Second again

Hey Ben Griffin, at least you didn't lose with a four-putt. Some Sundays are better than others, and when Griffin opened up his final round against the field with three straight birdies, it felt like our day. I know the Procore Championship is a tough pull to grab anyone’s attention against the NFL, but by the final hole, Ben was one shot behind Scottie Scheffler (shocker!). Griffin needed a two-putt from long range to secure his birdie and a playoff. Ben three-putted, and Scheffler captured his sixth title of the 2025 season. That's now 15 wins in two years and three majors. An incredible body of work in such a short amount of time. The Tiger comparisons will continue to build as Scottie seems to contend (or win) every week.

How does 15 wins in two years compare to Tiger's career years? In 1999 and 2000, Tiger won 18 times and four majors. Throw in 2001, and the three-year total gets to 25 wins and five major championships. If you include 2023, Scottie's three-year run gives him 18 wins. Woods came back again with another Hall of Fame run from 2005 to 2007. In those three years, Tiger won six, 10, and eight times adding five more majors. The comparisons are warranted, looking through a tight lens. I think we all cannot wait to see where Scheffler's body of work will go in the future.

Speaking of putting woes on the final hole, world number one Jeeno Thitikul needed a two-putt to win on the last at the Kroger. Thitikul took FOUR putts to hole out and lost the Queen City Championship to Charley Hull by one stroke. It was Hull's first win in three years and continued the season-long streak of no repeat winners. If you weren't aware already, winning is very hard on any professional tour. All pressure is self-induced. Let's hope big Ben can shake those offline short putts from Sunday before he heads to Bethpage.

Walmart NW Arkansas Championship starts in...

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The Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G is one of two 54-hole events left on the LPGA schedule. The other is the ShopRite Classic held back in the late spring. The first Walmart was contested in 2007. That tournament was played at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas, and all seventeen editions since have been there. A three-day test tends to be a shoot-out, and the NW Arkansas Championship is no different. The average winning score at Pinnacle over the last decade is 18 under par. This is a THREE-day tournament! Two winners in the last 10 years have crossed the 20 under par plateau. I've mentioned this multiple times in recent newsletter narratives, but this is the last time the LPGA will play in the continental US until mid-November. As such, we have four of the top 10 players in the world competing alongside a field of 144 players.

The top 65 ties after Saturday will make the cut and play for a $3 million purse on Sunday. A cool $450,000 goes to our winner. Will it be another new winner, or our first repeat champion? One non-winner in 2025 is Nelly Korda. You know she's only in Arkansas for the first time since 2022 because her recent form is solid, finishing fifth at the Kroger. Korda has yet to capture a win in 2025. Nothing is intimidating about a par 71 scorecard that stretches 6,438 yards for a field of LPGA players. Dig a little deeper, and suddenly there's a short surprise. Pinnacle CC has five par 3s. Most times when we see a par 71 course, the architect removes a par 5. Scoring is ridiculous in Rogers because we still get four par 5s. The average par 4 is 385 yards, which is well beneath the weekly average LPGA length.

One item to watch this week is the weather. The Rogers region has been beautiful in recent weeks. A few showers and seasonal temperatures have the course ready for competition. The creeping Bentgrass across the 6,000 sq/ft greens, Zoysia fairways, and 62 bunkers are ready for a birdie barrage. Pinnacle does have 16 holes where water comes into play, but if you need an average of six under par per round to win, I'm not sure the ponds and creeks pose much of a problem. Temperatures will be in the low 80s, and just a small breeze in the forecast, blowing 8-10 mph out of the south. The rain is expected on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Soft conditions will only assist low scoring, making the putting surfaces soft and receptive on approach. The forecast can change significantly by Friday. Make sure you use the real-time weather link below.

A little more than 0.5 inches is expected through the three rounds. It will be target practice, starting with those five par 3 greens. Let's get behind a couple of true approach technicians this week. In 2022, we lost in a playoff and then picked the winner, Haeran Ryu, in 2023. Our process is proven at Pinnacle, and we're going to contend again.

Pinnacle precision

To finish inside the top 10, you'll need 17 birdies (or better). The last three top 10s have averaged 16.7 BoB scores across 54 holes. Who can average nearly six sub-par scores per round? We can start by measuring the best birdie percentage players, but I want to take it one step further. Plenty of professional players rack up sub-par scores on Sundays when they are out of contention. We don't have four rounds in Arkansas. I took a deep dive into early round scoring and found the fastest starters on tour. Who tends to grab the lead (or get close) after three rounds. In doing so, I found four women for our outright card who love to score before the final round. We aren't putting all of our eggs in one basket, but it is an interesting spin on traditional scoring research. My PGA brain always looks for "playability" edges that help players separate. Go low early on tour, and you have my attention in Arkansas.

Pinnacle Country Club requires a ton of precision. Sixteen holes with water, 62 bunkers, etc., all force the field to stay focused. The contenders at the Walmart hit 81% of their fairways and 84% of their greens on average. That's 45 of 54 GIRs! At the risk of being redundant, players birdie about every third hole en route to winning. Just because PCC promotes low scoring, it does not mean everyone has the same chance of going deep. Ball striking counts in a shootout. Probably even more so than in a more difficult tournament, where your short game can keep you close. The field needs to create 20+ scoring opportunities in three rounds. It starts by hitting the fairway. With wet weather, the fairways will play wider, and that helps those who may tend to roll out from the short grass. That being said, 81% is still a specific skill. I love a player like Andrea Lee at Pinnacle because she can hit 90% of her off the tee targets.

Five par 3s give each player an extra perfect lie approach off the tee. Nearly 30% of your holes favor the best approach players. Who goes low on the 3s? Our outrights are all inside the top 15 in this field for par 3 scoring. We have leaned into this strategy every year at the Walmart, and it has worked. Match the skill set with the scorecard, and you can contend. As a secondary scoring skill, I also like par 5 scorers at PCC. The late par 5s are gettable and can cause some serious scoring volatility down the stretch. Remember when Haeran eagled the fourteenth hole on Sunday and captured her first LPGA victory. Jasmine Suwannapura eagled 18 last year to jump into a playoff. She birdied 18 again in sudden death and won.

Fifty percent of the approach shots fall in the 125–175-yard range. A mid-iron for most, we are taking solid approach players. Forget missing greens, you have to hit approaches inside 25' more than 50% of the time to create enough scoring opportunities. Think about that level of precision just for a minute. The path to winning requires 80% of your fairways, so you can hit 80% of your GIRs. Of those approaches, a little more than half must give you a legitimate scoring chance. Forget chipping this week, attack with your iron game and convert on the putting surfaces. Contenders (top 10s) gain an average of 3.3 strokes on the field with their flatstick. The women will make putts here, and with some precipitation coming, whoever adjusts best to the changing green speeds over the three rounds will probably win.

PCC is a little quirky, so I do like having course experience. I'm not just taking all former Walmart contenders, but I believe it does help. Especially when it comes to changing conditions and the varied approach shots. After studying the recent performances of the elite players in the field at the FM and the Kroger, I did find some interesting players peaking heading toward Pinnacle. Similar to most weeks on the LPGA betting board, the odds are tight. We'll keep the card conservative and try to get another lady across the line. For the second week in a row, we lost on the final hole. First Jeeno in Boston, and then Ben in Napa. Let's flip the switch before the Battle of Bethpage and grab some serious betting momentum as we head toward Long Island and the final major golf event of 2025.

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Outright winners - Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

First place at the AIG, seventh place at the FM, and fourth at the Kroger, Miyu Yamashita is rolling. We backed Miyu a couple of times this season, and Pinnacle is another great fit for her game. An above-average iron player, her recent approach starts have been quite positive. The true strength of her game is putting, and her ability to score early in tournaments catches my attention. Yamashita hits fairways and has the ability to go low often. Miyu Yamashita +1400 (DK)

Andrea Lee has had my attention since the Evian over the summer. We played her in the British Isles with average success. Back in the States, her accuracy off the tee is a weapon we want to use. Fourth at the FM, and nineteenth at Kroger, she is still showing that mid-summer form. Lee has the perfect complement of the putter, iron play, and some longer odds. We picked Lee's first win in Portland three years ago, and I have that feeling again watching her play. Third in first round scoring for the field, Andrea might just go wire to wire at the Walmart. Andrea Lee +3000 (DK)

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