It was another shootout weekend at the John Deere Classic. Sepp Straka overcame an opening round 73 to finish with a score of 21 under par shooting 63, 65, and 62 to claim victory by two strokes over Brendon Todd and Alex Smalley. While the field only had 1 world Top 20 player, we still saw some terrific golf played in Illinois. The playbook had some successes like Denny McCarthy, Alex Smalley, Adam Schenk, and Lucas Glover all finished inside the Top 10. I am ready to move onto an event with a lot more talent.     

This is a special weekend for the PGA tour and DP World Tour. After the success of last year’s inaugural partnership event, both tours are proud to bring back the Genesis Scottish Open.  Traditionally, the Scottish Open was exclusively an European Tour event but over the last few years it has become the unofficial tune up tournament for the Open Championship. It was established in 1972 and in 2017, it was made a part of the brand new Rolex Series which features five tournaments and a seven million dollar prize.    

The field this weekend will be split in half between PGA Tour and DP World Tour regulars. I’m just glad to see a lot of the top tier golfers teeing it up once again. 30 of the Top 50 players in the world will play this weekend. We will see Scottie Scheffler return to action while Jon Rahm sits this one out. Former Scottish Open winner Rory McIlory tees it up, alongside U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, 2022 Scottish Open winner Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Viktor Hovland, Max Homa and 149 more of the world's best golfers tee it up this weekend at the Renaissance Club. We will get another look at some DP World Tour players who we don’t see on the PGA Tour very often. When you’ve got a ton of talent like we’ll see this weekend, there will be a lot of value in DFS to choose from. 

The Scottish Open is typically played over various courses but for the fifth straight year the Renaissance Club in New Berwick will be the venue.  It is a links-style course which serves as a warm up act for next week’s Open Championship at Royal Liverpool which is located 250 miles south. It will play as a Par 70, stretches out 7,293 yards and the greens are fescue. The average winning score over the last three years prior to 2022 was 16 under par but the winds were tough in 2023 and Xander won it at 7 under. Like most Scottish links-style courses, the primary defense are the winds and breezes off the coastlines. The key to success on this course is to keep out of the rough and ball control on the greens.

I just spoke about the importance of the weather forecast when it comes to the difficulty of this course.  If the winds are high, the scores will drop but if it’s calm, we could see the winner get into 20 plus under par like it did in 2019.  Right now, the winds range between 10-18 mph throughout the week but the bigger concern is the rain. We will see rain throughout the tournament. I think these conditions will play to the advantage of the DP World Tour players as they are used to playing. The temperatures should be in the low 60s throughout the weekend.

ONE & DONE PICK OF THE WEEK: MATTHEW FITZPATRICK 

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