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
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St. Jude Classic Recap
Tony Finau, Byeong Hun An, Keagan Bradley
With all three players within a few hundred dollars of one another on DraftKings I thought the range made for an interesting talking point. Shortly after writing the article Keagan Bradley withdrew leaving just Finau and An. As discussed within our SlackChat, we felt most of the ownership would fall on Finau and with a bad course fit he was fadeable in GPP’s. Although I still played Finau and An, I went underweight on both and the missed cuts did not destroy my line-ups for the weekend.
Brandt Snedeker – T6
Early on in the week I thought Snedeker made for a great play but would likely be chalky. As the week went on it become more apparent that Senedeker will not be one of the highest owned plays and I was all over it. Snedeker finished T6 and came in under 10% owned across many DraftKings GPP’s.
Joel Dahman – MC
I liked Dahman in what was a relatively weak field overall. Dahman came in with good numbers in the stats I was focusing on for the week. However, there is plenty of variance in golf and despite the good numbers Dahman was unable to pull together two rounds on route to narrowly missing the cut.
Shinnecock Preview
The second major of the season will be taking place in Long Island at Shinnecock, a 7,445-yard par 70. As most of you know, this course is very long and although it is a par 70 Shinnecock measures longer than the average par 72 on tour. Along with the length, we will see incredibly fast greens (14 on stimpmeter) as the USGA always does their best to make the U.S. Open as tough as possible. Because of the conditions, we often see a specific type of player rise to the top of the leaderboard at U.S. Opens. Typically, we see guys like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and other like players atop the leaderboard. However, it is not just length off of the tee that is necessary as both shots gained approach and shots gained around the green are crucial to success this week. I will be breaking down more so exactly what I will be keying in on this week in our company SlackChat while also showing which specific stats we track here at DFS Army that will be important for me this week.
Because of the U.S. Open format, we also see only the top 60 plus ties move on to the weekend, although this is not as big as a different as the top 50 we see at the masters any change to the cut format warrants looking at your process and tweaking line-up construction. As the week goes on, I will (and I’m sure our other coaches will weigh in as well) discuss how the cut changes impact how I construct rosters.
Overall, as I said I wont be going to in depth with a course preview this week. There are multiple breakdowns out there that stress similar characteristics that will be vital to success this week. Because we are all looking at the same stats I think the advantage comes from being able to find the information others are missing. Using our field adjusted statistics as well as specific DFS Army stats such as fantasy points per hole I really feel there is an advantage to be had by using our DFS Research Station.
Picks
Dustin Johnson – DK: $11700 FD: $12400
The top salary on both sites is sure to be popular for quite a few reasons. The new world #1 is coming into the event fresh off of a dominating victory. Also, there is really no better course fit imaginable then Shinnecock for DJ. With the overall softer salaries that come with a major event you can easily afford DJ while still building a solid team around him. All of this makes me believe DJ will surely be the highest owned top-end salary and likely the highest owned player on the slate. However, it is really hard to not play DJ this week. I will forsure have ownership of DJ in GPP’s I am just not sure how much at this point.
Justin Rose – DK: $9900 FD: $12200
Rose is in an interesting spot this week because he is the 2nd highest salary on Fanduel while being the 7th highest salary on DraftKings and much more affordable. Rose has been incredible this year and has reminded everyone why he should be in the conversation with all of the best in the world. As a past U.S. Open champion, Rose definitely has the game to compete at Shinnecock. On DraftKings I expect Rose to be right up there with DJ at the 2 highest owned in the top-tier of salaries. On Fanduel, I think because of the price-tag Rose could be on the lower end of ownership in GPP’s.
Jordan Spieth – DK: $10800 FD: $11500
To me (and probably just me because I find him interesting every week) I think the storyline surrounding Jordan Spieth this week is fascinating. As far as golfers go, there hasn’t been anyone as consistent as Spieth in majors. For whatever reason the guy shows up in the biggest stages when it matters most (ignoring the Masters collapse so my narrative works). However, Spieth has also been pretty bad in relation to what we are used to seeing out of him. Spieth is coming into the event off of a missed cut and had failed to finish inside of the top 20 in his last four events. All around Spieth there are multiple players you can make a case for and because of this I would expect Spieth to be the lowest owned of the top-end salaries, despite the fact he is a favourite of the public. If Spieth ends up being low owned I like taking the former U.S. Open winner in GPP’s. I will definitely talk more about Spieth in our SlackChat this week.
Hideki Matsuyama – DK: $8900 FD: $10300
It seems like everyone is forgetting about Hideki and just how good of a golfer he is. Hideki is coming in at a price point where he is surrounded by great, second-tier options and I think he could be lower-owned because of it. Although he is certainly not having as good of a season as last year he is trending in the right direction with a T16 and T13 finish in his last two tournaments.
Paul Casey – DK: $8000 FD: $10500
It wasn’t long ago Casey routinely saw himself as one of the highest salaries on DraftKings week in and week out. Although he has not played much recently, outside of a missed cut in April Casey has been incredible and has even finished T5 and T20 in his last two appearances. I expect Casey to be highly owned because of this but for right now Casey is a cash game lock for me and a guy I will likely be going overweight on in GPP’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
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DFS Army VIP Members also have access to our DFS Army Domination Station Lineup Optimizer!
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