Value Report: Baycurrent Classic

Chalk one up for the cover boy, as Austin Smotherman gets the first PGA Tour victory of his career in Utah! After being the talk of the town early in the year, Smotherman supporters faded with his poor play throughout the summer, which gave us the ripe chance to jump back in at low ownership last week. His approach-play spikes plus the consistency off the tee really is such a great setup at any course, but especially in Utah, and now it’s three years in a row for Black Desert giving us an electric winner. Smo’s going to keep these tail outcomes going, even in the strongest of events, as his ball striking does enough to separate, and it’ll come down to how good he can get on the greens. Last week, he made more than enough putts to put it in cruise control, and it was a delight to see him lift his first trophy on Tour!

What a week it was for the Value Report! After Austin Eckroat withdrew on Wednesday, we were down to just four selections, and boy, did they deliver. Austin Smotherman got his kudos in the intro, but the price/ownership combination for him at a course that really highlighted his biggest strength was such a great result. Even with the double bogey on Sunday, he settled his nerves almost immediately and kept up his attacking mentality to close out that first win. Then the Trace Crowe talent bet came fully to fruition, lapping the field in strokes gained approach, earning the best result of his PGA Tour career. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the right Smotherman/Crowe combinations, as that would’ve been the easy way to set up a ship in the smaller contests, which probably could’ve been won even with Gordon Sargent on the bottom end, too. He was flirting with the top 10 for most of the first 54 holes before slowing down on Sunday, but he continues to progress back to his amateur days as well. The one who didn’t live up to the rest of the crew’s results was HaoTong Li, who made the cut but was quite lost over the final two rounds. It was a banner week overall, though, that we hope to replicate another time or two before the fall swing wraps up!

We move on to the Baycurrent Classic in Japan, which gives us our first Wednesday-night lock of the fall. DraftKings actually upped the contests from Utah, since we filled them with ease, and $50K is the top prize we’ll all be fighting for, which is a welcome sight. It’s the second year too for Yokohama Country Club, which gave us an eclectic leaderboard of long hitters on debut. What’s cool about the Tour heading to Japan is that it does bring out some big names who have personal connections to the country and their nationalities, as well as a large contingent of the Presidents Cup arrives, too. The name value at the top of the board plus the unique lock time should bring in a bit more casuals, so hopefully it means we can land at these prize-pool levels the rest of the fall. Time to lock in again and run it back for another massive week for the Value Report!