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 on DraftKings and FanDuel in both Cash Game and GPP formats. For more updates throughout the week follow me on twitter @_bschnarr
DFS Army Pricing – Use code PGA for 10% off membership!
DFS Snake Draft and Dream Team notes can be found in Slack Chat here*
The Fort Worth Invitational Recap
Jordan Spieth – T32
I liked the idea of going right back to Spieth in GPP’s after he let people down the week before. I also thought it was unlikely for Spieths putting to stay as cold as it had been and thought if there was any course he would rebound on it would be at Colonial. I was wrong as Spieth put up another middle of the pack performance. The problem with Spieth was he got outscored by virtually every player above a $9000 salary on DraftKings.
Brooks Koepka – 2nd
Although I liked the idea of playing Jordan in GPP’s, I LOVED the idea of playing Brooks. So much so the Brooks was my favourite play above $9000 and my highest owned player across lineups. I liked Brooks because I thought he was underpriced and a great course fit despite not fitting the traditional mould of players that had success at Colonial. Brooks did not disappoint as the third highest fantasy scorer across the entire slate.
Kevin Kisner – T52
As the week went on I decided to include Kisner but not nearly as much as I initially thought. I felt he was a risky GPP play and saw the likelihood of others gravitating towards him increasing. Kisner ended up with over 10% ownership in GPP’s and his T52 appearance did not really help vault any lineups into the money.
Aaron Wise – MC
As I wrote in my notes for our SlackChat, I was off of Aaron Wise this weekend. Low ownership alone does not warrant playing a player and despite recent success, the salary was just too high to get behind with Brooks Koepka being right under him.
Kevin Na – 4th
Kevin Na remained hot this week with a third place finish after a great round on Sunday. I liked Na as I pivoted off of what I thought would be a chalky Steve Stricker. It turned out that Stricker was only slightly more popular than Na, but the 40 extra fantasy points Na provided for $100 less were certainly helpful.
Nick Watney – MC
Although my picks as a whole turned out to be pretty profitable for myself this week having Nick Watney as a core cash game play certainly did not help. Watney imploded on Thursday/Friday and simply did not look like himself (or any PGA Golfer) out there.
The Memorial Preview
The Memorial sees a fantastic field with the vast majority of the top players in the world with attendance. The event takes place at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio, a 7,392 yard par 72.
The first thing that sticks out to me is four reachable par fives that will make Par five scoring imperative this week. I will be relying heavily on our PGA Research Station and a stat we use called Fantasy Points per hole. Basically, the stat averages your fantasy points by hole (and hole type) and adjusts for venue so we can see a true measure of who is scoring more (and more often) which is huge as a fantasy perspective. With Fantasy Points per hole in mind, I will be targeting players who can score on par fives and hoping to rack up the points on this whole.
Next, I will be targeting Shots Gained Approach, as we have seen at Muirfield, there is plenty of trouble around greens and the course challenges players who are inaccurate with their second shot. With one of the lowest scramble percentages we see year in and year players who are missing greens at Muirfield really struggle to make it up the leaderboard. Although Scrambling becomes much more important as a result, players who can simply avoid scrambling in the first place are at a huge advantage over the field.
The course also features larger than average fairways but there is a lot of trouble for players who do miss the fairway. I typically lean Driving distance over Accuracy and will likely be thinking the same this week, I want players who have both off of the tee and will be looking for players who regularly gain strokes off of the tee.
Finally, this event is an invitational with right around 120 players instead of the usual 144. With nearly 20 less golfers in the field we should see a higher percentage of 6/6 lineups this week. I will break down in SlackChat how this will impact my strategy in both cash games and GPP contests.
DFS Army Pricing – Use code PGA for 10% off membership!
Interesting Plays
For those who have been reading for awhile but maybe missed the last few weeks because the tournaments weren’t so great I have changed the format of this section a little. Instead of highlighting likely plays on a Monday I will be looking at players I find interesting based on price, expected ownership or if I think I will be playing/fading them. None of these notes are definite and any player mentioned will be discussed more in depth Wednesday night in SlackChat.
Jordan Spieth – DK $9800 FD $11800
Okay, so I know I write up Jordan Spieth every week but I am very interested by his $9800 price tag on DraftKings this week. With a T13 finish last year a third in 2015 and no missed cuts in five appearances at this event Spieth is certainly viable despite his recent troubles putting. I am very interested in what Spieth’s ownership is on the week and depending on what we are expecting here at the Army I am expecting to play Spieth somewhat in my GPP lineups.
Tony Finau – DK $8100 FD $10600
Finau has been fantastic at this course with a T40, T11 and T8 in his three appearances at The Memorial. Although I suspect Finau will be chalky, we could see his price make him go underowned with so many options up top it becomes hard to fit players in this range. Also, we have seen Dufner show great course history and with a win here last year and Phil priced right above Finau I could see his ownership also being lower than initially expected. I like Finau this week and hope the ownership is low but only time will tell.
Kevin Na – DK $7600 FD $9500
Kevin Na’s salary makes sense given the strength of the field but his recent performances make him very appealing at this price. I expect Na to be one of the highest owned players of the week and I am not really sure how I fell about this for GPP tournaments yet.
Patrick Cantlay – $7400 FD $9900
Cantlay burned a lot of people last week (me included) but his price reduction is far to severe. It will be interesting to see, will Cantlay become chalk again because of his price? Or will he recent missed cut cause people to become weary of rostering Cantlay?
$7400 Range on DraftKings
Although I highlighted Cantlay; the entire range of Chris Kirk, Adam Hadwin, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Zach Johnson and Luke List is extremely interesting this week. With so many studs it becomes very likely you’ll see opponents drop down to this range and take 2-3 guys in order to fit a top-end salary. Everyone in this range has shown multiple times this year they can be in the hunt come Sunday and almost all of them are coming into the event in solid form. I will definitely need some time to make my decision on what I want to do with all of these players in Cash/GPP but will be breaking it down in SlackChat for all of our VIP’s.
With three writers, there are lots of opinions being given out to VIP members later in the week closer to lock. I will be going over all of these plays and my thoughts for cash later in the week on our company SlackChat.
Other DFS Army PGA Golf Tools and Articles
DFS Army VIP Members also have access to our PGA Cheatsheet!
DFS Army VIP Members also have access to our DFS Army Domination Station Lineup Optimizer!
DFS Army VIP Members also have access to our Euro Tour Cheatsheet!
Be sure to sign up to our DFS Army VIP Membership in order to utilize our custom Domination Station projections, PGA spreadsheets and access to chat with Taco, myself and many other proven winners. Use Coupon Code “PGA” to receive 10% all of this PGA content as well as content for MLB, NBA, NFL and every other DFS sport your heart desires