DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey - Wyndham Championship FREE Edition

Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS PGA Golf. It’s Major Hangover week as the tour heads to North Carolina for the Wyndham Championship

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 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.

Brooks did it again! The big game hunter took down his second major of the year and his third in his last six tries. The guy is truly one of the best in the game when it comes to pressure spots like this. Whether its the calm, steely, I don’t care demeanor or the fact that he hits it 500 yards off the tee and putts the lights out either way he is making a case to be the best player in the game right now.

I think Brooks benefited by the soft conditions in Bellerive as the course didn’t really play as it was intended to. What is typically a course that requires an excellent off the tee game and a right to left ball flight to avoid trouble was weakened greatly by the soft fairways. If you watched any of the coverage you may have noticed that Brooks did exactly the opposite of what was typically required here. He was able to hit a left to right fade off almost every tee (his most comfortable tee shot) and as long as it landed in the fairway he knew he was good because there was no run out due to the softness. The same applied on the greens as guys were able to fire at pins all week and know that the ball would stick there.

We also got TIGER back! While he contended at the Open Championship it never really felt like he was in it and making a charge. Yesterday was vintage Tiger, charging up the leaderboard from four strokes back and having a real shot at a major again. Tiger’s swing is not where it needs to be to contend and his putter was dreadful but it was all good enough to get solo 2nd place. That says a lot about where Tiger is, and players on tour should be scared if he figures it out. Its not a matter of if he will another major but when in my opinion.

As far as our picks went last week, Dustin Johnson had a poor week and never really contended. Rory McIlroy was equal parts awful as well. The Jason Day fade made some sense especially since I pivoted most of those shares to Brooks Koepka, but Tommy Fleetwood had his worst major of the year. Tony Finau fade ALMOST paid off, but he decided to make about a thousand birdies on Friday and make the cut. While he didn’t do much on the weekend he was a top ten DK scorer for the week. Fading Paul Casey, Bryson DeChambeau paid off but we had some big swing and misses like Patrick Reed and Luke List that hurt us and didn’t allow us to really take advantage of those fade calls.

Overall a pretty mediocre week for me and I’m looking forward to getting back after it at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Course Preview:

The Wyndham Championship is hosted at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina. The course is a Donald Ross design and is the only Ross design that is a regular tour stop. Some of Donald Ross’s other famous designs are Pinehurst No. 2, Aronimink, East Lake, and Seminole. He is known for his natural design, not moving much dirt to create a course and letting nature take its course and we see that here at Sedgefield as well.

The course has been open since 1926 and has hosted this iteration of the tournament since 2007. It also hosted the PGA tour from 1938-1976. Previous winners here Henrik Stenson, Si Woo Kim, Davis Love III, Camillo Villegas, Patrick Reed, and Webb Simpson.

Sedgefield Country Club is a par 70 (another par 70….) and measures around 7,127 yards depending on how it plays. We get back to the east coach and see Bermuda Greens and Fairways again after a long time spent on Bent and Poa for the tour players. Scores are typically pretty low here with Stenson winning at -20 and Si Woo at -21 (by 5 Strokes) so even though its a par 70, birdies are going to be vitally important.

Only two par 5’s but they both play more than a half stroke below par and gave up 46 eagles last year!

As a whole, the course played over a stroke below par. The front played easier than the back and if I have players looking to make the cut, they will need to make birdies on the front to put themselves in a good position.

There are 2 par 3’s over 220 yards and 2 right at 175 yards. 3 of them played under par last year, and I think that Par 3 scoring might be an important stat this week.

There’s a good mix of long, medium, and short par 4’s this week with the most difficult being the tough par 4 18 that measures over 500 yards. That tough finishing hole could bite some guys trying to make the cut. It could also be a deciding factor come Sunday.

We have added a tournament breakdown tab to the Research Station and one of the cool things it shows is what length approach shot the players are seeing the most. It looks like the most important distance for approach shots this week will be 150-175 followed by 200+. Those are key stats to look at and something we can use going forward to identify players who are good course fits.

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As a whole this course is one to be had by the modern tour pro and its been shown in the winning scores here recently. It’s not long by any means and players who are long and accurate off the tee can find themselves at a huge advantage as while the fairways are somewhat tight, the rough hasn’t been very penal in the past and the bunkering is set for another age where players couldn’t carry the ball 300 off the tee.

The biggest issue players will face off the tee is blind tee shots, but that shouldn’t be too big of a problem. There is a creek that runs through the property and comes into play on three tee shots, but shouldn’t be too big of an issue.

The greens are elevated and as typical of Ross designs they are crowned and anything off line will roll off and players will be left with semi difficult chip shots but the green complexes aren’t small and while undulating they can be had.

I think the key here will be drives in the fairway with the right angle to the greens and hitting greens in regulation to give yourself a chance at birdie. This isn’t a bomb and gouge course as players can find themselves in trouble, but I do favor guys who hit it a little farther as they can take more aggressive lines and leave themselves short wedges into the green.

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 Wyndham Championship.

Before we get into the stats this week, I wanted to provide you guys with a link to some info about Strokes Gained Data. Strokes Gained is a confusing topic and DFS Army member (And Milly Maker winner) @redkacheek has put out a great article explaining how they work better than I ever could over at his site Fantasy Golf Bag. I normally don’t link other sites but this is just too good not to share. Give it a look here! How Do Strokes Gained Stats Work?

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.

Chris Kirk shows up as a huge value here, especially on DraftKings at that price. Tyler Duncan and his 11 cuts made in a row also pops here. Kirk has course history, having played here 4 times in the last 8 years. He’s a player who we want to jump on when he’s hot and I think a 31st place finish at the PGA will give him some momentum to ride on this week. His approach game is always solid and if he can continue to putt well I think he’s a good fit here and will be able to contend. At his price it won’t take much for him to hit value.

Rory Sabbatini has two top tens in last two trips here and was on fire when the tour made the Florida swing earlier this year. A return to bermuda grass may be just what he needs to heat up again.

Steve Stricker is always a cash game lock for me and will be so again here at this price. No course history but a course that requires you to be accurate off the tee and hit greens in regulation? Thats right up Stricks alley.

Field Adjusted Greens in Regulation:

To compete here you need to give yourself a chance to make birdies and eagles and to do that you have to hit greens in regulation.

Hank Stenson pops as usual in this stat. This is a great course fit for him with his accuracy off the tee and ability to hit greens in regulation. If he can finally get his putter rolling this week he will be a great play, even at his pumped up price.

Joaquin Niemann, the stat darling, also hits a ton of greens in reg. and I love him this week. A birdie fest that requires you to hit fairways and greens? Thats right up Jocko’s alley.

JJ Henry seems to show up at events like this and was actually 16th here last here. I like the Barbasol Championship as a comparable event and Henry finished 18th there this year. You know who finished 2nd at the Barbasol? Billy Horschel. I kinda love Billy this week but I don’t love the price on DK.

Shane Lowry will probably be a full fade for me this week at least on DraftKings. He hits a lot of greens and has some excellent recent form, but he has been getting it done strictly with his putter and if that cools off he’s in big trouble. At that elevated price point I’ll probably be fading unless for some reason he ends up being low single digit owned.

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Strokes Gained: Approach (Last 5)

As always, Strokes Gained: Approach will be important, but at a course like this where you need to be on the greens to make birdies and par is considered a bogey on some holes, it is even more so. I like looking at the last 5 on our RS because it gives us a good idea of who is striking it well recently. For example if I looked at season long, Sergio Garcia, would look great as he was really striping it at the beginning of the year, but recently has been pretty poor. Daniel Berger is the opposite, not great in season long but over the last few weeks he has been on fire with his irons.

Berger shows up just like I thought he would. He led the field at the PGA in Strokes gained approach. Mackenzie Hughes has been playing excellent golf the last month or two, an 8th in Canada, and two top twenties at the Greenbriar and the John Deere and mostly that can be attributed to his improved approach game. He’s in play this week at that price.

T Duncs pops again. I love this guy and he’s locked and loaded for me at his price point. Robert Streb is interesting. Approach game has been good over the last five, regardless of losing strokes the last time out. He has OK course history but probably won’t be in my player pool this week.

Adjusted Field Rank: (last 15)

A new addition to the Research Station this week is we split adjusted field rank into 5 seperate columns.

We have it broken down into: Last 15 events, Last 25 events, Season Long, Weak Field events, and at courses that are par 70s. The # column is how many of those events the player has actually competed in. So for example, Rafa Cabrera-Bello has played in zero weak field events as he mostly is only in the US for big events like Majors and WGC’s.

Theres a bunch of ways to sort through this, but the one I want to look at this week is how they compete at Par 70 courses.

Not a huge sample size, but these four pop as having the best adjusted field rank for par 70’s and are all guys who will find themselves in my player pool. If we scan across they all have solid % in each column. What I’m really looking for is, do golfers on average beat 75% of the field. That should hit value in most events.

Fantasy Points/Medium Par 4’s:

With eight par 4’s in the medium range for us this week, this stat is going to be huge! I eliminated anyone who has less than ten rounds of data and here are the top five this week.

Webb Simpson crushes this course and you’d be dumb not to have some shares of him this week even at that price point.

Ollie Schneiderjans is an interesting GPP play that I think I’ll be on this week. Obviously he crushes par 4’s. He was 2nd here last year, and is playing some of his best golf of the year right now. He finished 59th at the PGA and 5th at the Barracuda. His off the tee game is always a concern but he’s been able to overcome that and he’s a guy who makes a ton of birdies.

Party Marty Laird is always in play on par 70s and courses that have a lot of medium length par 4’s. Just seems to really fit his game. Mediocre form coming in and theres others in that range that I like a bit better.

Davis Love III is always worth a flyer at the Wyndham as he always seems to compete. Might be better to just bet him to t20 and not waste a roster spot, but he has been playing some pretty decent golf lately. Missed the cut at the PGA but was able to shoot a 66 on Friday, one of the better rounds of the day. So we know he can still get it around and make some birdies. Finished tenth here last year coming in with similar form.

Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the chalk donkeys:

Driving Distance, Driving Accuracy, SG: Tee to Green, SG: Par 3 (long and short), Fantasy Points/Hole, and Birdies Gained. 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:

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DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey – Wyndham Championship FREE Edition