It’s time for RD 4 of the Northern Trust and we have all the info you need to build a Showdown GPP winning lineup!
My name is Josh Thomas, and I’m a PGA DFS Coach at DFS Army and every week I look at who the chalk plays are in DFS Golf and who you can pivot to in my ‘Chalk Donkey’ article. I also provide notes/strategy content for the Showdown/Final Round Only golf contests on DraftKings and Fanduel for our VIP’s inside our slack chat.
RD 4 Showdown Scoring:
Here’s a quick reminder about RD 4 Showdown Scoring. There ARE points for finishing position in RD 4, as well as Birdies, eagles, bogeys, and pars.
As you can see from the scoring chart above, eagles/birdies are king. Bogeys don’t hurt you too bad, especially if you make enough birdies. Most of the time we are looking for 4 birdies, more often than not a player that makes 4 birdies will hit ‘value’ for the round. Finishing points matter to a certain extent and I’ll go over that in a bit.
Showdown Strategy:
So how do we build a showdown lineup? Should we just take the guys at the top of the leaderboard? They are the ones crushing it so just load up on as many as you can and you’ll win right? Not so fast.
Leaders/Top 10:
RD 4 Showdown scoring takes into account finishing position on DK (on FD it doesn’t matter so don’t worry about this) What I’ve found is that if you have the winner in your RD 4 showdown lineup you are more than likely to cash unless the rest of your lineup blows. In GPP I try to target 1-2 Guys in the Top Ten, 1-3 Guys that are primed to jump up the leader board in 10th-20th, and 1-3 Guys with early tee times that have the chance to go low and jump the leaderboard. This varies tournament to tournament. In Cash though I think you need to target the chalk and play 4 guys in the top 10 and 2 outside of that that are good plays. That seems to get you to the cash line most weeks.
Fantasy Points Gained/Round
In our research station at DFS Army we have a tab that is strictly for showdown and shows how many fantasy points are gained per round by each player based on the specific round. This is huge and a great way to identify guys in great spots. We also have it sorted out by AM/PM to see if someone scores better in the morning or afternoon traditionally.
Here are this week’s top ten. Some familiar names in there with Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Thomas. We will look to see if they fit some of our other criteria for guys we want to target later.
Drive the tool setting the PGA on fire!! –> Domination Station Optimizer Tutorial for PGA
SG Approach + / SG: Putting –
One thing we look at for every round are players who are gaining strokes approach and losing strokes putting. Why do we want to target guys losing strokes putting? Because that is typically the one area of a players game that can change day to day. Usually players don’t gain a bunch of strokes approach and all of a sudden lose them, but they can lose a ton of strokes putting and then gain them the next day. Here’s an example from Rds 2 and 3.
Obviously Cook’s approach game improved a bit, but it wasn’t the 5 point swing that we saw with his putting. Thats HUGE. And it ended with him shooting 68, -3 for the third round.
Finding players who do this is huge for showdown and can put you on those low owned guys that you can win a GPP with.
Weather:
Weather looks gorgeous tomorrow and there really shouldn’t be a huge advantage in tee times. We saw guys going off early today go low (Keegan Bradley) but the afternoon wave matched that (Bryson DeChambeau). I am going to give a slight edge to guys off early though.
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Player Targets:
Kyle Stanley: DK $6900/FD $8400
Stanley is super affordable on both sites and with the way he played today I want a ton of him. Gained a ton of strokes approach, 3rd in the field at 3.25 while losing over a stroke putting. Typically Kyle is not a great putter, but he’s better than what he did today. Still shot -5 while losing strokes putting. Love him in all formats tomorrow.
Hideki Matsuyama: DK $7700/FD $10,900
More affordable on DK where they actually change their pricing round to round…yes I’m judging you Fanduel. Deki is in a great spot tomorrow. Played really well today gaining strokes approach and losing putting. Would be in better position if not for a really poor round 2. 2nd in strokes gained approach for the week. His around the green which is usually a strength has been a bit of an issue too. With a couple of early birdies tomorrow he can jump into the top ten. He’s been crushing RD 4 lately and gains the 5th most fantasy points in RD 4 in the field.
Brooks Koepka: DK $11,200/FD $12300
Koepka is priced up on both sites and that combined with being 7 shots off the lead should lower his ownership a bit. Regardless though I’ll eat the chalk here. He’s a cold blooded assassin on Sundays gaining the most fantasy points of anyone in the field. Lost over 3 strokes putting today. That won’t happen again. Most likely outcome is he shoots 65 tomorrow and finds himself in the top 5 further solidifying himself as the best player in the game right now.
FADE ALERT
BRYSON DECHAMBEAU WILL NOT SHOOT MORE THAN 2 UNDER PAR TOMORROW. Sorry for the caps but felt like it was needed. He’s 4 clear of the field and won’t be nearly as aggressive tomorrow. That screams FADE FADE FADE for me. He will be more than 40% owned in most contests. Thats an easy fade for me. He should win and get the finishing points but I’d bet a large sum of money that we don’t see him in the top ten fantasy scorers tomorrow.
Final Thoughts:
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our showdown breakdowns and we will have much more in our slack chat tonight! Not a member yet? VIP Membership Sign Up! sign up now and get in with us TONIGHT!
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!