Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS Golf. This week the tour heads to Memphis, Tennessee for the FedEx St. Jude Classic!
My name is Josh Thomas, and I’ll be writing the Chalk Donkey article for VIP’s every week here at DFS Army looking at who the chalk plays are in DFS Golf and who you can pivot to. We’ll look at if you need to eat the chalk especially in cash games, and take a deep dive into some pivots using our Research Station and the Domination Station.
This week the tour heads to Memphis, Tennessee for the FedEx St. Jude Classic. The field of 156 has been decimated by guys withdrawing after US Open Sectional Qualifying on Monday. Many of the players who qualified for the US Open at their Sectional Qualifier have withdrawn from the tournament and been replaced by guys that usually aren’t very relevant. While some may be groaning about the fact they can’t play Russell Knox or Adam Scott this week (I might be one) there is a huge opportunity for us here. We have the best tools in the business and thats a big advantage for us that no one else has. With the Research Station we can identify lesser known players who are great course fits and the Domination Station can help us build unique lineups that will dominate GPP’s. I’m pumped for this tournament, its a great opportunity for us to prove we’re the best in the business and take down some GPPs! And make you guys a ton of cash in the process!
The field is back to a full 156 this week after a few weeks of 120ish players. We will see the 6/6 number significantly decrease with the increase in field size. Last week over 20% of the lineups had 6/6 and now with the WD’s I would bet we will be in single digits with 6/6. As you know 6/6 players through the cut is the key to taking down a GPP. There are very few ‘known’ commodities in the field this week in the mid range and ownership will pool on those players that the casual golf fan “knows”. That’s where we jump in and pivot off those chalk donkeys to give us some leverage in GPP’s.
What is a Chalk Donkey?
First let’s breakdown what I consider to be ‘chalk’. Let’s look at each each price range and what is considered chalk there. (DK pricing is used for a guide)
Over 10K: >25% Anything over 25% in this range is considered chalk, and could even go down to 20%. Some weeks ownership is pretty evenly spread in this range, and some weeks one player gathers all the ownership and becomes a Chalk Donkey.
9K: >20% Again, any time over 20% of the field is on a player in this price range we would consider them a chalk donkey.
8K to 7.5K: 15%-20% This is a little trickier in this range, but I consider anyone over 15% chalk. DK has been jamming a bunch of guys in around 7.5k lately and we’ve seen guys get up there in ownership.
Below 7.5K: >10% Players are priced here for a reason, and oftentimes one or two become what I call DFS Darlings and garner a ton of ownership While you usually have to eat this chalk in cash, you want to swerve it any chance you can in GPP’s.
One thing to remember as you construct lineups, players are ‘Chalk Donkeys’ for a reason, they are perceived to be good plays. Don’t fade the ‘Chalk Donkeys’ just because they are going to be highly owned. Very rarely does no chalk hit, and often times you find some of these ‘Chalk Donkeys’ in GPP winning lineups. Fading the chalk is strictly a leverage play, in that if that player plays poorly you are in much better shape not playing them.
Jordan Spieth was the perfect example two weeks ago. 20ish percent owned and failed to crack the top 30. If you played him you probably struggled to cash your lineups, but if you pivoted to Rahm, Rose, or even Rickie you were in great shape. If Spieth would have figured out how to putt though, and you didn’t have him you were in trouble. Embrace the variance of DFS Golf!
Key Stats this Week:
This is a new section this week as I’ve seen a lot of questions about what to look for in our slack chat about what to look for in the Research Station. (some of these stats will be the same week to week, but don’t skip over it because I have new screeenshots of the RS and analysis)
Value Tab:
The first thing I look for when I open up the RS is the Value tab. Who is popping as a value this week. This is pretty easy to find as the better the value, the darker the green box.
Looking at the top this week, our guy Joaquin Niemann pops as the top value (more on him later). He’s followed by Steve Stricker, Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson and Luke List, four guys I love here this week. I’ll still play guys if they aren’t considered a great value (Kiradech’s is fairly low for the range, Horschel has unreal course history) but this helps me start to develop my player pool.
Fantasy Points/Hole:
The next stat I look at is the Fantasy Points/Hole tab. This basically looks at how many fantasy points players are averaging on each hole. While we want to find players who have a chance to win, we also want guys who score well in fantasy terms. Most of the time those go together, but sometimes they don’t.
The 7K range is going to be huge this week and where will be able to separate ourselves from others by identifying some great plays down here. Obviously we have to take other factors into account, but just looking at Fantasy Points/Hole alone, Cook, Varner, and Mullinax (especially at his price on FD, whoa) pop.
Projected Course Score:
Projected Course Score is a stat that is unique to us here at DFS Army. It takes the average fantasy points scored on each type of hole on the course, and then adds them up to give you the best “course fit” players. Last week, if you remember we wrote up Bryson DeChambeau as a great play because he had the 3rd highest Projected Course Score behind Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas. Well, he won and DJ and JT both finished T8.
Above is the top 5 for this week. Harkins is interesting at his price and so is Piercy. Could see any of these guys pop this week, so again, another great place to start crafting your player pool.
SG: Approach
Next, I look at what strokes gained categories are important historically here. To do that, I click the results by SG Tab.
When looking at this, it’s pretty clear to see that SG: Approach is king here. Players who gain 1.5+ strokes approach, finish on average around 32nd place and average about 66.4 Fantasy Points. Anytime you lose strokes you’re really in trouble, but as usual it looks like if you lose strokes approach here you are REALLY in trouble. And if you are losing strokes approach and putting this week? Watch out. Interesting that theres a premium put on putting around here. You don’t have to be a great putter to do well, but those who are gaining lots of strokes on the green look to be able to make up some ground on the field.
One trick when using the RS is to download it so you can sort each column to your liking. When I do this and sort the SG: Approach tab, I can find who is gaining the most strokes approach.
Something that Taco added this week that is going to be beneficial is two new categories in the strokes gained section of the RS. It now shows how many strokes they gained on that stat a the last tournament, the last 5, and season long. This is good because now we can see if someone just had a great week or if its a trend.
This week we have a couple of ‘scrubs’ up top though they aren’t really scrubs just guys who haven’t had a good opportunity to compete with the best of the best on the tour.. Niemann pops again and theres our buddy Scott Piercy again. Henrik Stenson is a staple in the strokes gained approach stats and finds his way into the top 5 here once again.
These are four of the things I look at when using the RS, obviously there are a million different ways to use it, but hopefully this gets you on the right track to building a solid player pool this week. Now, let’s get to the chalk donkeys!
Who are this week’s Chalk Donkeys?
In this section, each price range’s Chalk Donkey will be identified, and a few pivots will be offered. I use DraftKings pricing since that is where I usually play, but their pricing is usually similar to FanDuel and when a player pops as a value on one site but not another I’ll make sure to mention it.
Above 10K:
As usual, ownership this week will be pretty spread out. It looks like DJ and Brooks will carry the most ownership, followed by Phil Mickelson. Daniel Berger and Henrik Stenson appear to be the last two in this bunch, but its always hard to determine what their ownership will be. I don’t expect anyone to be in the 30% range, but all of them should be above 15% owned.
Usually when we have a weak field, the top end talent is minimal but we have some world class players up here this week. While all 5 of them are good options, and I can’t fault you for playing any, or all of them, I’ll try to make a case for two here.
Dustin Johnson is my favorite play here. He could legitimately just run away with this thing. His Adjusted Field Percentage is 87%. That means that on average he beats 87% of the field. Thats crazy.
His course history is also tremendous outside of his WD for a fake injury (he was seen at the US Open venue less than 24 hours later) The course suits his eye. and here is what I really like about DJ. His putting has improved tremendously.
In 2016 he was 85th in SG: Putting, and is currently 25th. You add a good putter to DJ’s skillset and watch out. He’s my favorite next week for the US Open but I think he can win here this week. In fact, I hope he does because that will actually hurt his ownership next week due to the thought that you can’t win on back to back weeks.
Another Dustin does really well that others in this range don’t is his ability to avoid Double Bogeys. He has the 4th lowest Double Bogey or Worse % in the field. You know who has a bottom 20 Double Bogey or Worse %? The guy priced right below him, Brooks Koepka. Why is this important? TPC Southwind where this tournament is being played, has the most water balls since 2003 by a wide margin. You hit it in the water and you bring Double Bogey into play every time. If there’s one concern about Koepka its that, I worry that he makes too many big numbers.
My other favorite play in this range is, you guessed it, Henrik Stenson. Stenson has only played here once in the last 8 years, a 13th in 2012 but you can’t find a hotter or more consistent golfer over the last few months. He just continues to rack up top 20’s and seems primed for a win soon. If you read this article regularly you know Stenson is someone we write up every week, but he continues to provide value.
What Stenson does extremely well is hit fairways and greens. Check him out compared to the rest of the top of price range.
Stenson is far and away the class of this range when it comes to accuracy and GIR. TPC Southwind requires accuracy as the rough is extremely penal. The long bermuda is difficult to hit it close from. Looking at past winners here, accurate hitters are key. While Accuracy off the tee doesn’t really pop when you look at past winners, it’s because of how hard these fairways are to hit in general.
Stenson’s final round at the Memorial was one that we had been expecting earlier in the week and hopefully it is a sign of things to come from him.
Again, Phil Mickelson, Daniel Berger, and Brooks Koepka are not bad plays, and I will have some shares of each, but the majority of my ownership in this range will be on the DJ and Stenson.
9K:
Well two of the six players in this range have already WD’d. I would have been all in on Keegan and Scott this week, but unfortunately for us (and good for them) they both qualified for the US Open next week and decided to focus on that.
I honestly don’t have a ton of interest in anyone here. Though if you are team Course History check out Billy Horschel.
Wow. Talk about a guy playing well at a course. I’m not going to go all in on Horschel, but I think he will be underowned (10ish %) so I have no problem being overweight.
Now it’s time for our first “Chalk Donkey”.
Tony Finau: DK $9300/FD $11700
Finau should be one of the top 5 owned guys in the entire tournament, but I don’t really see why other than lack of options elsewhere. More of his ownership will be on DK though as that Fanduel price is kind of crazy.
I don’t like Finau this week. I feel like I’m always trying to defend my stance on him, but here’s my argument this week. Tony bombs it, and is not very accurate, but usually he is able to put himself in position because he’s pretty good from the rough. But at this course, that’s not going to be possible. That driving accuracy is going to hurt him and he won’t be able to put himself in position to make birdies.
The other issue is the double bogey or worse %. I’m not going to completely fade guys on this, but I will use it for making a decision on a player. I’d much rather drop down from Finau and play guys in the high 8K range.
A par 70 with no long par 5’s is not up Finau’s alley. I’ll be grudgingly on him next week at the US Open, but will gladly let other’s chase him here thinking he is Dustin Johnson Lite.
8K:
Oh boy, welcome to the land of the chalk donkey! There’s going to be some guys in the next two price ranges that will suck up a LOT of ownership, because the assumption is that there is not much else there, and that’s where we can leverage our tools to find overlooked players.
Joaquin Niemann: DK $8900/FD $10200
The guy we crushed at 2% ownership last week has now seen not only a significant increase in his price, but will also see a massive spike in his ownership as well.
I love Niemann, and I think he has an extremely bright future, but I think now is the time to jump of the train. Not only has he played 5 of the last 6 weeks in a row, but he also played 18 holes in yesterday’s Sectional Qualifier and it appears to have caught up with him as he shot 3 over on 18 and WD’d having no shot at advancing.
He obviously popped in the first round and we were patting ourselves but he didn’t really come to close to finishing on the weekend. And now his price is jacked up as well as ownership? I’m not interested. His approach game has been fantastic in the small sample size we’ve had, but his putter has been what has held him back. He found something on the bent grass greens last week, but I assume with the switch back to Bermuda we will see him revert back to a poor putting performance.
This goes against the RS and is more of a gut play than anything, but I personally will be fading Niemann this week.
Peter Uihlein: DK $8500/FD $9900
Uihlein lit the course on fire on Sunday at the Memorial… a day after I was heavy on him in Showdown. He has been playing some outstanding golf lately and with that comes an increase in price and ownership. He may be more chalky than Niemann. He has two top tens in last 3 starts, but those three starts are spread out so he should be fresh.
Uihlein saw the course here last year, missing the cut and finishing 78th. Peter is going to be the perfect case study in why Taco adding the Last Tournament, Last Five, and Season long columns to the SG stats in the RS is hugely important.
Check out Uihlein’s approach stats. He absolutely crushed approach last week. But last five? Not so much. Season Long? Even worse. This is where we use the tools to our advantage and assume that last week was an anomaly and not the norm. Let everyone else chase that performance, there are much better options in this range.
So who are our pivots in the 8K Range? While he may be somewhat chalky my boy Luke List will be finding his way into a lot of my lineups. When we look at comparable courses to TPC Southwind, Harbour Town the home of the RBC Heritage is one that always comes up. List was T3 there earlier this year and probably should have won the event but had a poor Sunday. I’m a big Luke List on a less than driver course Truther and he showed that here last year again with a top 20 finish.
Other pivots I’m in on are other “brand” guys for me or guys I seem to like every week. Steve Stricker is just as solid as they come. He just rips out solid finishes every time he pegs sit on the PGA Tour. He only has one appearance here in the last ten years, but it was a 2nd place finish 2016.
Check that stat line out, it’s beautiful. Everything we want here. The one thing that has actually been holding him back is his putter, which is not normal for Stricker as he has been traditionally on of the best on tour. We always run the risk of an injury with the old man, but last time it looked like he was going to WD, he birdied like 6 of the next 9 and was sitting in the lead!
I’ll have some Kiradech Aphibarnrat in this range too. He’s not a great course fit, but the guy has game and just continually shows up. Played very well at the Memorial and hopefully can keep that rolling here this week.
7K:
Ben Crane DK $7400/FD $9100
I never thought I would write this, but Ben Crane is going to be THE chalk in this range. And it’s not even going to be close. We’re talking 18-20% Chalk. Everyone and their mother is going to be rolling out Ben Crane this week.
Is Ben Crane playing well right now? Yeah absolutely, he hasn’t missed a cut since Pebble Beach back in February. Does Ben Crane still wear a stupid wide brim hat and long white sleeves on a hot day? Yeah absolutely. Oh, thats not enough to get you off him this week? Fine. When in doubt I always go back to our RS to prove my point.
.59 Fantasy points per hole. That’s maybe the lowest I’ve seen of a guy people were talking up in the DFS community all week. His projected course score is also awful (Though he has played well here traditionally so take that with a grain of salt). Combine these two things with the fact that he’s going to be chalk? Come on, were talking about Ben Crane! He’s a complete fade in GPP for me.
In Cash you almost have to play him. He’ll be upwards of 40% owned. Just don’t play cash this week though. There is way too much variance with the weak field.
Outside of Ben Crane, there really isn’t anyone drawing significant buzz across the industry which is great for us as that means no one knows what their doing in this range. So lets get down to who the best pivots in this range are!
I love Trey Mullinax this week. He’s an absolute GPP Punt as his approach game is usually awful, but somehow he found his way to an 18th place finish here last year and he SCORES fantasy points. He’ll be completely overlooked but is a great option in GPP’s. Also, one of the course comparisons here is the GC of Houston where Mullinax was second this year. Harold Varner III is another bomber like Mullinax who I’ll be taking some shots on.
Scott Piercy is another favorite in this range. He is the king of SG: Approach
If you roster him be ready for the roller coaster though because he can’t putt. Like he literally can’t putt. The goal is for him to get it as close as possible to the hole so he can just tap it in. Fortunately for us he is very adept at doing that. It’s boom or bust with Piercy but I’m going to strap in and play him this week.
Braden Thornberry has been getting some buzz down here, mostly because I’m the leader of the Braden Thornberry fan club. His 4th place finish here last year as an amateur helped me beef up my bankroll big time heading into the US Open last year. The guy has a ton of game. He’s experienced, and he’s turning pro after the US Open. He sectional qualified here in Memphis on Monday finishing T4 at 9 Under. Just two strokes back of Steve Stricker. He has game, he plays well here. Yep, sign me up .
I have some interest in guys who just seem to play well here. Their stats aren’t going to jump off the page at you but they have great course history. Shawn Stefani and Chez Reavie are two good examples of that and I’ll have some shares of both.
My boy Joel Dahmen is actually getting a lot of buzz around the industry as people are finally catching on to what we’ve been talking about here the last few weeks. He continues to be a great play here as all he does is hit fairways and greens. I expect another top twenty out of him and for him to hit value.
Last name to watch and consider in this range is Lanto Griffin. Decent approach game, scores pretty well in terms of fantasy points and is a good course fit.
Below 7k:
No Chalk Donkey’s down here but there are some super punts and let me point out a few names for you that I really like. With the strength of the 7k range you don’t need to come down here but there are some guys I really like and will be playing a bit of. Don’t go all in on any of these guys but as a one off, they are decent plays and if they hit you are in good shape.
The first is Brice Garnett. I hammered him in showdown last weekend and he hit value every day. Brice just hits fairways and greens and can’t putt, but he makes enough birdies to continually make cuts. All you need him to do is make the cut and he hits value this week. I have a ton of confidence in this kids game and he has the best fantasy points/hole in this range.
The second guy I’ll be taking a few GPP shots on down here is Eric Axley. Talk about a super punt, he has only played one event on tour recently and that was the Byron Nelson where he finished 42nd. He’s 2/3 in cuts made here and while we don’t have a ton of data on him he looks like a huge value. If you want to jam in a few guys at the top you have to throw some darts and I’ll be playing some Axley this week. (He also just qualified for the US Open)
Last guy I’ll talk about down here is TJ Vogel, the Monday Qualifier. He’s Monday qualified for the last 3 events he’s played in and made the cut in all three. Again, super punt, but worth a shot in a GPP.
Final Thoughts:
As ownership trends start to finalize this week, I’ll post some updates in slack and make sure to join in and ask any questions.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been toying with some different MME strategies and last week I had a ton of success in GPP’s with it. Still want to give it one more test run and then I’ll share it with you guys, most likely with a video next week before the US Open.
Join us in Slack Chat this week and lets win some money! I’ll be there off and on all week, but will be in helping build lineups from 9:00 to 10:00 PM CST on Wednesday night getting you guys ready to take down some GPP’s.
Also, give me a follow on twitter @dfsupnorth as I’ll be posting updates there as well as useful retweets leading up to this weeks event!
