In my article this week I outlined my cash game line-up for the U.S. Open and I got a few requests to break down how I came up with it. Although I have written cash game advice before here, and there are countless other articles on our site that focus on cash game strategy I thought it would be a good idea to go over my specific process. First, I will go over the process, show how that led to my cash team for the U.S. Open and then show how it can be applied to the Travelers Championship this week.
Make a team first
One of my favourite things about DFS Golf is that it’s a weeklong thing. You have plenty of time to do research and come to conclusions. I still think it is a good idea to start by making a team before looking at everything. You are 100% not stuck to playing this team and should be extremely open to changing this up but my reason for doing this exercise is analyzing my first thoughts and seeing where I may be biased. If I know and record who my first thoughts were for the week I can easily see how my biases come into roster construction and correct them. This may seem simplistic but I really did start noticing a difference once I began doing this and if you are not I think it is a good idea to start.
Analyze the chalk
From this team and looking through the player pool I like to attempt to figure out who I think will be chalk before seeing others thoughts. I think analyzing who will be chalk is more important in Golf cash games relative to other sports cash games. With only 6 players it’s important to know who your competition will be playing. For example, in the U.S. Open Justin Rose was the obvious chalk play. Rose came in and great form and was a great price. For most, he was basically a must play in cash games and if you played him it payed off. Rose finished in the top 15, was only outscored by 1 player above his salary, and left you with plenty of money to still make a great line-up. If you had Rose you were able to keep up with the 70-ish % of people that played him and were ahead of the 30 something % that did not. But here’s the thing with the chalk, if Rose played bad and missed the cut you were still fine in cash games. 30% of the field has an advantage on you (assuming the selection all 30% made in comparison made the cut) but you are still on par with the majority of players. You don’t need to win cash games you just need to outperform half of the field.
As a result I have a loosely followed rule for myself in cash games, if I think a player is gonna be over 50% owned unless I have a reason to fade them I will play them. Generally, if a player is chalk in cash there is good reason for that. Our competition isn’t stupid and they looking at most of the same stats as you (maybe not for golf with our Research Station but you get the idea) so there is usually a good reason a player is above that threshold.
Stats
Once I’ve made my preliminary team and identified who I think will be chalky for the week I start to break down stats (this works pretty well with Taco having the stats ready late Monday/early Tuesday). Every course is different and there isn’t a magical formula for exactly what I look at/what you should be looking at. However, for cash games we are looking for Consistency. I want players who are doing the things they need to be doing to making cuts; gaining shots approaching the greens, playing well off-of-the-tee etc. We also talk a lot about how putting can change rather quickly with a player (and this is true) but I don’t really want to count on that happening in cash games. We have 140+ players to choose from weekly and we should be able to find guys who are generally gaining strokes (or at least staying neutral with the field) in all key areas as well as key stats for the week.
Finalize a player pool
This goes hand in hand with analyzing stats; guys that are popping off should be put into a list of some sort of players you are contemplating using in cash games. I personally like cutting it down to around 12-14 and going from there (this does change depending on the week). I think many people lock in a few and then chose between other guys depending on if they fit based off of salary and I think that is a major leak. I have players that I am usually heavily leaning towards but I think you are more likely to create the best line-up by giving yourself all viable options and being flexible.
Being Flexible
As mentioned I think it is a leak in some DFS players strategies to be extremely rigid within their process. For me I like building line-ups the way I have outlined but I also think with DFS you have to be ready to adapt tournament to tournament. The U.S. Open compared to the travelers Championship gives a great example to this point. The U.S. Open usually sees the winner shooting right around even par, the course is very tough and we see very few birdies. In comparison, TPC River Highlands sees one of the highest birdie rates on tour year in and year out. I think depending on the tournament you should be ready to change your strategy entirely. So for me personally with the U.S. Open I wanted to give myself a few players I thought would have a chance at the top of the leaderboard and worry less about 6/6. The added point of getting a payer or 2 within the top five on a 4/6 lineup would far outweigh the points scored by a team of six players. Every week you should give your cash game teams this upside but in a tournament with the most birdies we see on tour it becomes much more important to get the 6/6 roster through to the weekend. The extra 36 or 72 holes of scoring you can have on other lineups will be far more important than compared to last week.
After re-reading that I think it’s important to clarify your goal in cash games is to get 6/6 through while also having guys who can finish atop the leaderboard but I think depending on the week the importance of individual variables can change and that should show in your roster construction.
Cash game vs GPP
The final point I want to stress before diving into my U.S. Open team is the thought of what type of golfer to put into your line-up. A lot of players have become labelled within the DFS Golf community as “a cash game player” or a “GPP play” and I think while this is true for some it limits your ability to create line-ups. While there are players like Charles Howell who makes a high % of cuts consistently and guys like Si-Woo Kim who miss many cuts and show up at the top of the leaderboards there are many others who get labelled within these categories despite many “GPP players” being viable week in and week out for cash games. For example, when I started playing DFS Golf in 2015 Justin Thomas was a relatively new name to the PGA scene. In his 2015 season Thomas played 29 events and missed 5 cuts, he quickly vaulted up into the top 30 in the world but there were many times his price did not reflect how well he was playing. As DraftKings was catching up Thomas was often in the 7k range of golfers and was simply a better option than others around him and making more cuts. However, Thomas was not commanding massive ownership in cash-games. Thomas has never been seen as a cash-game play and now that he is in the top range of salary he often does not make sense to play but there are still instances in which he is viable and there were plenty of past instances where people were busy evaluating what Thomas is instead of following the numbers and making the correct play.
U.S. Open Recap
As I mentioned, I will go over the process with my U.S. Open cash line-up to show how it plays out.
First, I made an initial lineup consisting of Justin Rose, Brandan Grace Tommy Fleetwood, Paul Casey, Marc Leishman, Patrick Cantlay
Of those, I was pretty sure on Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood and Paul Casey. I wanted as many possible options to win the tournament and felt this team gave me three realistic ones and a few guys that I could see finishing at the top of the leaderboard. I knew I didn’t necessarily want Grace but he fit with the rest of the guys and I had my first team finalized.
When analyzing the chalk I felt it would be Rose, Fleetwood and Casey. Now, I think this is a hard thing to do and comes with time playing DFS Golf (we will also help with this in Slack) but by knowing these three would likely by over 50% owned and knowing I want all of them I was able to have a good idea of who I wanted in my line-up (while still being mindful of being flexible).
When looking at stats I started to finalize my final list of cash game players which looked like:
Dustin Johnson: In a week where you want the winner he could be worth paying up for despite it usually not being the best idea to go this high in salary.
Justin Rose: Obvious chalk, underpriced, checks all the boxes.
Brooks Koepka: Not overly chalky but underpriced and another player that can flat out win a tournament many guys cant.
Brandan Grace: Stats lined up if he fits the team
Tommy Fleetwood: Underpriced, chalk
Paul Casey: Under-priced, chalk
Marc Leishman:I liked the price, thought he was a good play
Partick Cantlay: The longer the week went on the more I was on Cantlay, seems to be a guy I talk myself into every week with the made cuts/upside
Matt Kuchar: A general core cash player of mine that I always think is worth a look
Francesco Molinari: Loved the price
Tony Finau: Course fit and affordable, another guy I wouldn’t be surprised to see win the event
Charley Hoffman: simplifying but always seems to be in contention in majors
Rafa Cabrera-Bello: Stats and pricetag, allowing me to pick up higher salaries
Zach Johnson: not a real course fit but playing well, didn’t really see him at the top in the end
Emiliano Grillo: Same thought as ZJ, not ideal but if it gets me more top-end it could work.
Gary Woodland:Good stats relative to price, course fit
Ignore the awful notes, but more or less I had myself at this final group while very likely playing Rose, Casey and Fleetwood unless another roster I created made it make sense to me to ditch one of them. I ended up on this as my end result:
I had decided against D.J and liked the approach of multiple options that I could see finishing at the top of the leaderboard. I ended up going to Brooks as my next step knowing I could afford to go cheaper on the final two and still feel comfortable. After tinkering with the final two spots i ended up on Leishman and Cabrara-Bello as good fits that were in my initial build. Ultimately, the team easily made cash for me and I won my 20-man 50/50. Looking back at my player pool I think many different combinations would have ended in the same result. Although Brooks helped, with 12 of 14 players making the cut and multiple finishing inside of the top 10 many different combinations were likely to do well. By following my strategy, analyzing the stats and loosely sticking to my rules I was able to build around a solid core and come up with a finalized, winning line-up.
Travelers Championship
My first line-up on Monday included: Jason Day, Paul Casey, Patrick Cantlay, Emiliano Grillo, Chasson Hadley, Rory Sabbatini
Of these, when looking at chalk I think Paul Casey, Emiliano Grillo are likely to be over 50% owned in cash games and could also see Patrick Cantlay getting there.
For this week in terms of stats I followed a similar approach as laid out in my introduction; I want guys gaining stroked approaching the green, solid off of the tee, putting statistics that don’t make you want to vomit and guys doing well in the medium par four range. The final is a course specific stat with eight par fives in the range. Also to clarify, I am looking at more than just these four stats but I am using these as my main building blocks for my players this week, I want guys who are checking off all four boxes ideally.
In doing so led me to the following player pool for the week:
Justin Thomas: Highly unlikely because of price and missed cut here but highest projected score, and great stats.
Paul Casey: high made cut%, course history, chalk, approaching green, putting, not losing strokes terribly in any stat and although not great medium par four numbers has obviously figured it out at this course.
Ryan Moore: Course history is great here, numbers great except for putting, not ideal candidate but will use if he fits and I like the team
Charley Hoffman: Even better course history, solid last week, stats minus putting.
Patrick Cantlay: Looking chalky as week has gone on, price is good, course history not a concern as he’s a new player compared to years ago, massive drift, stats minus putting (which is concerning but a little less concerning considering U.S. Open was where he lost stroked putting)
Zach Johnson: course fit despite missed cuts here, stats line up
Kaegan Bradley: great course history, good value play,
Emiliano Grillo: huge value, chalk, great drift, all stats minus putting (again U.S. Open makes it less worrisome to me)
Branden Steele: course history/value
Chesson Hadley: value, very affordable, stats line up minus U.S. Open
Rory Sabbatini: consistency as of late at cheap price tag
My player pool is a bit smaller than usual but this is who I keyed in on as potential cash plays. The rest is up to you but I really want to emphasize adding your own process to it. There might by guys I did not include that you have as cash locks because of your research and that’s okay. This is on you as an individual to do and tweak and find what works for you, although I have a steady winning % in cash games I am by no way perfect at this and improvements can surely be made to my weekly process. Find what works, find what doesn’t, be flexible, learn and improve.