Every week of the year the PGA Tour plays on a new course. There are some examples in other DFS Sports of environments impacting performance, such as Coors Field in Baseball; Golf, however, offers an entirely unique environment each and every week. This article will break down the week’s PGA course and attempt to find what skill sets are needed for success. This article will then combine the course breakdown with the DFS Army Domination Station and give a few players to target in both Cash Game and GPP formats. For more updates throughout the week follow me on twitter @_bschnarr
Wyndham Championship Recap
Henrik Stenson – GPP – (WIN – 146 Points)
I was all over Stenson for GPP’s this week. As the week progressed it was looking like Stenson would have lower ownership than many of the players above a 10,000 price range and that turned out to be true. Stenson saw about 15% ownership in GPP’s despite being the best player in the field and trending in the right direction. Stenson was definitely worth it this week as he put up an insane 146 points, 18 more than anyone else.
Chez Reavie – All Formats – (T37 – 74.5)
Chez had shown good recent form and I felt he was safe despite a bad course history. Chez performed alright but faltered on Sunday and fell down the leaderboard quite a bit.
Chad Campbell – Cash – (T42 – 68 Points)
Campbell has shown himself to be a solid play in cash as of late. His price has been reasonable making him a perfect play for cash for the week. Campbell made the cut at a reasonable price allowing you to build a solid team.
Hao-Tang Li –GPP – (MC – 33.5)
Li was my high-risk high reward play this week. Unfortunately, Li couldn’t avoid the big numbers this week and missed the cut.
Northern Trust Open Course Preview
It is the start of the FedEx Cup! Although no one really cares because the FedEx Cup is probably the worst playoff format we see in any sport it does change things for DFS Tournaments. There are now 125 total players eligible for the event and although we will see a few skip (Sergio, Brant Snedeker, Adam Scott, Scott Piercy and Dominic Bozzelli) we will also only see elite fields for the rest of the season.
It is also important to understand how the cut works and how it impacts roster construction. Although we will see 120 golfers and the top 100 in FedEx Cup points move onto next week the cut will still proceed as normal with top 70 and ties playing the weekend. A field of 120 does change roster construction quite a bit for Cash games as we will see a much higher percentage of the field enter the weekend. I will cover this more in our slack channel throughout the week!
The tour is making its inaugural visit to Glen Oaks Club in Old Westbury, New York. The course is a LONG par 70 at 7,346 yards. With the course being played for the first time it becomes difficult to pinpoint exactly what we should be looking at in terms of key stats. Anytime a new course is being played I first and foremost weight recent form for the week. If a guy is red-hot you can often see them perform at courses even if they are not necessarily the best conditions for that player on paper. Although we can certainly analyze Glen Oaks Club and find what should be successful looking at recent form will never hurt.
Another stat that is indicative of success at any course is Shots Gained: Tee-to Green. Players who routinely outperform their competition tee-to-green find themselves at the top of leaderboards. Again, with question marks surrounding the course, I will be weighting this stat heavily.
Par 4 Scoring is another stat I will be looking at and weighting higher than I usually do. The course is a par 70 which means there are two fewer par fives and two more par fours.
As the week goes on more will come out about Glen Oaks through player interviews. For now, we only really have PGA Tour pro Scott Brown’s comments discussing the course. The whole message can be seen in the link above but essentially Brown compares the course to Augusta in design, noting the firm greens. This should lead us to think Scrambling will be a little more important than usual.
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PICKS!
Jason Day – GPP – DK: $9700 FD: $9300
These last two events I have been on Jason Day as he has continued to trend in the right direction with the lowest ownership of any player priced in the ‘elite’ category. I expect this to continue this week despite coming off of a top ten finish at the PGA Championship despite a quadruple bogey. Day can get red hot as he has shown recently and his price point still allows for much flexibility in creating lineups.
Brooks Koepka – All Formats – DK: $9100 FD: $9200
Brooks has been on fire lately and his price still does not reflect this. Making 10/10 straight cuts Brooks is a great cash play given his price and has shown the upside to win against any field.
Tony Finau – DraftKings all formats – DK: $7300 FD: $8300
The price discrepancy is too much to avoid Finau on DraftKings this week. Finau has mad nine straight cuts, finishing inside of the top 50 all nine starts making him extremely viable in cash games at this price. Furthermore, Finau is a player who has continually gained strokes tee-to-green during that stretch. The value is there on DraftKings and I will be all over Finau in both formats.
Gary Woodland – GPP – DK: $7000 FD: $6500
Woodland is a great value (on both sites) given his 70/1 odds to win the tournament. He is a great tee-to-green player with two top 25’s in his last three starts. I think within this price range he is certainly worth a look in GPP contests.
Other DFS Army PGA Golf Tools and Articles
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