Shows / PGA/ Friday, August 21, 2026
From the archive. This breakdown is for the Friday, August 21 PGA slate. Salaries, weather and picks were for that day.
Latest PGA show →Matt Gannon targets driving accuracy and approach upside for BMW Championship Round 3 Showdown, despite several different statistical profiles producing strong second rounds. No meaningful wave advantage is expected in the fifty-player field. Justin Rose is the standout pick at four under: his ball striking has been strong, but putting has held him back. The approach is to buy accurate players whose irons or putting can improve in a single round.
Collin Morikawa draws interest because his solid all-around play has not yet included a big approach performance. Akshay Bhatia is another strong target, with unusually poor driving accuracy expected to recover. Tommy Fleetwood is preferred to Matt Fitzpatrick, although both receive consideration. Justin Thomas has enough ball-striking form to overcome putting concerns, and J.J. Spaun offers accurate driving with room for stronger iron play. Sam Burns and Alex Noren draw reservations.
| Play | Call | The Take | At |
|---|---|---|---|
| His solid all-around performance at seven under earns positive interest because approach gains remain modest relative to his single-round ceiling. | 4:32 | ||
| He is strongly endorsed as a buy-low option because the rest of his game is working and his normally accurate driving is expected to recover. | 4:59 | ||
| His statistical profile receives a negative assessment without an explicit commitment to exclude him. | 4:59 | ||
| Returning to him is considered despite a disappointing second-round back nine, although Fleetwood is preferred. | 5:25 | ||
| FADE | Too many missed fairways and two strokes lost off the tee leave his profile short of what is wanted despite good iron play. | 5:25 | |
| He receives a brief negative assessment without a specific statistical explanation or explicit exclusion. | 5:25 | ||
| He is preferred to Fitzpatrick because positive approach play and normally accurate driving support a rebound from his current accuracy struggles. | 5:56 | ||
| His ball striking is strong enough to support playing him despite streaky and sometimes weak putting. | 6:18 | ||
| Accurate driving and only one stroke gained on approach through two rounds support interest in a bigger iron performance. | 6:43 | ||
| CORE | The standout selection is hitting the ball well at four under, with a putting rebound expected from a golfer described as an excellent putter. | 7:08 |
All systems go. Clear for liftoff. Welcome back, Showdown friends, family. Thirty-six holes are underway from Belle Reve Country Club. Hopefully you guys enjoyed. Hopefully you guys had a nice round two showdown. A little up and down for me. Victor Hovland came through for us, definitely. But outside of that, not our best stuff in Showdown in terms of results. We had some decent pulls out there. Matt Fitzpatrick really kind of got on my nerves today because, I mean, we had him week long.
And great start, great round one. What happened on the back nine? What happened on the back nine with Matt Fitzpatrick? Looking at today's scoring, it was kind of unique.
This is one of the most unique showdowns showdown how the guys did it rounds I could ever remember I honestly this year usually we see one kind of key stat or two key stat kind of take over but today was kind of all over the place and I'll run through some of the names it was pretty pretty damn crazy it was Victor Hovland he was approaching putting Wyndham Clark was all approached Sungjae was just all putting um Gary Gary Woodland was distance Patrick Cantley was approaching accuracy so like there's different ways to get it done.
I mean, there's different ways to get done around Everson Golf Course, but specifically today, it was kind of a lot going on for who did what, how they did it. And yeah, just kind of very unique in that regard. So I'm not questioning what I'm doing going forward, but I'm just going to stick to my guns, keep banging the driving accuracy drum, because I do think that if you're playing from the fairway, you're going to be able to attack. I mean, we saw what J.J.
Spahn did earlier in the round. I know this is Wyndham Clark, Gary Woodland, Chris Goedert up. That's bomber shaping up. But J.J. Spahn, Sung J.M., Russell Henley, Tyler Markawa, they're all there. They're all there. So maybe the top three names aren't the accuracy guys that we're looking for, but they're not far off and that can easily flip over the weekend. So looking at the wave split for today, actually it played fairly easier in the afternoon, which I was not expecting.
Tomorrow, I do not expect any wave split. It's going to be fairly the same the entire day. You're going to be able to score at any point and you're going to be able to score in the afternoon. So not really looking at the wave split and there's only fifty guys in the field. I would not take anything into it as much, um, kind of selection, contest selection, PGA tour showdown, $8,000 up and down $2,000 to first, two hundred, ten percent is seventh.
Not exactly what we were looking for, but I do like this four max, fifty-five dollar entry. With only one hundred sixty five inches. So one sixty five divided by four equals forty one. Not everyone's going to max under that. If you max under that, you have some nice overlay and I think you can beat forty one other people. So that's the contest of the day. I'm not loving these contests really at all for the week, but that's what we got. That's what we got right now.
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Let's look at some players. Let's look at some players. Like I said, shorter show, only fifty guys in this field. Don't want to go through too many golfers, go through too much of my slate plan because it's behind a paywall for a reason. Like I said, use my slate plan, use the optimizer, use the stone, everything into one thing. I don't like to use all the names from the optimizer.
I started from the The stone, I don't like to use all the names from the projections. I don't like to use all the names from the slate plan. I like to pick and choose. So I'm not going to go through maybe like five golfers here, six golfers here, but I want to touch on kind of the style that we're looking for. We're looking for accurate guys to... To build something with their approach or on the putting greens.
Colin Morikawa, the fact that Colin Morikawa is seven under is good. It's good for us because we have him week long and he's doing everything solid. He's driving it well. He's approaching it well. Short game is fine. Now, Colin Morikawa has so much room to gain on approach. We know Colin Murakawa can gain. I mean, is this cumulative? Yeah. He can gain four strokes on approach in a round. Literally. I mean, that's high end, but he could definitely do that. He's only gaining .
Five right now. That means it's in the right place, but it's not popped yet. I do like that. Akshay Bhatia doing everything well except for driving it. And he hasn't been driving it that straight. But at the core, Akshay Bhatia is a driving accuracy guy. I do think that flips sooner than later. So I would get ahead of it, buy it while it's low. Akshay Bhatia I think is a great play for tomorrow. Who else are we looking at? Don't love the Sam Burns profile.
Don't love Alex Norin. Now it gets really dicey down here. Really dicey quick. Sepp Straka, I mean, he's losing two strokes of the tee. He's hitting his irons well. What is he doing in terms of accuracy? Because I need to see what he's doing in terms of accuracy. Sepp Straka. Yeah, I can't buy Sepp Straka losing this many fairways. I really can't. I mean, the approach plays there too, but Sepp Straka's not all the way there. I would go back to Matt Fitzpatrick.
Tommy Fleetwood, I think, is a better buy, though. He's losing a stroke and a half. He's gaining strokes on approach. But Tommy Fleetwood, like, the elite. The elite can turn around quick. He is losing... In terms of accuracy, yeah, he's in the bottom half of the field in accuracy. But we know Tommy Fleetwood is generally a very accurate driver, so I would buy that profile for tomorrow. I don't mind that at all.
Let's look at two more golfers before we get to the one golfer that we are on. Justin Thomas. Justin Thomas. Ball striking is there. Had a great interview with Smiley today. I know he's a streaky putter and not the best putter at times, but I'm seeing enough with the ball striking to buy Justin Thomas for tomorrow. And then towards the top, I love his profile from JJ Spahn. Accurate off the tee, gaining strokes on approach, but not too much strokes.
He's only gaining one stroke through two rounds. If he picks that up and pops, why not? We know he can pop on the approach. And the putting grade. The putting grade is a little bit more high ceiling right now, but it's still in the right direction. I'm buying that approach. I'm buying that approach to pop tomorrow for JJ Spahn. But before we get out of here, the one golfer we are on, I showed him earlier. It goes by the name of Justin Rose.
Justin Rose, through two rounds, sits at four under. Had a nice round one. Sorry, nice round two. But he's hitting it so well, and the putter is letting him down. One thing that we all know about Justin Rose is he is a phenomenal, a great putter. So Justin Rose is the one golfer that we are on. Also, the song of the day, Don't Have It Pulled Up, is going to be Static by Sleepy. Theory. There we go. Static body sleep theory.
Check that one out. Hope you guys enjoy. And we'll be back for one final show tomorrow. As always, let's ship it. Super quick show today, but not that much to touch on in round two showdown because there's only fifty golfers. So I'm buying accuracy. I'm buying approach poppers and I'll catch you guys tomorrow. Peace out.
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