Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS Golf. It’s US Open Week! The year’s second major takes place at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
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.
It’s time for the second major of the year! The US Open takes place this week at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club out on Long Island in New York. The course has hosted four previous US Open’s, 1896, 1986, 1995, and most notably 2004. In the 2004 edition, they lost the course, specifically the greens, due to wind and heat. The greens were so hard that caddie’s were able to drop a ball on the green and it would bounce up over their head. Players were unable to hold greens and had plenty of four or five putts. I don’t imagine we see that sort of thing happen again this year, but this course is no doubt going to be a beast and a difficult test for the players.
Measuring at 7,440 yards and playing as a par 70 this will no doubt be a stout test of golf. Only two par 5’s and only one with real eagle opportunities will keep the scoring low. Par 4 scoring will be the key here, with 7 par 4’s falling into the “long” range on our RS. There are 3 shorter par 3’s, and one that is almost as long as a par 4 at your local municipal course measuring in at 252 yards.
The greens are poa annua mixed with bentgrass, something we rarely see on the east coast, which may be a benefit to guys we see play well on the west. The fairways have been widened a bit since 2004, but landing zones have been tightened, looking to punish bombers. Anything off the fairway brings bogey or worse into play. The greens aren’t small, but with the length of the rough, the wind, and the us open conditions of the green they will be tough enough to hold from the fairway, let alone from long rough.
The field is 156 this week, yet with half coming from sectional qualifiers, we really only have 70ish players that can contend. The cut will be top 60 and ties. As usual with any us open, there will be carnage, and often times a chalky player will blow up and miss the cut (see 30% owned Dustin Johnson at Erin Hills last year) Last year the the 6/6 percentage in the Milly Maker was 3%. While I don’t think it’ll be that low again, its possible, and its very possible that 4/6 will be able to cash in double ups and 50/50’s.
There are a variety of contests this week and some of the GPP’s are very top heavy. It’s important to understand the payout structure of the contests you are entering. If you the payouts are top heavy you want to make a riskier lineup and stay away from safety. I hate the payout structure of the Millionaire Maker, but I understand the draw and if you are going to enter I would enter trying to win the thing rather than just Min. Cash. If you have questions, shoot me a DM in Slack.
Ownership is going to be massively important this week 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 for the US Open.
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. The value tab looks at Vegas odds and our projections, versus the salary FanDuel or DraftKings have assigned to that player.
This week we project Emiliano Grillo as our best value and we have a good mix of salaries here. Honestly, you could build a pretty solid lineup from any mix of these 8 guys.
Here’s the issue with the value tab though, we think their a value, but so does everyone else. Of these 8 players, I think 3 will be among the highest owned on the entire board (Justin Rose, Tony Finau, and Paul Casey). All three 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 Johnsontopped the list and won, while Bryson Dechambeau was 3rd the previous week and one. I use this stat to really start to build my player pool.
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.
Phil Mickelson comes in with the best projected course score, followed by Justin Thomas, both players I love this week. Chesson Hadley shows up again and is an intriguging play this week as well.
Fantasy Points/Long Par 4:
With 7 of the holes on this course falling into this category, how players score on Long Par 4’s is going to be essential to building a winning lineup.
Henrik Stenson tops the list here which is not surprising as he has one of the best projected course scores as well. The 3 big R’s: Rose, Rahm, and Rory all make the list two and make great plays. I’d like to say Scott Piercy was going to make my player pool this week, but after his awful performance putting, approach, and off the tee last week, (basically his entire game) and subsequent WD, I won’t be touching him in any lineups.
Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the chalk donkeys:
Driving Distance, Driving Accuracy, SG: OTT, Double Bogey or Worse %, and as always SG: Approach.
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:
Dustin Johnson: DK $11700/FD $12400
Well, as fun as it was to watch DJ tear up the field last week at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, it probably increased his ownership by about 5% points. He’s the highest priced player on both sites and its not often that we see this spot go highly owned but with the premium put on length, accuracy, and approach here this week, DJ will be sure to garner 25% ownership in most contests, making him in my eyes a ‘Chalk Donkey’. But does that mean we can’t play him?
Boy…that’s sexy. So much green. The only thing that gives me pause is that Driving Accuracy % but even with it under 60% he doesn’t make a lot of big numbers. Off the tee, approach, adjusted field percentage, everything is top notch. That adjusted field percentage means that he beats 87% of this field on average.
DJ’s long term form shows that he finishes in the top 5 of a tournament 34% of the time. Thats insane. Top 10, almost 50% of the time. You can fade DJ, but do it at your own peril.
It makes sense to fade him from a game theory perspective if you are only playing one lineup. At 25-30% ownership, if he misses the cut you are in great shape. But remember it’s the US Open and getting guys through to the weekend is always a challenge. In Single Entry I’ll be mostly fading him, but in GPP I’ll be overweight in most of my MME.
So where do we go from DJ? Let’s look at the rest of this salary range. To do it unbiased though, I took their names off and gave them numbers instead.
Golfer #4 has the best adjusted field average and made cut%, but struggles with double bogey %, and his approach game is the worst of this group over the season, and the last 5 events.
Golfer #1 has the worst stat line here, though he does hit it farther than all of the others. His approach game at his last event was also pretty poor, but seems fairly consistent in Off the Tee stats.
Golfer’s 2 and 3 are pretty similar, though #2’s off the tee stats were not good last time out, and 3 has a bit better greens in reg%. #5 is solid all around, though is the shortest of the bunch.
At this point, If I had to pick one I’m probably going with Golfer #3 and hoping his OTT game comes back this week. But lets take a look at how they score on the types of holes we have here at Shinnecock Hills.
Golfer #2 has the best projected course score by a mile, and also crushes Fantasy Points/Hole. Golfer #3 is the best of the bunch in Long Par 4’s, followed by 3, 2, 4, and 5.
Going off this, if I had to rank them in order it would be 2, 3, 4, 1, and then 5. So who are they?
#1 Rory McIlroy
#2 Justin Thomas
#3 Jordan Spieth
#4 Jason Day
#5 Rickie Fowler
If I had just looked at this range with names, there’s not a doubt in my mind that Spieth would have been ranked 5th, yet I have him second. He can’t putt to save his life (though he did gain strokes last event out with the putter) It’s important to look at the stats sometimes without name bias as it can get you on a play that you otherwise wouldn’t have been. Spieth is a huge gamble, but could pay off huge. His ownership will most likely be in the 10% range, and for a player of his caliber, I can justify being overweight a bit on him in GPP.
I love Justin Thomas, and he will be owned around 20%, but I might be making a 40% stand on him. He’s got a great course score, and has been the most consistent player on tour this year.
9K:
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GPP Punt:
One of my favorite plays though down here, and believe me this is an absolute punt, but a guy that Taco and talked about on the podcast is Dean Burmester. He’s min priced but is the 110th ranked player in the world, and was high enough at one point that he actually played in the WGC-Mexico this year where he finished 30th. He’s on a string of good form recently and with a T12 at the BMW PGA in a solid field we know he can play with the big boys. He also absolutely hammers the ball.
Final Thoughts:
Good luck this week, it should be a great tournament and while I don’t enjoy listening to hours and hours of Joe Buck, Fox’s coverage really is excellent. Hope I see some of you guys in the slack chat tonight, conversing with the best community in DFS, I’d put my money on one of us taking down a big pay day this week!