Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS PGA Golf. It’s time for the WGC Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club where everyone in the top 50 is teeing it up!
My name is Josh Thomas, and I write 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.
Wow, what a week at the RBC Canadian Open! I ended up not going 100% DJ (only 46%) but I should have because he looked untouchable all week. We had some great calls with Keegan Bradley finishing second, and Tommy Fleetwood, Abraham Ancer, and Joel Dahmen snagging top tens. We also swung and missed on a couple guys like Sergio Garcia and Fabian Gomez.
We had a couple members who definitely didn’t swing and miss though as we Oysterdood took down 100K and kngof9ex snagged a ticket to the Fantasy Golf World Championship on Draftkings which has a top prize of 250K!
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Course Breakdown:
For the second week in a row we are saying good bye to a course and this week its Firestone Country Club. Firestone has hosted the WGC Bridgestone Invitational (or some iteration of it) since 1962. It’s hosted PGA Championships in 1960, 1966, and 1975. The course was originally designed by Burt Way when it opened in 1929 but underwent a major redesign in 1960 by Robert Trent Jones that extended it to 7100 yards and it was further extended in 2007 to its current length of 7400 yards.
At 7400 yards, this par 70 is one of the longer courses on tour but with wide generous fairways you don’t have to be extremely accurate to give yourself a chance. Looking at the hole by hole breakdown, the first thing that stands out to me is that this course plays over par. Now thats not rare on tour, but for a course that hosts 70ish of the best golfers in the world every year it shows how tough this course actually is. Hideki Matsuyama made an absolute mockery of this course last year with his run away score of -16 but don’t let recency bias make you think this is a birdie fest because its a not. Par is a very good score here.
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We have twelve par 4’s this week, four par 3’s and two par 5’s this week. Seven of the par 4’s measure over 460 yards! Long drivers who can find the fairway and are good with long irons into greens will be the key to success this week as this course. One would think the players might get some relief on the par 5’s and be able to make some birdies there and while they both played under par last year, the par 5 16th that measures 667 yards traditionally has played over par as a three shot hole for even the longest hitters.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, three of the par 3’s measure over 200 yards. While there isn’t a lot of trouble in terms of hazards, this course is TOUGH.
We get an interesting mix of grasses on the green this with pencross bentgrass mixed with poa. We don’t see a lot of pencross in fact this is the only stop on tour with it but it perfroms very similarly to the bent we see most weeks. With the poa mix you’ll see the greens get bumpy in the afternoon so if targeting guys in showdown I like early tee times.
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.
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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 WGC Bridgestone Invitational
Value Tab:
The first thing I look at every week when I open up the RS is the Value tab and at a major it is no different. 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.
What we find is a lot of midrange guys who I really like this week with the way pricing is. Most people are going to build Stars and Scrubs (if you can call some of these players scrubs) and a balanced approach loading up on the 8K and high 7K range might be the way to go.
Zach Johnson is one of my favorite plays this week and if you are playing cash (which is a bit tricky in a no cut event) he’s an absolute lock for me. At what many consider to be a a ‘bombers’ course ZJ and his 292 yard driving distance have 4 top tens in the last 7 times here. He is someone who is patient, makes pars, and when he gets an opportunity at birdie he drops em. I love ZJ this week.
The rest of this group have played here three times total between the 4 of them. Grillo was 50th last year and 14th the year before and Xander Schaufelle was 13th last year. All four have been having outstanding this year and will most likely be part of my player pool.
SG: Off the Tee
Driving the ball well is going to be key here and Strokes Gained Off the Tee does a good job of combining driving accuracy and distance and showing who is really the best overall driver of the golf ball.
No surprises here as when we think of excellent drivers of the golf ball these guys all come to mind. Gary Woodland presents an interesting value but for some reason he has AWFUL course history here never finishing better than 19th. Bubba Watson also is an interesting case as this is a course you think would be a ‘bubba course’ but he only has one top 5 mixed with a bunch of mediocre 20th/30th place finishes. At his price this week though I think you can justify the talent and hope he pops again.
Strokes Gained: Approach (Last 5) –
As always, we want to target SG: Approach but I think it is going to be vitally important here as players are going to have long irons into greens that are rolling around 12 on the stimp. With the lack of birdies on the course the closer guys can get the better.
You’re going to start to see a trend and thats Dustin Johnson being on top of every single statistical category. The guy is just absolutely crushing it right now and here he is again, tops of the approach game over his last five.
Others we find here are approach king Henrik Stenson who had an OK Open Championship coming off that elbow injury and now heads to a course that requires him to hit driver on most holes which is not something he has traditionally done well at, though his course history here is pretty good. Justin Rose and Francesco Molinari are two of the hottest golfers on the planet and their success recently has been due in large part to their great approach game. Rose’s off the tee game at the open championship concerned me a bit and if you miss the fairway here you are really dead so I might be tempering my expectations of him this week.
Greens in Regulation (field adjusted):
We want to target players who are hitting greens in regulation at a high clip because this will give them the best chance at birdies, or at worst par (which is a good score this week) here’s whose leading the field adjusted greens in regulation percentage this week.
No surprise that we see Stenson and DJ up top, but I do like the rest of this group quite a bit. Thorbjorn Olesen is one of my favorite plays and he did us a solid with a great performance at the Open Championship. His recent form has been excellent and he’s a great driver of the golf ball I like the price, especially on Fanduel.
Adam Scott is another guy I’ll have quite a few shares of as a course horse. Former winner here and he’s just been consistently really good here, even when he was going through some rough times with his own game.
Ross Fisher has had two pretty mediocre performances here in his career but might be worth a flyer in GPP.
SG: Around the Green
Not something that I usually target but if you aren’t going to hit the greens here you better be dang around them. Having a good around the green game can save you a lot of strokes around Firestone CC.
Thorbjorn Olesen pops here again, but he doesn’t have a huge sample size. On the European tour he is only at .178 strokes gained around the green but he is 32nd in scrambling where he saves par after missing the green quite often.
Jason Day and Tiger Woods have some of the best Around the Green games on tour so them leading her is not eye opening, but both will find their way into my player pool this week. I think Tiger’s expectations should be tempered but I’ll get to that later.
Projected Course Score –
Projected Course Score takes the Fantasy Points that each player scores on the type of holes on that course (short par 4, long par 5 etc.) and sums them up to see who is really the best ‘course fit’ here.
With the amount of class players in the field, you really can’t go wrong with anyone but its interesting to see a few names up here. Justin Thomas is going to be the chalk of the chalk this week just due to price. It’s going to be hard to fade him down there but maybe we see a bit of depressed ownership since his recent form is as good as some of the others. I really like Phil Mickelson in a no cut event that requires you to make lots of birdies to score. He might finish 30th but have a top ten DK score. Zach Johnson shows up here again too and is quickly solidifying himself into my core this week.
One thing to note in the RS, we have recently gone to field adjusted Driving Distance, Driving Accuracy, and Greens in Regulation. This gives you a better idea of how players are doing compared to the field.
Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the chalk donkeys:
Adjusted Field Rank, Fantasy Points/Hole, FP/Long Par 4, FP/Short Par 5 and SG: Putting. I’ll specifically look at any changes in the Strokes gained categories in the last 5 as opposed to the season for players.
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Who are this week’s DFS 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:
Justin Rose has WD’d with back spasms and won’t be playing this week.
There are six players up here this week which is one of the largest groups we’ve had in this price range all year.
There are no real bad options in this range and I think some people will have paralysis by analysis trying to pick who to use in this range. Personally, I’ll have shares of everyone, but I’ll really be making my decision based on ownership and theres one player I think we can look at fading based on how highly owned he will be and what I think his likely outcome will be here.
Tiger Woods: DK $10,800/FD $11300
Whoa. I know. Fade Tiger? I’m entertaining the idea and let me tell you why. Right now, Tiger is projected as the highest owned player here by a long shot. He might even be higher owned than Justin Thomas who at $8,800 on DK is easily the best value on the board. I’m sure you’ve heard at least a million times this week that Tiger has won here 8 times. Outside of Augusta, this might be the place where Tiger has been his best. So why fade him?
For me its a question of, is he really back? Tiger at 8.8k and I’m all over him, but now as his price and odds have climbed you are forced to make a decision, is Tiger back? Are you willing to lock him in as your number one player in your lineup? I’m the biggest Tiger fan boy there is, but I don’t know if I’m there yet.
Tiger hasn’t played here since his WD after 54 holes in 2014, and while he’s still Tiger, he’s a different player now. Where have we seen Tiger have success this year? Courses that forced him to club down and not hit the driver. Firestone CC is NOT that place. He’s going to be forced to hit 10-12 drivers here and with his struggles with that club I think he might find himself in the thick rough or tree line and be unable to make enough birdies to contend.
I think Tiger has a good tournament and finishes top 20, but that doesn’t play off his salary. Maybe he wins and I’ll regret not being on him heavier, but I’ll be well underweight on him this weekend while everyone chases the 8 win Tiger.
No one else up here is going to garner a ton of ownership as it will be spread out fairly evenly. Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose will be the next highest owned here but I think my favorite play in this range is Rickie Fowler.
Fowler just does everything well. He’s not flashy in any area but he’s consistent. He scores well, he drives the ball well, his around the green game is good, he doesn’t make a lot of bogeys. Oh yeah, he’s also got 4 top tens in a row here. We get the guy with the best course history and arguably the best chance to win at a huge discount. I’ll be starting most of my builds with Rickie and going down from there.
Rory McIlroy is my next favorite in this range and will most likely be my second highest owned up here. Another player who is starting to heat up and has excellent course history. DJ, Rose, Spieth and Tiger are all excellent plays and could very well win, but I’m hitching my wagon to Rory and Rickie this week.
9K:
We get a real small five man 9K range with no real chalk this week.
This is a tricky group this week, and really may go underowned outside of one guy who is generating a lot of buzz due to his unreal recent form.
Francesco Molinari: DK $9400/FD $11,200
The hottest golfer in the world will be the highest owned player in this range this week and regardless of ownership I’m probably going to get off the Moli train this week for no reason other than he’s due to come down from his high.
After playing fantastic golf for 6 weeks in a row, Moli came into the Open Championship with great form but wasn’t a great course fit, or so we thought as he went on to win the whole thing as he was steady all week and only made 2 bogeys over the last two days.
Theres’ no real statistically reason to fade him other than he’s coming of a major win and typically we don’t always see guys perform their best following a major win. Is Molinari going to break with tradition and contend here? It would be weird for someone who has never finished inside the top ten here to all of sudden contend but if theres a guy to do it I guess it would be him. For me it’ll be almost a full fade of Molinari this week.
Unfortunately with the stacked field you are going to have to fade some of the best golfers in the world, and for me that will be Moli this week.
I find it interesting that Tommy Fleetwood is priced up here this week (and every week for that matter) among the major winners as he’s really never won anything of significance. Fleetwood was 28th here last year but I really think this is a mispricing, he should be in the mid 8K’s I’d much rather play Justin Thomas or Brooks Koepka with the cost savings for a similar result.
Henrik Stenson is probably overpriced here but I’m comfortable playing him. (NOTE: Elbow is still bothering him. I’m not off him completely but will be dropping my ownership a bit) He may struggle a bit off the tee and have longer shots into a lot of these par 4’s if he’s whacking three wood off the tee, but his approach game is so superb that he can make up for it, even with long irons. I worry a bit about the putter but the faster greens should help him.
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8K:
With the main build being projected as Studs and Duds we could see the majority of this range outside of two go criminally underowned. Loading up on this range might be a contrarian build this week and I really like what you can do with some of the value here.
Justin Thomas: DK $8800/FD $11400
What the hell DK?!?!?! The number three player in the world is priced in slot number 13! Ugh. My initial thought was I was ready to load up on JT this week as he tries to get things back on track after a less than stellar couple of weeks, unfortunately DK priced him here and made him instantly MEGA CHALK. I can’t see him being less than 25% owned at this price point this week. Maybe thats a good thing though as we can pivot off him to others at less ownership who have the same sort of winning upside as JT.
As far as playing JT, I’ll have some shares especially in cash games where he really should be 70% owned. There is a case to fade him entirely in GPP though as the chalk.
His off the tee game has been abysmal with one of the lowest field adjusted Driving Accuracy %’s of anyone playing this week and that could be why he has struggled in his two outings here, never cracking the top 25.
Its a fade at your own risk proposition as if he wins this thing and you don’t have him you’re in trouble, but with his recent form and his struggle off the tee I think I can afford to either full fade or be way underweight this week.
Paul Casey: DK $8600/FD $10800
I was surprised to see that Casey was generating a lot of buzz this week and looking to be highly owned this week coming of a rather mediocre performance at the Open Championship. He had a 2nd place finish at the Travelers where he blew the lead on Sunday and further solidified the fact that while an excellent player, he just doesn’t win golf tournaments that often.
He has pretty good course history here for a guy who struggles to find fairways, possibly because he’s an elite par 5 scorer. I have no real hard stance on Casey this week. I think he’s viable in cash and gpp. I’m going to wait and see more what his ownership looks like late tomorrow before making any decision. He’s won of those players that I could either match the field in ownership on or have none and feel comfortable about it, because like I said he’s an elite player but he just doesn’t find the winners circle that often.
There are a couple players in this range that I do have a lot of interest in though and the two I’m going to talk about here are Zach Johnson and Alexander Noren.
Noren has notably struggled over here but his game of late is too good to ignore, especially off the tee. When you think of great drivers of the golf ball, Noren is one of the first guys I think of. He pounds it off the tee and is dead straight accurate. Putting yourself in the right position around here is key. His iron game has been a bit off the last few weeks, but he has still found himself in contention, including a come from behind win at the French Open.
His course history here is just meh but I think you can get a world class player at criminally low ownership because of those around him. We saw him garner 20 percent ownership at the Open championship and I would be surprised to see him crack 10% here. As much as Taco is a Stenson fan boy I’m a Noren fan boy so take this with a grain of salt but I think he can contend here for a win this week.
Zach Johnson might be my favorite play on the entire board this week. He hasn’t finished below twentieth since the Memorial and including top twenties at the US Open and Open Championship. He’s been absolutely on fire lately and while many might think this bombers course doesn’t suit him, the game log would beg to differ.
Thats crazy good. And while this is a tough course, ZJ has actually played good even when it was a birdie fest, finishing last year at -11 which would win most years.
My big concern with ZJ is if it rains there all week and the course plays even longer than normal. Its not enough to get me off him, but it would make me consider dropping him 10%. I’ll be making a big stand on Zach this week though and can’t see myself with him in less than 30% of my lineups.
I have interest in Patrick Cantlay and Bubba Watson here as well and won’t have much if any Tony Finau and Brooks Koepka. Not sure whats going on on with Koepka but his game just doesn’t seem right.
7K:
This is the range that is going to win you a GPP this week. There is on chalk play that I think you need to get some exposure too and the rest of the ownership will be spread so I’ll highlight some plays I’m interested in.
Kevin Chappell: DK $7300/FD $9300
It looks like Chappell is back following that spectacular performance at the Open Championship. He’s priced way down here this week and given his form prior to the British Open it would be understandable to keep him down here as he was AWFUL. But his game seems to coming back and he returns to a course he has had some success at (13th and 3rd). Chappy bombs it and is fairly accurate off the tee. His approach game is a bit of a struggle sometimes, but that hasn’t really hurt him here in the past. Chappell has winning upside down here and presents a good value. Chalk or not I’m going to have some shares.
The rest of this range should be pretty spread out with ownership so here are some guys I’m going to be on this week.
Thorbjorn Olesen: I love Thunderbear. Guy bombs it off the tee, hits a ton of greens in reg, and makes lots of birdies. Exactly what I’m looking for here. Last year he popped when he came over to the states for this event and then went on a little run of solid finishes before heading back to Europe. Will be super low owned. One of THE best values on FD.
Adam Scott: Is Adam Scott back? I think he might have started to figure it out a bit as he played really well at the Open Championship. Never contending but always in the mix and check out his course history here.
This seems to be a place he’s really comfortable at and if you remember last year and the year before it wasn’t like he was coming into this event with a ton of good form, just stringing together solid performances. This guy’s swing is a thing of beauty and put him on a course that lets him hit driver and not have to worry too much about it and hit irons from the fairway? Lock and load for me.
Charley Hoffman: Hoffman just continues to find his way to the top of leaderboards as he’s on a string of really good form. He’s great off the tee and with irons. Had a third place finish here last year and at his price seems to be a great value.
I have NO interest in crybaby Bryson or Louis Oosthuizen. Ben An is riding a heater coming in but has struggled here in his last two times playing this event. Phil Mickelson is interesting given his ability to make a ton of birdies and not finish in the top ten, but I think he will be fairly popular and I won’t have too many shares.
Luke List is the only other guy I think can put up a good score on this course down here because of his length and approach game. Putter is always a concern with Luke though.
Below 7K:
There ain’t much down here this week but there is a few viable plays.
Austin Cook at 7K is riding a string of good form and is very accurate off the tee. Has longtime caddie Kip Henley on the bag whose caddied here plenty of times to show him where to play his tee shots. Excellent approach game should help get him close enough to make some birdies. One of the better Par 5 scorers in the field.
Alexander Bjork burned us at the Open and thats exactly why I’m going back to him this week. This is his first trip to the United States which gives me a bit of pause but his game is excellent and as a virtual unknown will carry only 1-2% ownership. He’s similar to Olesen just not as well known. Can make birdies with the best of em. I’ll have quite a bit of Bjork in my stars and scrubs lineups. He’s a free square on Fanduel though. I will be using him in cash games, gpp, everything since he is min price. Basically all he has to do is not finish last and he hits value.
I have some interest in Ross Fisher, Kiradech Aphibarnrat, and Brendan Steele but not enough to heavily invest in them.
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. This is going to be a great week and I can’t wait to see some of those green screens and winning lineups!
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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!
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