John Deere Classic 2025: Outright Bets, Core Plays, Bets, Lineup Process, Value Plays, and Player Pool)

For the John Deere Classic the field is pretty loaded this week. For betting purposes I am surprised at the odds that we are getting on some of the players, and for DFS purposes we are getting a lot of solid cheap plays.

*Please note I always publish the rough draft version of this write-up, and then come back and edit it / correct it later that day. If there are grammatical errors that is why.

SLATE CONFIDENCE RATING: Yellow

Slate confidence rating is a way of looking at the slate in terms of predictability. Red will be a week in which I am reducing my units bet. Typically this will mean entering the same amount of lineups but in a contest where the entry $ amount is less. A Yellow week is a standard week. Green is a week that appears to be very easy to predict, these are weeks in which we typically have a full field event that is loaded. (Majors) thus it should be very easy to make a good profitable lineup. **Note for betting my strategy does not change per week.

The lineup process to me is very straightforward, almost to straightforward. Meaning that if a couple of the easy clicks disappoint it could end up being a bad week. Basically the opposite of last week where it felt like a great GPP week, we knew where would get some random missed cuts but it was a great GPP week because we had a lot of risk reward plays on paper. This week we have a lot of seemingly safe plays especially considering where they are priced.

KEY STATS:

*Based off of which key stats led to golfers winning but also making the cut in previous years at the course tournament. I look for which one or two Strokes Gained stats matter the most. Look to see whether this is a wedge fest or a long iron event. (175-125 stats don't really matter in terms of predicting who will play well in a given week) Find out which scoring stat matters the most (BOB, B2B, or BA). Find if this is a course in which accuracy or distance matters the most.

• Birdie or Better % (BOB) Key Stat 1

• Ball Striking (BS) Key Stat 2

• Strokes Gained Putting (SG Putt) Key Stat 3

• Strokes Gained Approach (SG AP) Key Stat 4

• Par 5 scoring (Par5) Key Stat 5

  
  

With this being a short track and a course that allows easy scoring we are just looking at scoring stats. This is very much a course where golfers need to be able to convert on their scoring opportunities, they will do that by setting themselves up well with their second shots and then making some putts.

Course History:

Going forward Course History for an event with go by H1, H2, H3, and H4. For most weeks that will simply be 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020 course history. (Last 4 years is course history is when the data is the most significant)

Last 4 years course history.

Weather:

Per PGA Tour website - tournament page - Course Stats - Weather

Nothing too crazy weather wise.

BETTING PICKS:

First Round Leader

I will be targeting AM Tee Times that rank out top 5% for FRL betting using the NineToFive betting sheet until further notice (basically if weather tells us not to). Note you can always bet on golfers to finish Top 5 or Top, just make there they are paying out a tie.

• Denny McCarthy 45/1

• Kevin Yu 50/1

• Jake Knapp 50/1

• Si Woo Kim 55/1

• Ryan Gerard 55/1

• Kevin Roy 70/1

• JT Poston 45/1

Round 1 - 3-Ball Bets

Available by clicking on either the Ownership Leverage, or Props page on NineToFive, then click on the 3 person Icon. I will typically only bet on golfers that have a 40% likelihood to win or type their group. Those will be highlighted in the PGA Tour Betting Sheet - Click on 3 Ball Bets

• Henrik NOrlander

• Taylor Montgomery

• Kurt Kitayama

• Ryan Gerard

• Thorbjorn Olsen

• Quade Cummings

Matchup Tournament Bets:

Best matchup bet for the week.

More will be highlighted in the PGA Tour Betting Sheet - Betting Page Dropdown - Matchup Bets You can also find the best matchup bets per round here as well.

• Luka Clanton beating Si Woo Kim +110 Draftkings

• Ryan Gerard beating Michael Kim -110 Draftkings

  
  

More Bets found: Ninetofive Betting Sheet 

Outright Bets:

2024 Recap = 12 Outright Winners = 144 Units of Profit (Wyndham Clark winning at +100/1 Odds at Pebble carried)

Picture 1 = Golfers that are the statistical best Outright Bets. This is determined by looking at which data points were the most predictable in regards to players that won the past two seasons. These golfers meet at least 80% or more of the statistical thresholds used to determine winners.

Bets:

I will be betting on Ben Griffin, and I should be betting on Knapp, Gerard, and Glover, but I probably will be doing quarter unit bets on them, and well as Kevin Yu. Below will be the golfers I have full unit bets on.

• Ben Griffin 16/1 DraftKings

• Thorbjorn Olesen 60/1 Bovada

• Andrew Putnam 70/1 Fanduel

• Kevin Roy 70/1 Bovada

• Michael Thorbjornsen 30/1 (Most Books)

• Mark Hubbard 60/1 Bovada

• Denny McCarthy 28/1 (Most Books)

• Ryan Gerard 40/1 (Most Books)

Data Tag: Core Plays

Golfers that are the most likely to make the cut, and meet or out produce their price tag. To be a Core Play golfers need to be coming in "Checking All the Boxes"

To me Ben Griffin is a very logical Core Play, and he is pretty easy to fit into lineups given his cheap price tag. It is not very often that we get a golfer that has a metric rank average of 3, priced below 12,000 and this week we can get Ben Griffin at 10,400. The only slight concern would be that he has played in a lot of events recently and his form has been on a tiny downward trend.

Data Tag: High Exposure

Players that have one knock: whether that be course history, recent form, stat fit, safety, upside or price. (*This is based off of the the NineToFive Data Tag, which accurately marks a slight flaw in a great play thus why they would only be high exposure plays)

Jason Day is going to go a bit overlooked this week due to him being poorly priced. He should be cheaper than Ben Griffin, but that being said he does make for a great GPP pivot as the second best golfer in the field at a lowest ownership.

Davis Thompson is a solid overall play on paper, I just see him more as a shoulder shrug play as I would rather get over exposed to golfers that are cheaper or better plays on paper.

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