Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS PGA Golf. It’s US Open Hangover week as the tour heads to the Traveler’s Championship at TPC River Highlands.
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.
Wow, what a US Open! The wind blew, Phil ran after a putt and hit a ball while it was moving, and Brooks held everyone off on Sunday to take down his second US Open in a row! While some fans might have been disappointed with the scoring and the crazy conditions on Saturday, I personally love watching some of these guys struggle and it was highly entertaining as you just didn’t know what would happen next. Unfortunately the gong show that was Saturday wasn’t so beneficial to my pocket book, my lineups made a charge Sunday to get me back to +EV.
This week the course heads to Cromwell, Connecticut for the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands. TPC River Highlands is a Pete Dye design that has hosted a tour event since 1984 in the tournaments previous iterations as the Buick Championship and Greater Hartford Open. The Pete Dye redesign took place in 1984 and was later tweaked with input from Roger Maltbie and Bobby Weed (great golf name) in 1989.
The course has a mixture of bent grass and poa greens and fairways and is a 6841 yard par 70. As a par 70, there are only two par 5’s, so we only saw 24 eagles here last year (which is actually quite a few considering.) With 12 par 4’s and 8 measuring between 400-450 yards, par 4 scoring will be a premium. There is a good mix of easy and tough holes here. Jim Furyk shot a 58 here a few years ago (and didn’t win) and it really depends on how they set it up. The easiest hole is the par 5 6th, while the toughest is the par 4 4th. All three finishing holes played over par last year, which will make Friday fun to watch with the guys wrapping up their rounds on the back.
Last years tournament was won by Jordan Spieth with a chip in on a playoff hole over Daniel Berger, that cost me a butt ton of money. Other notable top finishers that are back in the field this year are Charley Hoffman, Paul Casey, Patrick Reed, Keegan Bradley, and CT Pan.
As always ownership will be important and finding the chalk donkeys will be huge. I don’t believe you need to avoid chalk just for the sake of fading the chalk, but some of the chalk is a bad play, and thats what we call a ‘chalk donkey’, so let’s find out who that will be this week!
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.
Key Stats this Week:
In this section, I’ll cover what I feel are some of the key stats this week. We get lots of questions in slack about what to look for in the RS and here are some of the things that I’ll be focusing on this week for the Travelers Championship
Value Tab:
The first thing I look at every week 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. The value tab looks at Vegas odds and our projections, versus the salary FanDuel or DraftKings have assigned to that player.
This week we again have Emiliano Grillo as our best value on Draftkings as they still can’t figure out how to price him. On FanDuel he comes in at 41st in value though. I think you can lock him in in cash on DK, and he makes a good game theory play for FD where will garner much lower ownership. I have some concerns with him but we will get there later. Others that pop here are the “better” Rory, who didn’t play last week and should be fresh. As well as Brendan Steele and Webb Simpson who both have fantastic course history.
Here’s the issue with the value tab though, we think their a value, but so does everyone else. All are good plays, but it might be smart to fade one or two in your player pool to help you gain an advantage on the field if they miss the cut.
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. We’ve had some real good success the last few weeks with this stat. Dustin Johnson topped the list and won at FedEx St. Jude, while Bryson Dechambeau was 3rd the previous week and one. I use this stat to really start to build my player pool.
Well lookie here, 5 guys that I LOVE this week. JT tops the list as this is a great course fit for him. I worry a bit about him coming from the US Open though (last year he missed the cut, granted he was in contention there last year) Like we said earlier, Webb has great course history and so does Brian Harman. Patrick Cantlay shot a 60 here as an amateur too. I’m going to keep sticking with Projected Course Score as the key to building my player pool for the week.
I included the FP/Hole in this screenshot as that is important, and while not something I’m going to specifically look for this week, it will be a stat I use as a tie breaker between players.
Fantasy Points/Medium Par 4:
There are 8 holes that fall into this category this week, so needless to say its going to be hugely important.
We’re starting to see players show up at the top of these lists which makes me very confident in playing them this week. Cantlay leads the field in Medium Par 4 scoring and the only new player here is Andrew Landry who at his price looks to be a good value this week.
Greens in Regulation Gained/Round:
This is a brand new stat that Taco threw into the RS this week and the timing couldn’t be better as Greens in Regulation play a huge role in success at this tournament.
Its always a good confirmation for me that a stat is important at a certain course, when the guys who have had success at that course lead the field in it. Ryan Moore, Jordan Spieth, Keegan Bradley, CT Pan, Brian Harman, and Webb Simpson all have at least one top ten here.
Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the chalk donkeys:
Driving Distance, SG: OTT, Adjusted Field Rank, and as always SG: Approach. I’ll specifically look at any changes in the Strokes gained categories in the last 5 as oppposed to the season for players.
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:
There doesn’t appear to be one guy that looks like they will garner all the ownership. There are 5 players up here as usual with Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and coming off another great performance at a major Patrick Reed. Of the 5 my guess is ownership will end up going:
- Justin Thomas
- Brooks Koepka (I still think he might WD so be on the lookout)
- Patrick Reed
- Jordan Spieth
- Rory McIlroy
These guys are here for a reason and they are all good plays, but lets break down some of the key stats from the RS and see if we can find a favorite here.
We project JT to have the most points this week, followed by Brooks and Justin. Recent form there hasn’t really been anyone steadier than JT and Brooks. Rory has popped a few times, but not has also missed a few cuts in good spots. Everyone but Rory has a top ten here at some point in their careers, but I’ll give Rory a pass as he has only played here once.
Another new stat we added this week is Avg. Fantasy Points Gained/Event. This looks at how many more Fantasy Points a player gains over the field on average and is something I like a little better than FP/Hole as a players FP/Hole stats can be hurt by playing tough courses (like last week) The top two here are JT and Jordan.
Avg. GIR gained, Spieth is far and away better than the rest of them, as well as Driving Accuracy.
Right now, I’m leaning towards Spieth and Justin and maybe Rory as a GPP pivot play but lets look at Fantasy Points on Medium Par 4’s before making any final decisions.
This confirms it for me. I love Justin Thomas this week. I know he has a MC here last year but that can be attributed to the US Open Hangover after contending there. I really think Brooks probably suffers from the same thing if he doesn’t WD and I’ll have very little of him if any (unless he is projected to be super low owned, check with us in slack). Jordan Spieth is my second favorite play up here. He’s going to pop, and guess what? He gained strokes PUTTING last week! Hallelujah.
I’ll have a small amount of Patrick Reed and though I kinda like Rory you have to make a stand somewhere and despite a top twenty finish here last year, it just doesn’t appear to be a good course fit for him.
9K:
Whoa, this range is STACKED this week. Usually we see this range being pretty small with some easy fades, but not here.
We have six top notch players in this range, all with 35-1 or better odds to win and excellent course history (except for maybe Jason Day, but more on that later) and we have two players that are going to lead the way in ownership, one that almost always does, and another because he is priced so low and has fantastic course history.
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