Value Report: Genesis Scottish Open

It was going to be tough to match the theatrics from the last few weeks, but the John Deere Classic did its best to deliver! Brian Campbell took home the title for his second win of his rookie season, which is truly remarkable based on his off-the-tee game. Campbell is a good 10mph below PGA Tour average swing speed, so it really emphasizes just how good the rest of his game is. TPC Deere Run produced a logjam of a leaderboard, too, which made Sunday all that more exciting. When we have these weaker events, it’s a great glimpse into how this tier of golfers performs in the clutch. It’s a split schedule as well for a lot of this field moving forward with half of the PGA Tour staying stateside for the ISCO and Barracuda Championship, while the others get the opportunity for the Scottish and Open Championships. Which to me means that we can get some great intel on players who don’t often get the limelight, from both the PGA and DP World Tours, so bring on these next few weeks!

There was hope throughout the weekend that the Value Report was going to find a winner for the second week in a row, but Kevin Roy ultimately fell a stroke short of the playoff. He was an interesting play this week as groupthink, along with a decent projection, had him as one of the highest-owned $7K golfers. I typically shoot for sub-10% ownership and did think with the number of golfers in this range that there was a decent shot of minimal ownership, but Roy outpaced both Thriston Lawrence and Jackson Suber in similar spots. Speaking of Lawrence, his T44 was a bit disappointing as he showed some early life, and Cameron Champ was very much in the same boat; his T27 was quite painful, as he held the lead mid-Round 3. Amateur Jackson Koivun was the second-best performer of the week, posting his top PGA Tour finish with a T11, and I continue to be bullish on the player he will become. On the poor side, we had two players, William Mouw and Josh Radcliff, experience the sad side of the cut sweat and end up missing the weekend on the number. On the polar end of the amateur spectrum, I keep getting disappointed by Ben James. I thought there was a real case that he was a better play than Koivun with the potential wind split, but he didn’t pan out.