pm PT. Get the boys moving, as each day is significantly less than 12 hours long. Erik van Rooyen captured the trophy at pre-tourney +6000. Austin Eckroat was +3500 one year ago. With only six players in the top 50 of the OWGR, there is an opportunity to look down the board. Last week's winner, Michael Brennan, is now ranked forty-third in the world.

The GCSAA Report was noteworthy for the WWT Championship. Director of Golf Maintenance, Kevin Welker, mentioned the course fell victim to seven inches of rain on September 2-3. Many of the natural arroyos were displaced or destroyed, and a ton of work has been done to create a fair championship test. Will this affect play? The fairways and greens are so large here, I don't see a need for concern or reason to change our playability prediction. That being said, if a couple of guys get off the grass, there could be some wild lies like we see in the Black Desert of Utah!

Alongside the massive fairways, we have 48 bunkers and an average green size of 8,300 sq/ft. Those green surfaces are covered in Platinum Paspalum grass. A spongy, grainy grass that we see at many of these seaside venues. Much like the other species, certain players putt well on these surfaces. We only see paspalum grass a couple of times each year. When we do, the field strength correlates well with the WWT Championship. We aren't playing the US Open on this shag rug. We haven't seen much of these guys, and when we do in the fall, it always seems to be a couple of weeks apart. We are about to go on a brief three-week run to close this fall series out. The same middle-tier names are going to fill these fields. I'm confident we can break down who the best scorers are over the next month and come away with a couple of very profitable cards to close the season.

Wide fairways favor who?

When Austin Eckroat won this event, I was tricked into thinking maybe accurate drivers have an advantage at El Cardonal? After all, Eckroat won earlier in 2024 at PGA National's Champion Course. One of the most difficult driving designs on the PGA TOUR. Yes, Austin could work for the highway commission, he definitely stripes it. What about Erik van Rooyen? EVR is not the straightest or longest hitter on TOUR. His driving stats back in 2023 were pretty awful. van Rooyen was ranked 122nd in accuracy and 84th in strokes gained off the tee. For two straight years, the conversation surrounding the WWT Championship has been all about wide fairways and bombers. Austin Eckroat is no bomber, and EVR is neither accurate nor long.

Here's a hot take: ball speed, length, etc., off the tee are a non-factor this week when it comes to contending. Sure, length always helps, but it really doesn't correlate highly to success at this venue. As far as accuracy, just keep it on the 97 acres of fairway that El Cardonal has to offer. What does matter at Tiger's first design? Let's go back to Eckroat and the Cognizant Classic. Just because a golf course like El Cardonal is not demanding does not mean proper ball striking doesn't matter. If anything, when you are required to make 30+ birdies, you’d better knock it close. That's the key to all of this. The correlation between Cognizant, Valspar, and Waialae comes down to approach proximity. El Cardonal may have 8,300 sq/ft greens, but they are built with small landing areas in mind.

Players three-putt at WWT 71% of the time. The TOUR average is 54%. Why so many three-putts? Look at the green complexes this week. Tiger made them quite difficult if you find yourself on the wrong plateau. Putting across the various levels, swales, swoops, and tiers takes a toll. Trying to get down in two from 60' is no easy task. Past leaderboards are littered with excellent approach putters. The modern term for lag putting this is one skill that is essential at El Cardonal. The average score needed to get inside the top 10 over the two previous editions is 18 under par. Players inside the top 10s made an average of 25.8 sub-par scores. That's a ton of birdies.

The most popular approach distances used to produce birdie chances fall in the 150–200-yard range. Get those scoring irons out and start throwing darts. I'm focused on the leading accuracy artists in that range. Take that specific skill and combine it with the best trending putters, and we're ready for 20 under. It's funny because this event has always been labeled with length, and it really comes down to a 9-iron and the putter. Look at the names across the two El Cardonal top 10s. Carson Young, Matt Kuchar, Justin Lower, Andrew Putnam, Mac Hughes, and Chesson Hadley. What a crew! It's far from sexy, but these next two weeks in Mexico and Bermuda will follow the same blueprint.

For those curious about RTL's full research, par 4 scoring definitely holds some weight. Not nearly as much as your frequency to make 10-15 footers, but you get the idea. When it comes to LPGA narratives, you know we have been leaning on players who have the ability to go sub-70. Get all four cards in the 60s and you will be in contention come Sunday afternoon. One other skill that caught my attention was par 3 scoring. There has been an edge on the one-shot holes if you can gain on the field. The average par 3 length is 188 yards. Players who have played those holes under par for the week have been successful. A glance at the opportunities gained inside 10' and 15' helped validate our outrights.

Cabo can take your breath away. Tiger's track is set on the side of a hill rolling right down to the water's edge. Although it won't win any architecture awards, it does produce entertaining leaderboards. The card is ripe for going low and more than due for a big-ticket takedown. The best approach + putters over the last month plus are listed below. I love this card and cannot wait to see how the next four days play out.

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Outright Winners - World Wide Technology Championship

Three straight top-seven results in the FedEx Cup Fall Series, Garrick Higgo has gained an average of 12 strokes (total) per event on the field! Rather than run with one of the betting favorites from the Ryder Cup, I’ll take a little value on a guy who has been known to go very low. Higgo is second in the field for BoB% and top 10 in scoring on the par 4s (tenth) and 3s (first). When you are first in the field for creating scoring opportunities inside 10’, you have more than captured my attention in this shootout. Garrick Higgo +2500 (B3)

The best approach player in this field from 150-200 yards during the fall run is Jacob Bridgeman. Another one of these young stars, Bridgeman, is top 25 in the field for strokes gained approach and putting. The field leader in putts made under 10’, Jacob just converts his close chances. In just his second year on TOUR, Bridgeman played in the Tour Championship this August. Fourteenth at the WWT Championship one year ago, he has the skill set and experience needed to capture his first win. Jacob Bridgeman +4000 (DK)

Upcoming Fall Coverage Schedule 📅

A few of you have asked when all of the remaining fall events take place. Here's a summary...

• November 6-9
  • PGA TOUR: World Wide Technology Championship
  • LPGA: TOTO Japan Classic
• November 13-16
  • PGA TOUR: Butterfield Bermuda Championship
  • LPGA: The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican
• November 20-23
  • PGA TOUR: RSM Classic (on-site)
  • LPGA: CME Group Tour Championship

The Hero World Challenge and Grant Thornton take place in December and the TGL restarts on December 28!

JLPGA is for real

Read The Line research notes are an incredible resource, but even better are the names that pop up when we start another week. Our outright list for the 2022 TOTO Japan Classic included Mao Saigo (Chevron winner), Miyu Yamashita (AIG Women's Open winner and the Maybank on Sunday), and Hye Jin Choi (ouch). In 2023, we favored Chisato Iwai. The point is this: outside of Choi, each of these rising stars has come from the JLPGA. Seventy-eight players are competing for 72 holes and $2.1 million just northeast of Osaka, Japan, at the Seta Golf Course. A 54-hole facility that is quite familiar with hosting championship women's golf. The astonishing Annika Sorenstam won the Japan Classic four times in a row at Seta from 2002-2005.

The field of 78 has six players inside the top 25 of the Rolex World Rankings. That statement might be misleading. Many of the JLPGA's finest are competing this week. Thirty-five JLPGA and 43 LPGA players make up the 78-woman field. The winner receives $315,000. We've seen this story play out before. Rio Takeda (JLPGA in 2024) won the TOTO last year and the Blue Bay LPGA back in March. She has been joined by Mao Saigo (Chevron), Chisato Iwai (Mexico), Miyu Yamashita (AIG, Maybank), and Akie Iwai (Portland) as JLPGA alumni who have won in 2025. That's six wins on tour this season, along with two major championships.

It's our last week starting on Wednesday night for the LPGA!

TOTO Japan Classic starts in...

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Seta Golf Course is a 54-hole facility. The tournament course was modified in 2021. If you are familiar with the regular routing, please review the official tournament order below.

• Front nine (actual hole) - 1(1), 2(15), 3(16), 4(10), 5(9), 6(13), 7(14), 8(2), 9(3)
• Back nine (actual hole) - 10(4), 11(5), 12(6), 13(7), 14(8), 15(11), 16(12), 17(17), 18(18)

The par 72 layout stretching 6,616 yards fits in perfectly with the entire fall Far East tour. Why? The ladies go low here! The TOTO has been contested at Seta 15 times. The first 12 times, the tournament was a 54-hole event. Since we can't compare total scoring, let's look by round. In 15 editions, the winners were 4.8 under par per round. Quick math, we anticipate the winning score to be 19 under par this week in Japan. Takeda's 15 under par total last year was a bit misleading. The event was plagued by terrible weather in 2024, curtailing the final score. Our forecast for the last stop on the Asia swing is great for three rounds. Sunday's play may have a little wet weather to deal with. We are in the mountains of Japan, so the temperatures will be cool in the early morning and evening. The predicted highs are in the mid to high 60s.

The wind looks light under 10 mph all four days, and a 50% chance of .44" of rain on Saturday night into Sunday morning. The region has been dry and blessed with good growing weather. The course should be in tournament shape. One very "Japanese" design feature you will notice in the coverage is the double green complexes. Much like many US golf courses, golf in Japan experiences two very different temperature seasons. Instead of overseeding, many of the elite facilities are designed with two different green complexes for each hole. We saw this for many years on the men's TOUR at the ZOZO. The greens the LPGA will be using this week are bentgrass. They are guarded by plenty of sand (94 bunkers) and five holes with water in play.

Seta is a good tournament test. With all of the momentum surrounding the successful rise of Japanese players on the LPGA, it should be a wild week. Three JLPGA alumni finished in the top 9 at the Maybank Championship, and Yamashita won. The CME Points list is a major focus for the next two tournaments. There are eight players from Japan in the top 25. That's more than any other country and double the number of players the United States has in that range! Breaking news... there's more coming, and the motivation those playing on the JLPGA have watching their countrywomen dominate is real. We go to Japan once a year, and with all of their success, this annual stop is going to be one wild week.

Rinse and repeat

Sixteen under par was needed to finish inside the top 10 in Malaysia. Based upon our continued contending results, it's time to find another set of elite scorers who can match scorecards with another 20 under par winner. There are a couple of different ways we can attack this event from an outright perspective, but these are the times when we really should not start to overthink our current strategy. RTL has 14 top 10 results in the last eight events. 14! Enough is enough, let's get into this. Why are players able to score at Seta? The scorecard starts with three par 5s of 500 yards or less in length. Most weeks par 5 scoring is impactful, but on Seta's North Course, it is a requirement. If you take away the Par 5s, 58% of the remaining holes have approach shots between 125 and 175 yards. Those mid-iron shots will be critical.

Seta’s 54-hole property is blessed with beautiful terrain. There are no flat lies on this landscape. This is why Annika has won here four times. Hataoka, Furue, Takeda (last year) are all great ball strikers who excel when the field struggles with uneven lies. Approach play in that 150-yard mid-range is measurable on tour. We know who the best ball strikers are, and even better, who is doing it well right now. One of the reasons why we have been all over these Asian events is our read on who is playing well. We will continue to tail similar names for the last week in the Far East. After all, they are on/near the top of every Sunday leaderboard. Another often overlooked skill by the best iron players is their ability to predict carry distance for uphill and downhill approaches. Seta has so many of these shots over 18 holes; a player's ability to know their carry lengths for each club in the mountains of Japan is a bit of a home-field advantage.

Great iron players can read and predict carry length much like great putters can read green surfaces. When the winning score pushes 20 under par, the putter has to convert chances. The last two top 10s gained an average of three strokes on the field with their flatsticks. Our winner will have to go deep on the greens. Miyu Yamashita leads the LPGA in strokes gained putting. Miyu's return to her home country is going to be an event following her latest win. There are a few others who have continued to perform well while country jumping in Asia. Over the next three weeks, as we close out the season, there is going to be an extreme amount of pressure on putting. Look at Sunday's Maybank leaderboard. Eight of the final top 10 are ranked in the top 25 of the Rolex World Rankings. The final first-place prize at the CME Group Tour Championship is $4 million!

If you can move the ball from left to right off the tee, you'll love this course. Nine of the fourteen tee shots move that way. A right-handed power fader of the golf ball has a decided edge. A majority of the fairways are tree-lined. I took a long look at my charts for LPGA driving length versus accuracy and shop shape tendency. Strokes Gained OTT and total driving are perfect measurements for this characteristic. Need more proof? Rio Takeda is our defending champion, and she hits 75% of her fairways. Not to mention, Rio leads the tour in GIR percentage (77%). The driver can work two ways here. Ayaka Furue is annually one of the most accurate players OTT on tour. She won here in 2021. Gemma Dryburgh, the winner in 2022 is the same, but it is not all about accuracy. A little length goes a long way this week as well.

Shuri Sakuma has four wins and 16 top 10s on the JLPGA this season. Just another example of what's waiting for the LPGA’s players in Japan. Sora Kamiya has 16 top 10s as well, and Sakura Koiwai is coming off 16 top 17 finishes in her last 17 starts! Yes, the JLPGA is not nearly as deep a talent pool, but look at what the Iwai sisters, Takeda, Saigo, and Yamashita have done this year. RTL had Koiwai on our 2024 outright card. What was once just a juggernaut of LPGA stars coming out of South Korea has grown immeasurably. Thailand, with Thitikul, the Jutanugarns, and Tavatanakit, alongside Japan is making a huge impact. There's an elite wave coming, and the LPGA results are evidence of it. Our ladies better be ready in Tampa, because this tsunami of talent is ready to take home one of golf's largest prizes in three weeks at Tiburon.

Outright winners - TOTO Japan Classic

Chisato Iwai gained in all four strokes gained categories in Malaysia. One of two players who accomplished that feat and traveled to Japan for the TOTO. The other was her twin sister, Akie. I'm sticking with Chisato, who has a better history at Seta and slightly higher odds. Both sisters are incredible ball strikers, but Chisato is the better overall putter. Third in the field for rounds in the 60s and BoB%, Iwai is a prolific scorer. Back home in Japan, her top 10 in the TOTO one year ago is a moment that inspired a winning rookie season on the LPGA tour. Chisato Iwai +1600 (BM)

More Japanese stars are coming to the LPGA, and Shuri Sakuma is ready to elevate if she wants to. The JLPGA Rolex Rankings leader has three wins and 10 top 10s in her last 17 starts. Sakuma's season-long point differential over the number two player is well over 500 points. Rio Takeda and Miyu Yamashita were number one and two on the points list in 2024, and we see how prepared they were to win on tour. Heck, Takeda won this event a year ago. Tenth on the JLPGA for ball striking and fifth in putting, Sakuma is an incredible value at 28-1. Shuri Sakuma +2500 (DK)

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