Thursday, Round 1

SOUTHAMPTON, NY

"There was a few gusts, yes. You could get the wrong gusts at the wrong time, for sure, but that's golf. As I said, they couldn't have done move with the setup really. Probably 18 is the easiest pins they'll ever put out on the golf course, and the tees were all up. The greens were soft." - Padraig Harrington on the course setup opportunity in Round 1.

After weeks of waiting, fans had to wait a couple of hours more to watch the 126th US Open. Fog rolled in on Thursday morning and delayed the proceedings by two hours. Once restarted, the AM wave caught the brunt of the conditions as their scoring average was more than stroke higher than the PM wave of tee times. The day closed with very calm conditions (by SHGC standards), and the players took advantage. None more than 2023 US Open Champion Wyndham Clark, who is the Round 1 leader with 64.

Round 1 summary:

• Leader: -6, Wyndham Clark (64)
  • There are 18 players under par after 18-holes.
• Scoring average:
  • Rd 1: +3.28 (2018: +6.47)
  • First nine scoring average: +1.47, back nine: +1.84 (+0.37)
  • Morning wave: +3.87 (+1.13), afternoon wave: +2.74
  • Hardest hole: #4 +0.54, easiest hole: #5 -0.34
  • The Field was well 508 strokes over par today with 4 eagles, 360 birdies, 647 bogeys, and 105 double bogeys or worse!
• Strokes gained T2G leaders through two rounds:
  • Wyndham Clark, Dustin Johnson, Sahith Theegala, Spencer Tibbits, Corey Conners, Cameron Young, William Mouw, Russell Henley, Matt Fitzpatrick, Johnny Keefer
• Betting favorites after Round 2:
  • Clark (+280), Rahm (+520), McIlroy (+800), M. Fitzpatrick (+910), Scheffler (+1425)
• Conditions: High of 74 degrees, wind blowing 20-25 mph on average, out of the Southwest, with gust well into the mid-30s practically all day. There was a two-hour fog delay from 7:05 am to 9:05 am. Round 1 play was suspended at 8:25 pm. Play resumed at 6:35 am, and Round 2 tee times were delayed by 15 minutes.

Observations:

Between the lines...

• Of the 18 players who finished under par in Round 1, strokes gained putting was the most correlated key to their success.Here are the Round 1 SG: Putt leaders.
  • Gary Woodland, Sepp Straka, Wyndham Clark, Bryson DeChambeau, Adrien Saddier, Zac Blair, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Ryan Fox, Nicolai Højgaard
• "I feel like since I've now played two events with this new putter that I'm using, and I've had some really good rounds that I've liked. Then at Memorial a couple of weeks ago, the only really bad round that I had with the putter was a windy day, and I felt myself getting really tentative with the speed. It was gusting, and I was playing the wind too much. I was overplaying it. I was getting too caught up in what the wind was doing rather than what the actual putt was doing.That was one of the things that I tried to do today before I went out is really lean forward and try to hit the putts all the way to the hole and those things. Today it paid off. You're not going to make all of them when it's gusting 40, but at least you can do is put a good stroke on it." - Ludvig Åberg on the adjustment to his new putter.
• "Yeah, the conditions were tough. It's just weird how soft the greens are. It's just odd. It's not what I remember. I mean, I understand why they're soft, I get that. It's not complaining. It's just a difficult day." - Brooks Koepka on the course conditions in Round 1.
• "If you hit the fairway, you had a chance. I didn't do that very often on the back nine. If you hit the fairway, you have a chance to get on the green. The greens are so effectively small, like, if you hit the target, you're going to have a 15- to 20-footer. Fortunately, I just hit some really, really good shots on the back nine." - Keith Mitchell on the opportunity of hitting GIRs.
• The second stat that led to player success in Round 1 was approach play. Here are those guys who had their iron play on point.
  • Johnny Keefer, Matt Fotzpatrick, William Mouw, Sahith Theegala, Dustin Johnson, Ben Kohles, Cameron Young, Spencer Tibbits, Wyndham Clark, Matthew Jordan
• "Yeah, um, I was -- the only thing I would say is, I think a bunched leaderboard like this, I think it's a sign of not a great setup, I think when it's as bunched as it is, because it hasn't really enabled anyone to separate themselves. It's like, you know, it's easy to make a ton of pars, hard to make birdies, and not that it's hard to make bogey, but it feels like bogey's the worst score you're going to shoot on any one hole." - Rory McIlroy, great quote on scoring.
• "Any time you get conditions like this, I think the scores are going to be high. I think that's -- it's an interesting golf course. Part of the challenge so far is judging the conditions as well, judging how this course is going to play.​
  I feel like this course can change pretty rapidly from day to day. I think that's also part of the challenge of the tournament is adjusting to those conditions." - Scottie Scheffler on the course in Round 1.
• "Yeah, I mean, eat as fast as possible, sleep as hard as possible, and get out here and hopefully keep playing good." - Wyndham Clark on his plans for Thursday night.

Why the in-depth perspective on Round 1? Our goal is to help you build a winning daily card to go alongside your pre-tournament bets. These observations are based upon what we are seeing on the course and the statistical leaderboards. Player feedback gives a great idea of their mindset as they approach the evolving challenge of SHGC. With that in mind, here are Round 2's live bets. Fingers crossed the USGA can catch up, and we have a 36-hole cut to the low 60 and ties tonight.

Live Betting - PGA Championship

Friday card: S. Theegala over J. Koivun (-114 DK) K. Mitchell over T. Kim (-118 DK) A. Fitzpatrick over R. Fowler (-115 DK)

* - Odds can change from site to site. Make sure you shop around before making each bet. Even though a bet is listed, it may have changed since the newsletter was published. FanDuel (FD), Caesars (CS), DraftKings (DK), BetMGM (BM), bet365 (B3), Bet Rivers (BR), ESPNBet (EB), Fanatics (FA)

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