The PGA Tour will shake up its format and give fans and players what could be the final Match Play event for quite some time. The top players on the PGA Tour will compete in a three-day Round Robin event, matched up against three other players in 16 groups of four, using Match Play scoring to determine which player wins and advances to the single-elimination rounds.
The same concept applies despite the scoring difference. 1 point will be awarded to the player who winds up with the lower score on a particular hole, while a 0.5 point will go to both players if they tie on a hole. Players who lose a hole will receive 0 points. The goal is to have the most points by the time the Round Robin matchup concludes. Ties at the end of a Round Robin matchup don’t have a mandatory sudden-death playoff. That is reserved for the possibility of determining the winner of the four-man group if there are two or more players with the same score at the conclusion of the three-day Round Robin. In this scenario, scoring returns to stroke play in a sudden-death playoff hole format. The same applies to the single-elimination rounds if players wind up with a tied Match Play score at the conclusion of 18 holes. 18 holes aren’t a necessity either, as a player will be declared the winner if he is leading by more points than there are holes left on the course. As a result, Saturday and Sunday will each have two rounds held at Austin CC, with the Round of 16 and quarterfinals occurring on Saturday, followed by the Semi-Final and Championship Match on Sunday, which also includes the Consolation Championship Match.
The goal is still to have as few strokes as possible on a particular hole. However, the Match Play scoring system will create a lot of chaos and fun opportunities for players to build big leads and mount comebacks during the first three Round Robin stages and Round of 16 single-elimination matchups. Before we get to my favorite outright winners in an absolutely loaded field, let’s first check out the Austin CC course and a few key stats that will help players yield high Match Play scores.
WGC-Dell Technologies Match PlayCourse Preview
Austin Country Club Course
Designed by legendary golf architect Pete Dye, Austin Country Club has a unique layout based on the landscape changes players must adapt to when transitioning from the front nine to the back nine. Built within the hills of Texas, Austin CC has a lot of coarse vegetation and undulating fairways and greens that can turn an initially good shot into an errant lie. The fairways are comprised of Bentgrass, which tends to be a faster surface, versus the Bermudagrass greens that players should be accustomed to putting on from the Florida leg of the PGA Tour that just wrapped up at Valspar.
The back nine throws more water hazards at the players, mostly from Lake Austin, which flanks holes 12 -15 before returning inland to the hillier limestone outcrops that players are initially greeted with when starting on the front nine. Small sand bunkers are deceptive, as they are deep and create difficult lies, but it’s a bit of a relief for players since a lot of the bunkers are smaller than the standard surface area. Wider fairways create more breathing room, but the undulations will create awkward lies that only the best scramblers and ball strikers can recover from.
Austin Country Club Key Stats
- Driving Accuracy
- Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee
- Scrambling
- Sand save percentage
WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Predictions: Outright Winner
Scottie Scheffler (+800) Bet $100 to collect $900. Head to FanDuel for the best odds for this pick
There’s no reason to discount Scottie Scheffler this weekend at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event. The world’s No.1 golfer is defending his 2022 title here, is fresh from a dominant outright win at TPC Sawgrass, and resides in Austin, Texas, during the offseason. He’ll have plenty of motivation in front of friends and family to defend his title, which we already watched him do at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in mid-February.
Scheffler is ranked first in many relevant betting metrics, ranging from strokes gained tee-to-green to greens in regulation percentage, and has arguably the best short game on the PGA Tour. 8/1 odds may not sound like great value right now, but wait until he’s advanced out of his Round Robin group, which consists of Tom Kim, Alex Noren, and Davis Riley. You’ll be hard-pressed to find better odds, as they may dry up quickly and be at minus odds before Scheffler is done with his Round of 16 single-elimination Match Play on Saturday. It’s a chalky pick, but we’re not always guaranteed to see a massive underdog win any PGA Tour event outright, let alone a Match Play event that uses a unique scoring system to maximize the pressure during every hole of a golf course that Scheffler is deeply familiar playing on.
Viktor Hovland (+2200) Bet $100 to collect $2300. Head to FanDuel for the best odds for this pick
We saw Viktor Hovland improve from a T42 finish to a T18 finish at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event last season, so why not bet on the 25-year-old Norwegian to keep improving in 2023? At 22/1 odds, we’re acquiring great value for a player who just logged a T3 finish at TPC Sawgrass, where he only had one round of even par, saving his best round during Sunday’s pressure-packed stage.
In terms of statistics, Hovland is ranked first in approaches from under 100 yards, putting from four feet or closer, and is ranked second in Round 1 putts per round. He’s another great ball striker who can acquire strokes gained off-the-tee (8th), and tee-to-green (T15) and ranks eighth in total driving, which is indicative of his power and accuracy with his driver. While Hovland doesn’t always convert the green in regulation, he’s an excellent scrambler, ranking 26th on the PGA Tour, and he’s 37th in one-putt percentage while averaging 69.08 per round.
He’ll begin his first Round Robin matchup against Matt Kuchar, who can provide some firepower and good use of the flat stick from time to time, but Hovland is the betting favorite in his group, which also consists of Chris Kirk and Si Woo Kim. Throw a unit or two on Hovland’s current 22/1 odds, and you’ll feel pretty good about it once Saturday’s single elimination Round of 16 matchups begin.
