Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS PGA Golf. This week the PGA tour has the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run. This is last event before the Open Championship next week!
My name is Josh ThomasP, 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 nee
d to eat the chalk especially in cash games, and take a deep dive into some pivots using our Research Station and the Domination Station.
Last week was a mixed bag for us here at DFS Army. A lot of members had a tough Friday Cut Sweat with Kevin Streelman, Ryan Blaum, Andrew Putnam, and Ted Potter Jr all failing to finish inside the cut line and miss the weekend. Streelman and Putnam killed my cash lineup but I was able to find my way back to some positive results with Joaquin Niemann and Russell Henley, two of my core plays, makings big charges on Sunday. We also had two members finish in the top 20 of the big 100K Contest on Draftkings which was a lot of fun to sweat with them Sunday afternoon!
Course Breakdown:
Now to the course, this week they tour heads to the Quad City area for the John Deere Classic and TPC Deere Run. This course traditionally plays fairly easy and is usually a birdie fest. Bryson DeChambeau won last year with a score of -18, Ryan Moore in 2016 won with a score of -22, and Jordan Spieth won in 2015 with a sore of -20. This is a birdie fest!
We get a par 71 this week with 3 par 5’s, 4 par 3’s, and 11 Par 4’s. We have bent grass on these fairly large greens. Hitting the green’s isn’t that big of a deal this week as almost 70% of the field on average hit the green, the key is that you need to put it tight on these greens. That means that we are going to target SG: Approach big this week.
Wow, check out that scoring average. On average last year the course played -1.247 strokes under par. The back plays a bit lower than the front but the front has the easiest hole on the course in the par 5 hole #2. The cut last year was -3, but that was due to a bit tougher scoring conditions during the first round. Basically you want your players to be making birdies right away, especially if they start on the front. Any golfer you have thats coming down the final stretch Friday near the cut line you might be in trouble as 18 is the toughest hole on the course and 8 and 9 are ranked 2nd and 5th hardest with #9 giving up the fewest birdies last year and 18 having double the rest of the field in the amount of double bogeys. We could see someone fall outside the cut line with a bad hole here, or move the cut line. Looking forward to a good Friday cut sweat!!
There are going to be some high fantasy scores this week and 6/6 is going to be not only tough to come by with the pricing but essential for winning a big GPP this week. This article is a good place to start for identifying who the chalk is, unfortunately though, the chalk this week might be some of the only truly safe plays. One thing I like to do in GPP’s is to not use the entirety of my salary to differentiate myself. I can play a ton of chalk but if I come in $1500 less than the $50000 total salary its very rare that someone would have the same lineup as me. Food for thought 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 Greenbrier Classic.
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
Draftkings Value
FanDuel Value
Thank you DK and FD for giving us some value at low prices this week! With the way we have to construct rosters this week, we are going to need some value in the 7K Range on DK and the 8K Range on FD and they have provided us with some pretty solid ones! On DK they continue to not give Joel Dahmen any respect, two top 25 finishes in a row and just a very solid year in general. The odds have swayed in his favor and outside of putting this looks like a great course for him. Chez Reavie was a cash game staple at the beginning of the year, and while he has struggled a bit recently I’m going to be plugging him into a lot of lineups given his course history here. Brandon Harkins is maybe my favorite play here though. At that price he gives you a lot of opportunity to jam in some of the upper echelon guys and at a course where putters reign supreme I like Harkins a lot.
On FD, we get an entirely different set of players. I’ll probably have most of my Zach Johnson exposure in GPP over here based on the pricing. Andrew Landry and Aaron Wise will both be in my player pool this week as well and Blayne Barber has been sneaky good the last few weeks and I think at that price he’s worth a shot in a GPP or two.
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 won. Last week, Joaquin Niemann topped the list and ended up in the optimal lineup due to his great Sunday. This is another great place to look in our RS when building your player pool and has been right on the money this year.
Our good friend Brandon Harkins finds his way to the top of list. Combine his value with projected course score and he’s a lock for me in GPP at his price. No surprise, Bryson Dechambeau looks to be a good course fit here as he won this event last year. Niemann has never played here but there has not been a golfer more consistent than him the last few months. Ryan Palmer shows up here but is not someone I have any interest in. Aaron Wise is not only a good value but he looks to be a great course fit here as well. He actually finished 16th here as an amateur in 2016.
SG: Putting
I can’t believe I just typed that, but if we look at some the historical best performances at this tournament, those players are often gaining strokes on the greens. I NEVER target putters, but will use it this week if I need to differentiate between two players.
Looking at the top ten performances here since 2010, SG Approach (our next key stat) and SG: Putting have reigned supreme. So who are the best putters in the field this week? Lets look at who has been putting well over their last five tournaments.
Editors Note: I didn’t include the top two because they don’t play enough events.
If we have ever talked in slack you know I don’t put a ton of stock in putting and usually I target BAD putters in showdown slates so I’m skeptical about putting this out there but we should look at least for guys who are decent putters this week. Alex Cejka is a guy I have a bunch of interest in at his price (He WD’d DON’T PLAY HIM) . And obviously good to see a guy like Bryson DeChambeau show up here as he looks to repeat as champion.
Again, as a warning, don’t put too much stock into putting this week, but if you are stuck on two guys and have to make a decision, look to putting as that seems to be an indicator of success here.
SG: Approach
As always, SG: Approach is one of the keys to success at any course. Greens in Regulation are fairly easy to come by here with the big greens and guys will have lots of opportunities at birdies and those who hit it closest to the pin will be the ones with the most success, and thats where SG: Approach comes in. I think its important to look at how players are doing over their last five events as opposed to season or last event, so thats what I will sort here, but we should look at the other two areas to see if we can spot any trends.
Chances are if you’ve read my Showdown Notes in the last few weeks you know that these are my favorite (and sometimes not so favorite) players as they crush it approaching the green every week. Unfortunately…none of these guys are that exceptional at putting. The hope is that they will put it close enough to the pin that they don’t have to rely on their putters here. I’ll have shares of all five of these guys this week and I’ll be sweating every single 5 foot putt they have right up until Sunday!
Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the chalk donkeys:
SG: OTT, Adjusted Field Rank, Avg. Greens in Regulation Gained, Cut %, and Fantasy Points Gained. I’ll specifically look at any changes in the Strokes gained categories in the last 5 as opposed to the season for players.
StatCruncher:
One thing I’m going to start adding to this article every week is my top 15 from the Statcruncher tab in the RS. You can see how I’m weighting some of the key stats this week and where the players show up. It’s a great tool that I think is maybe under utilized so I wanted to highlight it here! Note: To use this tab you need to download the RS as an Excel Document so you can change the weighting
As you can see there is lots of names here that we’ve talked about already but also a few that we haven’t in Kevin Streelman, Chesson Hadley, Chris Kirk, and Kyle Stanley who are all interesting plays that we will get to later.
Use the StatCruncher, its a great tool! One other thing little trick to identify good plays is take away the odds to win tab by giving it a zero. This helps identify some good values that might not be given great odds to win but can still be a big part of your lineup!
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:
This week we have five players in this range, and as usually is the case, all five are excellent plays. Not only do they have great course history (outside of the rookie Niemann), but all have excellent recent form as well. So how do we pick?
I’m not opposed to getting equal shares of all five of these guys on DraftKings (I think you can jam two on FD with the value they have their) but if you want to make a game theory play it looks like the middle three with be the highest owned. Zach Johnson should be King Chalk this week and why wouldn’t he? He’s finished in the top 5 six out of the last seven times here. Thats ridiculous.
ZJ will be closely followed by Bryson DeChambeau and Joaquin Niemann in ownership. Both have been just consistently really, really good.
If you want to make the game theory play, Francesco Molinari and Ryan Moore will be the lowest owned in this range. The highest priced golfer traditionally comes in lower than we expect every single week and I doubt Moli will be any different, regardless of if he won last week.
I’m not making a stand here this week, I’ll have shares of everyone. If I had to rank them it would be as follows:
1. Francesco Molinari
2. Bryson DeChambeau
3. Joaquin Niemann
4. Ryan Moore
5. Zach Johnson
As I said, ZJ will be chalk and almost a must play in cash games, but I’m going to bank on the fact that his putter will continue to stay cold as it has all year outside of his last time out. I’ll be a little over the field on Molinari based mainly on ownership, but will have mostly equal shares of the rest. On FanDuel you can make some really interesting lineups with two of these guys mixed in with some others in the 8K range.
9K:
This is a really interesting range this week and how you play (or don’t play) it is going to determine your success here.
Chesson Hadley: DK $9500/FD $9600
Ohhhhh Chesson. He has been a staple in my lineup this year as he has come back to life after spending last year mainly on the Web.com tour following a pretty awful 2016 where he lost his tour card. He only played 8 events on tour last year but one was a T25 here at the John Deere Classic. That would have been a better finish had he not struggled to an even par finish on Sunday after rounds of 69,64,69.
It currently looks like it will be between Chesson and Steve Stricker for ownership king in this range. Chesson has a lot of upside and on first glance this feels like a course thats a good fit for him. Everything he does well should correlate to success here. He’s not as accurate off the tee, but it shouldn’t matter here. He’s got an excellent approach game, and is a solid putter. When we look at his recent results though, when he struggles with the putter he ends up playing pretty poorly.
Above is the amount of strokes he gained putting at recent events that he has played and below we have his finish in those events.
As you can see, when he puts lights out like at Quicken Loans National he is right in contention. And when he struggles with the putter like at the Travelers and US Open he misses the cut. When he has a mediocre week like Memphis and Fort Worth he ends up making the cut but not contending. I need a golfer in his price range to be contending here.
The question here is do those poor putting performances have anything in common and do the good ones have anything in common?
If we look at his best putting performances, Travelers, Players, and RBC Heritage they all come on one type of surface, Bermuda Grass.
If we look at Hadley’s worst putting performances, the US Open and the Traveler’s Championship they both come on bent grass putting surfaces.
Guess what kind of putting surface we have this week? Bent Grass. Interesting to note that he didn’t tee it up last week at the Greenbrier another bent grass surface. He’s also never made the cut at the Traveler’s. Its a risky fade because like I said he really fits here outside of the putting but its one I’m toying with this week.
I still think that Hadley is a worth a shot in GPP but I’ll be way under weight given the high ownership projections and the fact that it looks like he’s trending towards being a pretty poor bent grass putter.
Steve Stricker: DK $9800/FD $11500
Our next chalk donkey is Mr. John Deere Classic himself, Steve Stricker. Stricker has some pretty ridiculous course history here, including winning three years in a row from 2009-2011. He also has the tournament record for lowest 4 round total with a 259.
Looking at his course history and recent form Stricker is a no-brainer for me. Not only has he been playing well on the PGA Tour he has been absolutely crushing the Senior tour as well. He will be chalky and I’ll probably be underweight on him in GPP’s but he’s a cash game lock for me this week.
There are some other viable options in this range for GPP but it’s not a range I love. I have no interest in David Lingmerth regardless of his improved play over the last few weeks. Austin Cook is improved but he already has a ticket to the Open Championship and outside of last week, his form has been mediocre the past two months.
Kyle Stanley and Wesley Bryan are two plays in this range that I really like if we are looking to get off chalk Stricker (He’s 51, he does carry some risk despite being my favorite cash play) Both have excellent course history and are playing really well right now. When I think of excellent putters these two come to mind in this field and anytime you can get Wes Bryan on a course that doesn’t require him to be super accurate off the tee, I like to fire him up. Bryan sees a big price jump and is probably the lesser value of the two, but I’ll have shares of both in GPP.
8K:
This is an interesting range this week. Most of the guys are projected in the mid teens for ownership with a few getting little to none.
We have a middling group of course history here, and while the bottom end of this price range looks to be where the value is, most of the ownership is pooling towards the top.
Andrew Landry: DK $8700/FD $7900
I’m not super sold on Landry but that being said you absolutely have to play him on FD. I’ll have little to no ownership on DK where he’s projected to be pretty highly owned (15-18%) but I don’t care on FD especially in cash games. He’s got a 9th place finish here in 2016, a winner on tour this year, he’s just in a smash spot at that price tag it just makes no sense.
One word of warning though, he just got into the Open Championship yesterday as an alternate. I don’t think he’ll WD but theres a chance, so check with us in slack. I’ll be up before lock tomorrow looking for any news on Twitter about WD’s as well and will send a channel ping in slack if something were to come up.
Chris Kirk: DK $8900/FD $10,400
Kirk’s been getting a lot of buzz in the industry, but hasn’t teed it up since a 6th place finish at the St. Jude. He does a lot of things well and is a pretty ‘safe’ play but I just don’t see him having the upside to win this tournament, which is something I need when paying a premium here. I think he’s a good cash play, but I’m not going to force him in anywhere I’ll let others chase.
While Brian Gay doesn’t have very good course history, you can’t deny his recent form.
The guy has been knocking on the door for weeks now and he’s ready to pop. I really think he has all the tools to win here this week and at 53-1 I’m willing to take a chance on him not as an outright bet, but in my DK Lineups as well. The course history aspect makes me a little nervous for cash but I think he’s viable. Won’t be super high owned, but will still push 15ish percent.
The other option in this range that I love in GPP is Aaron Wise. His game sets up perfectly here and thats evidenced by the fact that he finished 16th here as an amateur. His approach game was slumping a couple weeks but last week even though he missed the cut (Cold putter and ARG game.) he improved drastically in that area. He has one of the highest projected course scores in our model, and is someone that I’m going be plugging into quite a few lineups.
Scott Piercy is getting a lot of love this week due to be a stat model wonder boy but until he figures out how to consistently make 3 footers I’ll be off him.
Sung Kang will be virtually unowned which I think is a mistake. He has the potential to blow up and shoot 85 but he can also go low. In 2016, the last time he played her he was coming in with AWFUL form and managed to shoot 4 rounds in the 60’s and finish T16. I like him as a GPP Flyer.
Kevin Streelman, Patrick Rodgers, and Kevin Tway are all viable options as well and may end up part of my player pool.
7K:
Another massive 7K Range this week with only one player sticking out like a sore thumb as chalk.
Joel Dahmen: DK $7600/FD $9000
If it feels like we’ve been on the Dahmen train for a long time its because we have. I’ve been hammering how good his iron game is in this article every week all the way back to May. Now the rest of the world is catching up to us though and it looks like Dahmen could push up into the high teens in ownership this week.
Guess what? I don’t care. He’s an excellent play this week. Eat the chalk and differentiate else where. Another guy who is just waiting to pop. Couldn’t quite get it going enough to finish last week but I think he wins at some point this year and unfortunately if its not this week it’ll probably end up being in the swing season. I’d be a little wary of using him in cash due to his poor putting recently, but he’s just way to good of a value down here.
So if we’re going to eat the Joel Dahmen chalk, we need to differentiate with some low owned plays elsewhere in this range. There are a few other ‘chalky’ plays that I like that in this range so I’ll list those off first and then get to the low owned gpp plays I like.
Chalk 7K GPP Plays:
Corey Conners, Brandon Harkins, Chez Reavie (may end up being more owned than Dahmen), Bronson Burgoon (Super mispriced on FD) and Harold Varner III, are all great plays down here and I can get on board with rostering all of them.
Viable 7K Punts:
Cameron Percy: DK $7100/FD $7700
What if I were to tell you that there was a guy who finished twelfth here last year and has made 6 of his last 7 cuts in a row at this low price you’d rush to roster him right? Well here we are and that player is Cam Percy. He is quietly having a great couple weeks, no spectacular finishes, but enough to be a viable option and he actually scores pretty well in terms of fantasy points, gaining points on the field which not many others in this range can say.
Scott Brown: DK $7100/FD $7300
Scott Brown is another viable punt here as someone who has had a bit better form recently and has some pretty dang good course history here and for someone who has traditionally been looked at as an awful putter, he’s actually gaining strokes there over his last three tournaments. He’s a great GPP play in that he can top ten or MC.
Mackenzie Hughes, Troy Merritt, and Richy Werenski are all also in play for me this week.
Below 7K:
As usual there will be no real chalk down here so we will highlight a few of the plays I really like.
Nick Hardy: Finished 55th here as an amateur last year and played his college golf at the nearby University of Illinois. Made the cut and finished 61st at the Travelers a few weeks ago in a stronger field.
Lanto Griffin: Has strung together a couple of nice tournaments with four made cuts in a row, including at the US Open. Great putter who should fit well here since his biggest downfall (Driving Accuracy) shouldn’t matter as much.
Chad Campbell: Right at 7K, he’s made 7 cuts in a row here at the John Deere. Currently not playing the best, even though he made the cut last week for the first time in a while. Worth a flyer based on course history alone. 3 out of his last 4 tries here have been top 15 finishes, with the other a 28th place finish.
Vaughn Taylor: Probably the highest owned player down here but for good reason. He’s just been playing really well despite a poor finish Thursday last week that caused him to miss the cut. (I blame having to play with Smylie Kaufmann) Good punt that should be pretty safe here.
Weather:
It’s going to be a scorcher in the Quad Cities area this weekend with temps climbing into the 90s every day. Chance of storms on Saturday/Sunday afternoon, and really in the Midwest when we have temps this high and humid theres a chance of pop up showers and storms every day. No draw bias at this point so fire up whoever you feel comfortable with.
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.
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 huge 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!