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DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey – Tour Championship

Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS PGA Golf. It’s the final week of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and we have the Tour Championship at East Lake GC!

My name is Josh ThomasP, 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.

We have finally made it to the final event of the 2018 season! It’s time for the Tour Championship! There are only 30 players left and they are all vying for a piece of the 10 million dollars up for grabs for the winner of the FedEx Cup! It’s crazy to think that PGA is over for the year (except for the Fall Swing but technically thats 2019 season) but it has been absolute pleasure to write this article and work with you guys in slack to build winning lineups. Big things in store for the next year and I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of the DFSArmy Family.

Anyone in the top 5 controls their own destiny, meaning that if they win the event they win the FedEx cup and the 10 million dollar annuity that goes with it. Those five are (in order):

1. Bryson DeChambeau 

2. Justin Rose 

3. Tony Finau 

4. Dustin Johnson

5. Justin Thomas 

The fact that Tony Finau is in this position after a year where he didn’t have a win says a lot about the year he has had in terms of consistency. A lot of those points were gained at Majors where Finau performed admirably with 3 Top Ten Finshes. This could be considered by some to be a major type atmosphere and maybe Tony shows up with another fantastic performance here and finally gets over the hump for a win.

This weeks article is going to take on a bit of a different look. We only have 30 golfers in the field and fading the chalk is going to be huge this week. Instead of looking at each salary range, I’m just going to highlight 3-4 of the chalkiest golfers and then look at where we are pivoting.

Course Preview:

The tour heads to East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia the host of the Tour Championship since 2005 and the only home of the finale of the FedEx cup playoffs. East Lake is a Donald Ross design from 1913 and was restored in 1994 by Rees Jones. As such it is a pretty typical classic design, tight tree lined fairways, interesting bunkering on every hole, and the holes being directly in front of you, no real dog legs or trees to hit around. Its a classic Ross in the sense that it says ‘Here I am, come beat me’.

The course plays at 7346 yards and is a par 70, 35 on the front and back. We have Bermuda greens and Zoysia fairways. Tour players LOVE zoysia fairways and a lot of newer courses are going to them when they can sustain them (typically only in the south). Zoysia is extremely springy so it gives a bit of roll to the ball and it also allows players to really fire at pins with some spin from the fairway. The Bermuda greens are of average size but typically roll around 12 on the stimp and are extremely undulated. Keeping the ball below the hole is vitally important for players looking to make birdie.

Overall, the Front 9 players harder than the Back 9, but not by much. The closing stretch of 16, 17, and 18 offer three good chances at birdies and the par 5 18th yielded 3 eagles last year which could be a difference maker come Sunday.

Medium and Long Par 4 scoring look to be the key here as those holes will play the toughest on the week. Long par 3 scoring could play a factor as well as those holes are ones you just hope to come away with par on.

Players should be able to pull the big stick out and rip it this week. At 7346 yards and a par 70 its fairly long and a lot of these holes will entice players to grip it and rip it. A bomb drive in the fairway will lead to a birdie, but accuracy will play a factor here as your chances of hitting the green with this long Bermuda rough is drastically worse than in the springy zoysia fairways.

Getting to double digit par seems to be the key to winning here with 4 of the past 5 winners reaching that total. Another important aspect is eliminating bogeys and maintaining rounds. 4 under 70 bonus is going to be big on DK and FD scoring this week.

There doesn’t really seem to be a stat correlation with strokes gained stats this week weirdly enough and it looks like our focus will be driving distance, birdies, and bogey avoidance.

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 Tour 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?

One thing I like to look at first before we get into the key stats is the Results by Stokes Gained tab on the RS as well as the Averages by Finish tab to see what we want to target this week.

When you look at these two charts this week we find a couple of things that are note worthy. The biggest takeaway that I have is that there is no real advantage to doing one thing well here and the difference between doing something really well and just average is not that big.

For example, if we look at SG: Approach for the season. The difference in average finish for guys who gain more than .5 strokes approach and those who are .o-.1 strokes gained approach is an average finishing position of 4 places. Thats minimal here.

In tournament, if you look at strokes gained off the tee, it really doesn’t matter. Everyone has an average finishing position somewhere in the teens. There really isn’t a great Strokes Gained stat that can identify who does well here as it seems that there are a variety of ways to get it done and we can’t just target one. That means that we need to take a look at a few other statistics in our research station to find an edge.

Value Tab: 

The second 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.

Fantasy Points Gained:

What do we want our golfers to do in DFS? Score more fantasy points than everyone else. This stat looks at how many fantasy points players gain on the field on average. It’s also adjusted for strength of field.

Dustin Johnson is far and a way the winner in this category. He is a notoriously good fantasy scorer and its even more evident here when you look at the fact that he is ten points better than 3rd place. Thats insane. That being said, he has a ton of personal drama going on in his life right now and you just can’t be sure where is head is at.

I don’t know who he pissed off at DK but Tommy Fleetwood is getting the Tony Finau treatment in pricing this week. He is MASSSIVELY underpriced, even in this field. He is an elite fantasy scorer and someone I’m going to be looking at when I build rosters this week.

Projected Course Score:

Projected course score takes the sum of how many fantasy points players gain on each type of hole on the course. It’s a good way to find out who is a course fit here and statistically should have success. This week with the small field, I want to look at who the top projected course scores are and who the bottom ones are.

No surprises really at the top here with the top four but its interesting that Phil Mickelson makes an appearance. His last three times here he’s finished 22, 12, and 15 and his recent form hasn’t been great but he could be a sneaky low owned play.

As if I needed more reason to fade Patton Kizzire here he is in the bottom of the projected course score ranks. Another player that is looking to be a chalk donkey is Billy Horschel and he has the the worse projected course score.

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

Double Bogey or Worse %, Birdies Gained and Long Par 4 scoring, Medium Par 4 Score, and Long Par 3 Scoring. 

One thing, that puts the DFS Army VIP’s at a huge advantage is the Domination Station. Check out how that works here! Domination Station PGA Tutorial

Who are this week’s DFS Chalk Donkeys?

With such a small field I’m changing this section of the article up this week. I’ll identify the top 3 owned players this week and then I’ll offer up three low owned pivots that can help you take down a GPP. I’ll also give you my core GPP plays. Cash is basically GPP this week with the small field and I’ll be avoiding it entirely, and you should to.

One interesting note here from my DFSArmy compadre Taco. Basically this means that the chalky players didn’t score well here. A legitimate strategy might be to just fade the chalk in general and play a bunch of low owned plays. With 30 players only this is a strategy I really like. Fortunately, thats what we already do!

When you are building this week, salary really doesn’t matter. Its more important to make ownership plays and try to find the five golfers that finish in the top 7-8 for the week. To take down a GPP you absolutely need to have all of your golfers in the top ten if not better. Its feasible that that lineup could be 5000 less than the salary cap. It’s also possible that it uses all of it. Just don’t feel bound to the salary cap this week.

And now, here my friends, are this weeks Chalk Donkeys:

Billy Horschel: DK $7300 /FD $7900 

…I don’t get it… like I’m legitimately confused. I understand that Billy Ho has been spitting hot fire the last few weeks reminiscent of his run in 2014 but Billy Ho chalk week?! I can only see this ending poorly.

I know we talked about Billy having the worst projected course score of all 3o players this week, but here is how bad it is. Remember, usually we are looking for green here. Long and Medium Par 4 scorer is just not something that Billy has done a good job over the last two years and that should be a major problem for him here.

The one Strokes Gained category that actually has somewhat of a correlation with success here is SG: Around the Green. Not that if you are elite around the green you are going to win, but to play well here you do need to have some success around the green.

Billy has had a ton of struggles around the green and particularly in the bunker. This is a classic Donald Ross design with TONS of bunkers protecting these greens. Not a good sign for Mr. Horschel.

Billy could prove me wrong here and continue his string of excellent form. At 20% ownership though, I’ll fade that all day.

Tiger Woods: DK $9500/FD $10800 

Tiger is another player that is getting a ton of buzz this week and rightfully so as he has had some decent recent form and he returns to a course that he has won at once and finished runner up at four times. Besides the fact that most of those tournaments were when the majority of this field was in junior high, Tiger should be very comfortable returning here for the first time since 2013.

The one thing Tiger does really well at least recently is hitting excellent approach shots and while I think its important here, it appears that it will be negated a bit here this week, or at least not be as big of an advantage.

And the one thing Tiger REAAALLLY doesn’t do well is hitting it in the fairway. He’s middle of the pack in this field  and 114th on tour for the year. That could be a big issue here with the long rough and regardless of how long he plays well I’m always going to be a bit nervous with Tiger in the thick rough and the risk of tweaking his back or wrist.

If Tiger gets off course here and has a hard time hitting the greens he’s going to be in big trouble this week.

Look, its really hard to poke holes in one of the best golfer in the world’s game. I hate to root against him. At a pretty inflated ownership this week though, I don’t really care to be overweight on him and instead will be fading and hoping that he finishes in the bottom half of the field.

Bryson Dechambeau: DK $8400/FD $11200 

At this price, Bryson should be the highest owned player this week and I would be blown away if he wasn’t in the top 3 of ownership.

There really is no reason to fade Bryson other than ownership this week. Well and this…

Anyone wanna guess what time the earliest tee time will be this week? 11:40 AM… if there is still dew on the grass at that point we have a problem.

Aside from the ridiculous dew practice routine, the big reason to fade Bryson, like I said was ownership. For Bryson to smash value this week he has to finish top ten. He doesn’t and you automatically get a leg up on 25% of the field. Anytime I can get a chance to do that I will.

Again, everything points to him playing well here, but if he doesn’t finish top ten and you don’t have him, you are a leg up on the competition. I’ll take that chance every time, regardless of how good of a spot a golfer is in.

GPP Pivots:

In this section, I’ll look at some of the pivot options we have in gpp to get away from the chalk donkeys above. This week I’m looking for super low owned (relative in this field) plays that could top ten if they play well. Typically this might be a player that has poor current form or bad course history but we have seen guys come out of the blue and play well here. In a 30 man field anything can happen!

Again, my main strategy this week is going to be targeting guys who are low owned and have the ability to top ten here. Projected Course Score is something I will really look among a few others that I pointed out earlier, but in a small field like this my main strategy is going to be targeting low owned plays. There isn’t any chalk I think you need to eat this week.

Phil Mickelson: DK $6600/FD $9000

I can’t believe that I’m writing him up, I never play Phil, but I’m extremely interested in Phil this week at absolutely zero ownership.

Phil has a pretty good history here but like Tiger his only win came when most of his competitors were in preschool. Outside of a weak performance last event, Phil has been trending in the right direction and this is exactly the spot I want to play him in. A no cut event that lets you hit driver and needs you to make birdies? Yep this is a Phil spot.

He has a top 5 projected course score and he absolutely crushes medium length par 4’s. The rest of the holes he’s average at but he has the best birdie gained number by 1.1 of anyone within a thousand dollars of him on DK.

Bermuda is Phil’s best surface with the putter by about a mile too. He should be fairly comfortable this week and if his approach game improves a bit he could go real low.

Phil can make birdies and you might have to get a bit lucky with him and hope that he gets off to a hot start, but in GPP I think Phil is a fantastic low owned play.

Jason Day: DK $8000/FD $10500 

Day is more of a DK play for me in this range but anytime I can get the 11th ranked golfer in the world at potential single digit ownership I’m going to be massively overweight.

His recent form hasn’t been great with no top tens since the WGC Bridgestone (a similar track to here) but he bombs the ball and when he gets that putter going he is literally unbeatable. Bermuda is easily his best surface and if he can get it going on these greens, watch out.

As always there is concerns about Day off the tee. I’ve beat the drum on that argument for the last two months. In a small field event like this though the hope is he can keep it in play enough to have good looks at the green and give himself a chance to make some putts.

His off the tee stats have been trending in the right direction and there is literally no one in the field better than him around the greens over the last few months.

Day can win this event. He could also plod along and take 21st. Thats the risk you take in GPP but I think the upside for him is huge this week with the low ownership and I’ll have quite a bit of JDay in my lineups.

Patrick Reed: DK $6900/FD $10000

Another play that is more of a DK play than FD but I love Reed here this week. Has never really played well in the FedEx cup but at this ownership/price. Love me some Captain America as he looks to build momentum going into the Ryder Cup.

Reed is another guy who typically plays well on courses like this. Some of the comp courses here would be Augusta National, TPC Sawgrass (good for Jason Day), and TPC River Highlands. All courses Reed has had some success on.

Reed’s off the tee game is trending in the right direction after a spell where he was struggling to find fairways following the Masters’ win. Second to only Jason Day in terms of around the green game in the field. And something Patrick really does a good job of is avoiding double bogeys which can kill you and any momentum you have on a course like this.

Partially a gut play, partially a statistics/ownership play but I think Captain America makes a bit of a run here as he tries to fine tune his game heading into the Ryder Cup in France.

GPP Core:

Here are the core players that I will be using to make my GPP teams this week. Obviously they won’t be the only players I use but it can give you an idea of who I’m on.

Phil Mickelson

Patrick Reed

Jason Day 

Cam Smith 

Marc Leishman 

Gary Woodland

Bubba Watson 

Hideki Matsuyama

Paul Casey 

GPP Fades:

I’m going to be outright fading these guys in GPP. If they go off, so be it, it’ll cost me money but game theory says it should be a +EV move to fade these guys and their massive ownership this week.

Bryson DeChambeau 

Tiger Woods 

Billy Horschel 

Francesco Molinari 

Justin Thomas (Wrist injury scares me off. A WD kills your lineup here. Can’t risk it unless MME)

I want to include Webb Simpson in this group but he might be the only chalk I eat. It won’t be much though.

If you want to play any of these guys go right ahead, don’t let me talk you off them, but I wouldn’t pair two of them together in a lineup.

Final Thoughts: 

This is a funky week. Be smart with your bankroll. Don’t play much. Crazy things happen at this tournament every year because of the small field size and you almost have to have the absolute nuts to win anything this week. Pricing on DK is fairly soft, but FD is way harder. I’ll have a few shares over there but not as much as DK where its just a more comfortable build for me.

As ownership trends start to finalize this week, I’ll post some updates in my coaching channel 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!

Join us in our coaching channels 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!