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 & VIP Research 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
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Sentry Tournament of Champions Recap
Jordan Spieth –Top End – DK: 91.5 (9th) FD: 96.9 (9th)
Spieth was my top player in all formats as I believed he had the highest likelihood of running away with the tournament. Spieth performed all right for the week finishing 9th and recovering from a 2 over round on Thursday. Despite the performance, Spieth was outperformed by Rickie Fowler and blown out by Dustin Johnson for players within his salary range.
Brooks Koepka – Second Tier – DK: 41 (Last) FD: 25.4 (Last)
Brooks was terrible this weekend. I was initially on Brooks due to the thought that he would be under-owned out of the top salaries. While this was true news came out later in the week that he was still playing with a taped wrist, indicating his earlier wrist injury was still bothering him. As discussed in our DFSArmy Slack Chat this news pushed me off of Koepka entirely
Branden Steele – DraftKings Value – DK: 64.5 (28th) FD: 67.1 (27th)
Steele was one of the chalkiest players of the week and for good reason. Despite the result, Steele’s price did not make sense given recent form and course history. Despite this, Steele struggled and destroyed a lot of line-ups.
Patton Kizzire – FanDuel Value – DK: 84 (11th) FD: 91.1 (12th)
Kizzire had the 6th cheapest salary on FanDuel and that just was not right given his recent play. Kizzire was also able to slide under the radar of hype players such as Austin Cook, Wesley Bryan and Cameron Smith generated. Kizzire saw just under 20% ownership in major GPP’s on FanDuel while being right around 10% owned in GPP’s on DraftKings
*Draft DFS Snake Draft and Dream Team notes can be found in Slack Chat here*
Course Preview
The PGA Tour will remain in Hawaii this week and make its way to Waialee Golf Course for the Sony Open. This event differs from last week as we will now see a full field of 144 instead of the 32 player event of last week. The Sony Open also will see a cut of any player not in the top 70 or tied after the first two days. This changes the strategy considerable from what we saw last week and readers will want to be in our Slack Chat for further details on how tournament layout impacts roster constructions.
The course itself is a Par 70, measuring 7,068 yards. While this is much shorter than last week at Kapalua there is a whole new set of challenges for players. The course features narrow tree line fairways, making driving accuracy important as players will need to be accurate off of the tee in order to avoid trouble. In fact, players will be clubbing down from driver off of the tee regularly which does minimize the importance of driving statistics this week in comparison to how they are usually weighted.
As a par 70, the course features only two par fives. Last season, the par fives combined for 54 Eagles, 525 birdies, 288 pars and only 19 bogeys or double bogeys. With practically the whole field scoring on these holes I think we can more or less focus on the par fours as a good par fives players edge is mitigated with two fewer, easier par fives.
That means there are fourteen par fours for players, which will make par four scoring extremely important for players this week. I will be keying in on this stat as a whole while also paying attention to par 4 ‘s 400-450 yards with five holes in this range and three more just missing this range.
I will also be weighting Scrambling higher than usual this week. I discussed earlier how the narrow fairways impact play. Over the years we have seen the percentage of fairways hit hover right around 50% so players will need to be able to scramble their way out of trouble.
Finally, it has been discussed time and time again how the Bermuda greens give the good putters a bigger advantage over the field. I tend to shy away from using Strokes Gained: Putting as a key stat but it has shown to matter here at Waialee.
Picks
Justin Thomas – GPP – DK: $11600 FD: $12600
The disappointment of last week for the top end looks to be a great GPP this week as he should see suppressed ownership. Despite winning here last year being priced right next to Spieth should result in lower ownership for Thomas. On paper, Thomas does not necessarily line up great for this course but has still found success. The bomber is able to adapt his game and change styles to fit Waialee. This play is all ownership dependent, currently, we are projecting Thomas at around 14% in GPP’s but that could all change throughout the week before we do a final update for VIP members.
Gary Woodland – Cash – DK: $7800 FD: $10200
On the surface, it seems surprising that Woodland would be a cash game play at this event. Although he known for being one of the longest drivers on the tour Woodland is also able to keep the ball in play. At this event, this has resulted in a T6, T13 and T3 the last three years here at the Sony Open. Our Domination Station has him at the top fantasy pointer per dollar player on DraftKings and for good reason. As far as recent performance goes Woodland has made seven straight cuts dating back to last season.
Jason Dufner – DraftKings Value – DK: $7300 FD: $10900
Despite being the 8th highest price on FanDuel, Dufner falls all the way to 39th highest salary on DraftKings. Dufner went under-owned last week as a result of shaky course history but played solid and finished tied for 11th. This week, a similar course history can be seen with three missed cuts and only one top ten in seven appearances. It’s tough to tell if the course history will keep ownership down or if the price discrepancy will result in a high ownership of Dufner, check back to our Slack Chat later in the week to see where our experts are leaning on Dufner as more information arises throughout the week.
Chez Reavie – FanDuel Value – DK: $8000 FD: $9300
Reavie is showing up as one of the top value plays according to our DFS Research Station. Reavie finished last season strong with six straight top 25’s and has shown decent course history with three straight made cuts including a top 10 last season. The course fits Reavie’s game as his lack of distance off of the tee won’t hurt him as much as it would on other layouts. According to our Research Station, Reavie is number 1 in field adjusted driving accuracy of any player priced over $9000 on FanDuel. Other stats also look promising as Reavie has been gaining strokes approaching the green and putting once field adjusted. Ownership level will be an issue as you will have to decide what to do for GPP’s while in cash games Reavie is looking like an early lock.
As always, this article is published as a first look, things change leading up to lock and SlackChat should be checked as thoughts are changed when new information arises.
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