After Thursday’s first round of the Valero Texas Open, one golfer sits atop the leaderboard: Sam Ryder ($7,200; 67.5 FPTS), but it’s only by one stroke.
The day started off well for Ryder, as he birdied the first two holes. He closed out the front nine with another birdie. Then he went scorched earth on the back nine with two three-birdie streaks on Holes 12, 13 and 14, then on Holes 16, 17 and 18 to complete the unblemished round. Ryder finished the day -9.
In the $700K Sand Trap tournament, Ryder is rostered on 4.61% of teams.
DraftKings Sportsbook has Ryder as the favorite to win it all at +450.
There are four golfers rostered on over 20% of teams:
Corey Conners ($10,100; 17 FPTS) finished Thursday -1. Conners racked up a bogey and two birdies on the front nine, then had two birdies and two bogeys on the back nine. Conners is +3500 to win it all, the ninth-lowest odds.
Akshay Bhatia ($9,300; 8.5 FPTS) finished Thursday +2. He had a birdie and a bogey on the front nine, then had two bogeys on the back nine. Bhatia has a 38% chance of making the cut.
Denny McCarthy ($9,000; 15.5 FPTS) finished Thursday -1. He bogeyed the first hole on both the front and back nines. He did have three birdies on the front nine. McCarthy is +6000 to win it all.
Patrick Cantlay ($10,200; 14 FPTS) also finished the first round -1. He had a bogey and a birdie on the front nine, then notched a birdie on the final hole of the round. Cantlay is +4500 to win it all.
Currently, Data Golf shows a 41.9% probability of the cutline being -1.
Here are some golfers rostered on more than 10% of teams that are in danger of missing the cut:
Tom Kim ($8,400; 10 FPTS) is rostered on 11.31% of teams. He drained an eagle on the front nine. Yippee! The rest of the round was bad, bad, bad. Kim racked up three bogeys on the front nine, then had two bogeys and a double-bogey on the back nine. He finished Thursday +5 and has a 4.4% chance of making the cut.
Jake Knapp ($7,900; 10.5 FPTS) is rostered on 10.49% of teams. He racked up a bogey on the front nine. He got a stroke back with a birdie on the first hole of the back nine, but then had a double-bogey followed by a bogey before racking up a birdie. Knapp ended Thursday +2 and has a 28.2% chance of making the cut.
