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Betting and stats expert Justin Ray is Head of Content for Twenty First Group. Here are his five key insights ahead of The Bay Golf Club vs. Atlanta Drive GC on Tuesday night at SoFi Center...
Can anybody stop Atlanta Drive GC? Despite the names in the lineup changing – Corey Conners and Chris Gotterup got the call against New York Golf Club in the season opener – Atlanta keeps winning its matches.
Tuesday, they will face the only team to have beaten them to date: The Bay Golf Club, who clipped the champs 6-5 back in the regular season last February.
HOW TO WATCH: The Bay Golf Club vs. Atlanta Drive GC
The Bay will try to find the winning recipe again in its season opener, Tuesday at 5 PM EST on ESPN.
3 Key Stats
Reintroducing The Bay
In TGL’s inaugural regular season, no team performed better in the ScreenZone than The Bay. Off the tee, they led all teams in ball speed, swing speed, carry distance and overall distance.
A whopping 56.3% of their drives went 320 yards or more, the highest rate of any team. It wasn’t just a power display, though: They also led all teams in fairways hit (73.3%) and green in regulation percentage (74.4%). The Bay averaged more than 3.5 strokes gained ball striking per match, trailing only Atlanta (3.69) in that statistic.
That fueled the most consistent Triples performance of any team in 2025. In the regular season, The Bay led all teams in Triples points won (21) and holes won (17). If not for the heroics of Billy Horschel, the star of the 2025 season might have been The Bay's Wyndham Clark. Clark had more points won (26) and strokes gained ball striking (+10.4) than any individual player.
Clark will be joined Tuesday by Shane Lowry and Ludvig Åberg. Ludvig stole the show in The Bay’s opener last season, leading all players in strokes gained total in a 9-2 blowout win over New York.
Early returns key for The Bay
Triples will start with three holes fans saw frequently in Season 1: “The Plank,” “Pick Yer Plunder” and “Cliffhanger.” This will be a rare stretch where Atlanta doesn’t have an electric past history: Since last season, the Season 1 champs are just a combined 2-2-15 (W-L-H) on those three holes. The Bay has fared better, with a record of 5-3-6.
The Bay took the first lead in four of its matches a season ago, going on to win three of those.
STATS: Check out the full stats available for TGL presented by SoFi
Scorching-hot Horschel
Billy Horschel hasn’t just created some of TGL’s most memorable moments, he’s assembling a truly dominant run in Singles play. In his last 13 Singles holes, he has lost just once, going 8-1-4 in that stretch. During that span, he’s generated a ridiculous point differential of +13 for Atlanta.
Shane Lowry will draw the task of trying to slow down Horschel Tuesday, starting on hole 10, “Sterling.” For all of Lowry’s incredible match play success in his career, he struggled in Singles in season one, going 1-6-3.
Horschel isn’t the only Atlanta player rolling in Singles, though. As a team, they have a Singles point differential of +24 since the beginning of last season. Second-best? New York GC at +7.
Anchor position analysis
Clark will face off in Singles against Patrick Cantlay in the third position, playing holes 12 and 15. The closing hole for Tuesday’s match will be the Gil Hanse-designed ‘Stone & Steeple,’ a par five both players will be taking on for the first time.
Clark was especially good in Singles when playing par fives last season: He posted a 3-1-0 record and had more strokes gained per shot hit (+0.21) than any other qualified player.
Hammer time
Going back to last year’s postseason, the last five TGL matches have seen one team gain more points than the other on holes where the Hammer is thrown. It’s no surprise that all five of those teams went on to win the match. Four of those five wins belong to Atlanta, which has a +11 point advantage with the Hammer over that stretch.
Hammer usage was one area The Bay could improve upon in 2026: Last year they ranked fourth in Hammer point margin (-3), worst of the teams to qualify for the first ever postseason.
When these two teams met last year in the regular season, The Bay was able to overcome an enormous +4 Hammer point differential in Atlanta’s favor. That likely can’t happen again for The Bay if they want to start Season 2 with a win.
Justin Ray's Prediction: The Bay Golf Club to Win (+110 at FanDuel, odds accurate at time of publication).