Value Report: 2024 Olympics

Let’s give it up again for our man, Jeremy King, for taking down the Flagship for the 3M Open! With the focus of the Value Report all year on mixing and matching these guys into a lineup structured around taking down large-field contests, the winning lineup was such a beautiful stars-and-scrubs mix that GPP bros salivate over! As much as I love to needle our guy, it is just too cool to see him ship the contest he literally pours all his efforts into each week for us. No matter if he’s still struggling to hit his deadlines or deciding to ride my flag plant to glory over his, a $200,000 winning lineup for Jeremy is something we can all be proud of!

When I grade myself on the Value Report, what is most important for me is high-upside finishes that are difference-makers in GPPs. Almost all guys that are written up in this piece are going to be basically a coin flip to make the cut, so it’s expected that nearly half of the group is going to miss the weekend. But when we have the stars align and multiple guys can sneak under the radar enough while returning a top-10 finish, it’s the perfect scenario to be able to pair them with multiple high-priced golfers. Especially when the field is weak like many events have been this summer, the $10K+ golfers truthfully don’t even need to be in contention to still be winning pieces in the lineup. Jeremy legit did this to perfection, landing on Patrick Fishburn and J.J. Spaun at sub 5%. Truthfully, I think there was an edge on both of these two, as their stroke-play scoring was much better than their Stableford finish at the Barracuda last week. The clear difference-maker on the low end was winner Jhonny Vegas, who made so much sense after showing a lot of life his last few times out. I was quite shocked Vegas came as low-owned as he did after steaming up earlier in July, and he was a tremendous play when the cards flipped. The last piece for Jeremy with Sam Burns and Tony Finau was Max Greyserman, and it’s simply a poetic closing note for him to land on my flag plant to take down six figures. Greyserman has been playing amazing golf since the U.S. Open, and the books really have not caught up to the form he’s in. Ownership was perfectly in line for where I would have thought, and it’s so good to see the conviction come through.

Three others made the weekend of the group with Henrik Norlander almost sneaking into the top 10 as well. I was very impressed with Gary Woodland too, who continues his fight back to his old self. At the halfway point, he sat in ninth, and I still believe he’s going to pop for a big-time finish soon, as the irons were tremendous. Chad Ramey hovered around the front page of the leaderboard most of the tournament, so overall, having five guys with solid returns is a performance that I hope to have more of in the future. From the poor end, amateur Ben James did not show much life at all sadly, but he still has ball-striking promise. Chez got off to a hot start before ultimately fading hard, while Zac Blair continues to be one of the most difficult golfers to get right on Tour. Despite an ace from Hayden Buckley, he couldn’t push through to the weekend either. Overall, though, not a single golfer on the list was higher than 5% owned, outside of Greyserman, which I’d still be willing to take the same shots on all 10 if we ran it back.

Now we arrive at an event that I’ve looked forward to on the calendar since Tokyo! The Olympics provide one of the more unique fields that we get to roster all year long, as the very top end is almost as strong as a major, but the bottom end of the field is virtually a mid-tier DP World Tour event. In a 60-golfer field, it’s just insanely likely that multiple of Scottie, Rory, Xander, Morikawa, Rahm, or Aberg are going to be on the podium. So, as we saw play out in multiple signature events this calendar year, we do not have to be nearly as perfect with our low-end options. What we need to find are those who are lighting up DraftKings scoring flirting with a top 10 and are low-owned enough for us to still make unique builds. What I love even more is these value plays are global players arriving from various tours and a handful have had experience right here at Le Golf National. It’s a unique course that demands precision out of your ball striking while not putting the standard premium on driving distance. The European Ryder Cup team played it to perfection when dominating the 2018 Ryder Cup, and it’s staged the Open de France on the DP World Tour for years. Early reports are that the rough isn’t as thick as we’ve seen in the past here, but if conditions arrive, this place will remain difficult. With the top guys being priced up as high as they are and still a $6,000 floor on value options, heavy stars-and-scrubs lineups are going to be quite difficult for many of the field to roster simply because there are some tough clicks on unusual players at the very bottom. With a no-cut field, we are still likely to see higher ownership on the value range, but there are some diamonds in the rough that we can find, so let’s exploit our ways to another GPP takedown!

Matteo Manassero, $7,000 – Representing Italy, Matteo Manassero makes his way back to the Value Report after decent returns with a 31st-place finish at The Open Championship. Manassero’s story has been told, but just the utter respect I have for him to earn his way back to this spot after virtually falling out of the game of golf for nearly a decade is immense. Now in as ripe of form as he’s been in quite some time, Le Golf National arrives at the perfect spot on the calendar. So far in 2024, Manassero has five top 10s to his name, including a victory at the Jonsson Workwear Open, and finished tied for 15th at the Genesis Scottish Open. What has been evident through this stretch is his iron game can compete with anyone in the world right now, and if his flatstick cooperates, he can take down the strongest of fields. He has plenty of experience at this course from his early DP World Tour days and his accuracy is ticking better than it has all season long. His lack of distance shouldn’t be an issue either, so we could be in for a true Cinderella story with Manassero seeking out a podium finish.