The four Florida Swing tournaments — in particular, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and THE PLAYERS Championship — are typically considered among the PGA TOUR’s most prestigious events. The two competitions that make up the miniature Texas Swing do not.
With The Masters Tournament approaching in just two weeks, only three of the world’s top 10 players are in action this weekend at the Texas Children’s Houston Open in the nation’s fourth-largest city. The top two — Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy — are both active, but the tournament also represents an opportunity for a more under-the-radar golfer to string together a great result.
There are hundreds of prop bets available for this weekend on all 156 players in this weekend’s field at Memorial Park. Here’s my favorite centered around Si Woo Kim.
Best Si Woo Kim Prop Bet on DraftKings Sportsbook
Si Woo Kim Top Korean (+120)
There are three South Korean golfers in the field and two of them — Kim and Sungjae Im — have made the International Team at the President’s Cup before. Unsurprisingly, they’re the two Koreans with the shortest odds to finish as the top golfer from the peninsular state, with Im (+105) having a slight edge over Kim (+120).
Im and Kim have somewhat similar profiles. Both are elite off the tee and with their wedges, with each ranking in the top quartile so far in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and Strokes Gained: Around the Green. Im has struggled mightily with his irons, though, ranking 171st out of 183 players in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, while Kim’s weakness — his putting — is somewhat less pronounced.
Memorial Park is a course of relatively average difficulty across all four major facets of the game, but its biggest defense are the tight lies players will find around its greens. While Kim and Im are similar as scramblers from all surfaces, Kim ranks far better than his compatriot at finding the green in the first place, and the best way to counter a difficult scrambling situation is to avoid it entirely. At 7,292 yards, Memorial Park is also a fairly long course, and Kim is better from 200-plus yards than Im is.
Plus, form is important, and Kim’s has been far better than Im’s. Kim has made five straight cuts, including four top-25 finishes in his last five starts at some fairly difficult courses: Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines South, and Bay Hill. Meanwhile, although Im has recorded two top-five finishes so far this season, they both came in his first three weeks of the season. Since then, the 26-year-old has missed a pair of cuts and finished outside the top 50 on two other occasions, including a trio of four-over-par 76’s to fall into a tie for 61st at THE PLAYERS.
