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
We had another big week here at DFS Army with four of our own splitting first place a few days ago in an NBA GPP.
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DFS Snake Draft and Dream Team notes can be found in Slack Chat here*
Pebble Beach Review
Top end- Check back to SlackChat
As mentioned in SlackChat, I ultimately decided upon Dustin Johnson. I really think you could justify playing any of the top five players this week but I thought DJ was the best choice followed by Spieth, Day, Rahm and Mcilroy. For both cash games and GPP’s, I felt most confident with Dustin followed by Spieth and my ownership funneled mostly to these two.
Paul Casey – GPP – T8
Casey was one of my favourite plays of the week and I really liked the idea of pairing him with one of the top players and loading up on value plays on the slate. Casey paid off finishing with the 8th most DraftKings points on the week.
Patrick Reed – DraftKings Value – MC
Reed let down a lot of people this week. After a disastrous first round, Reed was essentially out of the tournament after nine holes. Although he rebounded and almost made the cut Reed came up short of expectations this week.
Kevin Streelman – FanDuel Value – 6th
I loved Streelman on both DraftKings and FanDuel as he was simply underpriced on both sites. Streelman did not disappoint with his 6th place finish.
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Genesis Open Preview
The PGA Tour stays in California this week as the players make their annual appearance at Riviera Country Club. The tournament is loaded with top end talent including Dustin Johnson, Jordan Speith, Rory Mcilroy and some guy named Tiger Woods. For those looking at course history, the event was previously named the Northern Trust Open, or you could just check out our research station which has the results of every player at the event laid out for you.
The Par 71, is 7322 yards but plays a lot longer than that. With a 503 yard par five and a 315-yard par four the rest of the holes make up the yardage with many long par fours and fives. As a result driving distance is huge here as many bombers (DJ, Bubba, and Kokrak) have shown great course history. The rough itself is not as treacherous as at other events and players are not overly penalized for being wayward off of the tee as long as they are missing in the correct places.
Because of the length of the course, players will have many approaches from outside 150 yards. Because of this I am prioritizing approaches from 150 yards +. In our Research Station we have all the statistics broken down so you can go in and see which players are popping up in this area.
Finally, this week I think course history is more important and should be weighted higher than you usually weight the stat. Riviera has had the same players show up on leaderboards over and over again. Looking at our research station and finding players who have had continued success over the years will be key for me. There are a few players I already like who do not fit this profile though, later in the week I will break down in SlackChat some guys I like despite the course history.
As always Shots Gained: Tee To Green, and Shots Gained: Approach will also be metrics that I am looking at for the week.
Another week and a bunch of winning members!
Picks
Dustin Johnson – Top-end – DK: $11900 FD: $12900
It seems almost unfair to be picking Dustin Johnson this week as it a no-brainer. With four straight finishes T4 or better at this event and a T2 last weekend DJ is coming in with great form as well as having ridiculously good course history. DJ fits the profile of what is needed for success here and I really can’t see a reason to avoid playing DJ this week. He should be the highest owned player but I still think he’s the player you’ll need this week to succeed.
Xander Schauffele – GPP – DK: $8300 FD: $9100
It is early in the week so check back into our SlackChat but I think Xander is a good GPP play and a great way to differentiate lineups with a player that has upside. Being priced above Finau, Reavie and Bubba Watson should suppress Schauffele’s ownership and despite no course history I do think Xander is the type of player that can succeed at Riviera.
Patrick Cantlay – All Formats (DraftKings Value) – DK: $7600 FD: $10000
Cantlay’s recent price decrease really does not make much sense. After returning in 2017 Cantlay has made 17/17 cuts with nine top 20’s and a win. I think this makes Cantlay an obvious cash play despite lackluster course history and depending on how we see ownership breaking down (we do an updated ownership projection) he could be a big part of my GPP core.
Brendan Steele – FanDuel Value – DK: $7900 FD: $9700
With six straight made cuts, great recent performance and an affordable price Steele looks like a great play this weekend. Steele’s recent stats also check out as he has been gaining strokes off of the tee and approaching the green. Steele also check’s out from the approach range I will be targeting this week.
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.
Other DFS Army PGA Golf Tools and Articles
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