Value Report: Genesis Scottish Open

What a funky week the John Deere Classic was, as Chris Gotterup did his famous Sunday surge to steal his third victory of the season!  Kudos to him, truly, as he continues to show nails in the biggest of spots, as almost no one else on the leaderboard wanted to go out and take it. Max Homa did his best too, but it was more so Ben Kohles who once again had an 18th-hole disaster that altered the direction of his career. I feel for him, as the water ball on 18 didn’t just cost him a massive paycheck, but must create continued scar tissue that I really hope to see get ripped off in a big way. Also, the JDC was a story of chalk getting ripped to pieces, as Jackson Koivun didn’t even sniff the hype he was getting, while affordable pieces like Andrew Novak, Daniel Berger, and Michael Kim all were sent home packing after two rounds. That meant disaster for me in the Fantasy Golf World Championship, unfortunately, which resulted in a 57th-place finish out of 100s — no live final for me. However, our guy LSahr played it fantastically for his second massive GPP result of the summer, which is just too cool to see. So happy for you, Larry!

An odd event for the Value Report, as we took on as much ownership as we have any week of the year, but also had a couple smashing results, so it was still positive on the outlook. Emiliano Grillo steam was pretty easy to identify come Wednesday evening, as that combination of recent form plus course history often gets clicked on in a weaker field, so a big miss there despite having an okay week. Then I was quite surprised that the big hitter, Aldrich Potgieter, took on as much ownership as he did at $7,500. Yes, his play has been much improved, but there was still a decent course-fit dock that normally the field pushes in on. Perhaps the missed cut will scare some people away at the Scottish Open, as he fits the mold much better at The Renaissance Club. The good results, though, were that Ben Kohles stayed in the single digits and had the tournament in hand on the back nine before the meltdown, but at $7,300, that was enough to be an integral piece this week in GPPs. His fellow KFT member, Zac Blair, who parallels in skill set, had the other top 10 on the week and really had a chance to get his first PGA Tour win, too. Those two are such fun plays at courses that don’t require the power, and I was quite surprised that Blair was so low-owned comparatively. The other low-owned shots, Adrien Dumont de Chassart and Matthieu Pavon, didn’t provide too much light, while William Mouw looked very strong with his current form. He decided to stay in the ISCO Championship this week too to defend his title, so I’m excited to see him in that style of field and if his run of play can hold up at the top of the board.