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A Look at Fanduel’s New Daily Fantasy PGA Format – Rules and Strategies

FanDuel just unveiled a brand new product. With the PGA format being so new it’s time to create a strategy that gives you a big time advantage before others tweak their play. Here at DFS Army, we have you covered. Our VIP PGA spreadsheet includes FanDuel projections reconstructed to the new format and scoring. Our Domination Station is also being tweaked to also support the brand new FanDuel product.

Similar to before players still need to draft eight golfers for the week; however, the product is vastly different. No longer do players split up golfers for round 1-2 and 3-4. Before a stars and scrubs approach made lots of sense. Players could safely load up on high-end players in the late rounds and suffer minimal consequences from one of the early round plays missing the cut. Now all eight players count for all four rounds and a new strategy is needed. This article will theorize on new strategies as well as compare DraftKings scoring to FanDuel’s in the hopes of finding exploitable differences.

The Scoring

  DraftKings FanDuel
Double Bogey (or worse) -1 -3
Bogey -0.5 -1
Par 0.5 0.5
Birdie 3 3.1
Eagle 8 7
Hole In One 10 N/A
Albatross 20 N/A


There are quite a few things to notice here. First, FanDuel penalizes bogeys and double bogeys at a higher rate then DraftKings. This can naturally make you feel as if scorers are not as valuable under FanDuel’s system as they are under DraftKings, it did to me at first. However, players who get birdies are still the way to go. A round of even par with 18 pars is worth 9.5 points on either system; an even par 4 birdie/bogey round is worth 15 points before bonuses on DraftKings and 13.4 before bonuses on FanDuel (which impact score much greater as you will see below) so scorers still rack up more points under FanDuel’s system.

Where you can get into trouble in FanDuel’s system is double bogeys as they can realistically cause players to put up negative scores for a round. Each week the PGA Tour plays at a new course and it will be critical to monitor courses and avoid players who can put up many big numbers on tougher courses. With the US Open just two weeks away you can already imagine what Rickie Fowlers 2015 opening round 81 would look like in FanDuel’s system (I checked, it was a -5 even with an eagle).

Finally, FanDuel does away with the hole in one and albatross bonuses. Many DFS PGA players have often hated the hole in one that results in 18 points (hole in one + eagle) for something that is unpredictable and entirely random. If you’re one of the many who saw a plummet in winning after Matt Kuchar’s Ace at the Masters maybe FanDuel’s format will be the break you need from the unpredictability of hole in ones.

All of this is included in our new VIP PGA spreadsheet projections and it really does make a difference from player to player.  VIP members get the benefit of seeing exactly how it impacts each and every player within the field.

 Finishing Position 

             DraftKings                                                                               FanDuel

  • 1st: 30 Points                                         –                                    1st: 20 PTs
  • 2nd: 20 Points                                          –                                2-5: 12 Pts
  • 3rd: 18 Points                                          –                                6-10: 8 Points
  • 4th: 16 Points                                         –                                      11-25: 5 Points
  • 5th: 14 Points
  • 6th: 12 Points
  • 7th: 10 Points
  • 8th: 9 Points
  • 9th: 8 Points
  • 10th: 7 Points
  • 11th–15th: 6 Points
  • 16th–20th: 5 Points
  • 21st–25th: 4 Points
  • 26th–30th: 3 Points
  • 31st–40th: 2 Points
  • 41st-50th: 1 Points

There are a few things to take note of here; first, I am terrible at formatting and second, the overall structure should impact your roster construction. DraftKings put’s much more emphasis on finishing position; you receive 10 more points for a win and more points throughout depending on where you finish. The bonuses on FanDuel are still big enough that you’ll realistically need the winner and other high place finishers for any chance at a big GPP prize. However, with smaller bonus’s based on position, an emphasis becomes placed on getting points in other ways. As mentioned earlier it is beneficial under both formats to pick scorers (guys who get birdies) and with fewer points awarded through finishing position, this is magnified under FanDuel’s system.

 

Bonuses

  DraftKings FanDuel
Bogey-Free Round 3 5
3+ Birdie streak 3 N/A
All 4 Rounds Under 70 5 N/A
5+ Bidies (in a round) N/A 4
Streak Bonus (holes under par in a row) N/A 0.6
Bounce Back (under par after hole over par) N/A 0.3

The only similarity we can see under both systems is a bonus for a bogey-free round. This bonus is tough to predict however and should not really be a differentiating factor when selecting players. On tour this season Jordan Spieth is number one in average bogeys per round at 1.92; still nearly 2 a round on average. In 2000, perhaps the greatest PGA season of all-time for any player Tiger Woods averaged 1.59 bogeys per round. What I am trying to say is this is relatively hard to predict a bogey-free round and although FanDuel rewards the round with more points we can’t really accurately predict a bogey-free scorecard.

Both sites offer a bonus for birdie streak in different ways. DraftKings gives out 3 points if a player can play three straight holes birdie or better well FanDuel gives out a 0.6 point bonus after the second hole a player has gone birdie or better and continues until the streak finishes. The odds of a 2 birdie streak are much greater. I looked quickly at the top 4 finishers last week at Dean & DeLuca and found the points broke down like this.

Player DraftKings Points FanDuel Points
Kisner 3 1.8
Rahm 0 1.2
O’Hair 0 1.8
Speith 0 3

Both systems reward players who can score in bunches and lead us even further to liking players who can score.

The next big bonus we see is FanDuel only – 4 points for 5 birdies in a round. This obviously favours scorers; using the same four players from the example before we see Kisner would have received the bonus once, Rahm three times, O’Hair twice and Spieth four times. That’s 12 extra points Spieth would receive on Kisner; making up the 8 point differential from 1st place to 2-5th. Like many other aspects of FanDuel’s system, this leads us once again to finding players who can score.

We also see two more bonuses; all four rounds under 70 which is a DraftKings only bonus. This week all four players previously mentioned received this bonus. This bonus is often dependent on the course; naturally, it will be easier to achieve on a par 70 compared to a par 72. The bonus generally correlates with a high finish as a player would be a minimum of -8 on a par 72 to receive the extra five points. Finally, we see a FanDuel only bonus in 0.3 points for a bounce back (birdie or better after bogey or worse). This week with the same four players the scoring would break down like this:

Player FanDuel Points
Kisner 0.3
Rahm 0.9
O’Hair 0.9
Spieth 1.2

Naturally, someone who is making lots of birdies/bogeys will generally have a higher bounce back score as they are generating more opportunities to receive these points. Bounce back itself should not be targeted as the point differential is rather minimal but players who will be getting these points will generally be getting lots of points under FanDuel’s system. Think of bounce back points as a nice little bonus on top of the extra points line-ups of scorers will be receiving.

With all of these bonuses it can be tough to figure out how they will impact a player weekly.  With our VIP PGA spreadsheet as well as our Domination Station lineup optimizer we do the work for you allowing you to focus on player selection.

Final Thoughts

 Finally, FanDuel and DraftKings PGA formats differ in the amount of players you need to take. FanDuel sees eight needed while DraftKings only sees six. Anyone who remembers Data Management (or whatever the American equivalent is) will know that although two more players does not seem like that much more of a challenge it really is. And if this week is any indication of how future pricing will be FanDuel has taken a much harder price line on players making the task even tougher as less ‘free squares’ are available.

In both formats its crucial to find the cheap plays that perform well in order to allow you to pay up for the stud that you think will win the week. It is even more critical when needing to get eight players through to have a realistic chance at taking down a GPP. When taking eight players the likelihood of duplicate line-ups is lessened, especially with tighter pricing as fewer players pop up as must-haves. Don’t be afraid under FanDuel’s new format to take cheap players that you think will likely be high owned; so what if Nick Taylor is 40% owned if he can make the cut at his $5500 price and the rest of the guys ownership went to in his price range miss you have an advantage and seven more spots to differentiate.

Throughout the article, I have focused mainly on GPP’s but cash games also require an entirely different process in FanDuel’s system.  In DraftKings the primary goal is to get 6/6 players through and that usually results in a win.  However, 6/6 is not always needed as 4/6 and 5/6 lineups can regularly find their way within the top half for the week.  8/8 is surely a daunting task that will see a very small % week to week.  Although it goes against DraftKings cash game reasoning the idea of punting a few picks in order to pay up elsewhere makes sense in an 8 player format.  Look at the course and past years cut lines to see if it makes sense.  At the US Open it’s probably not the greatest idea to roster the guys that can go +20 and get you negative points but at an event like the Peurto Rico Open where the winner was -20 and the cut is -2 there is an advantage in punting a few spots and trying to stack your team.

Be sure to sign up to our DFS Army VIP Membership in order to utilize our custom Domination Station projectionsPGA spreadsheets and access to chat with Taco, myself and many other proven winners. Use Coupon Code “10-OFF to receive 10% off all of this PGA content as well as content for MLB, NBA, NFL and every other DFS sport your heart desires.