DFS Golf: Fall Swing Favorites – CIMB Classic

The PGA Tour’s Fall Swing head to the Far East for the CIMB Classic in Malaysia. The Field is stacked because the purse is huge and this is usually the strongest field of the whole fall swing!  

My name is Josh Thomas, and I am a PGA Coach here at DFS Army as well as an NFL Contributor and I write the Chalk Donkey article weekly for our VIPs. I’m changing up the format a bit for the fall swing and providing you with my Fall Swing Favorites, which will be my favorite plays each week taking into account ownership, projections, and game theory.

Kevin Tway outlasted Ryan Moore and Brandt Snedeker to take down the Safeway Open and stopping the 3-Peat for Brendan Steele. It’s not been a good year for 3 peats (though is there ever a good year for three peats?). Overall, it was a solid week for me, only 17 of my 25 players in my pool made the cut, but with the 6/6 number so low, I was able to successfully cash across all sites.

Sungjae Im is the real deal and while he faltered a bit on Sunday he was able to finish T4 and for 7k that is an absolutely smashing value. He was way under owned in the lower dollar tourneys compared to what I was expecting, and that won’t happen again.

Bronson Burgoon didn’t quite have the tournament I was expecting him to, but he was solid nonetheless. Patrick Cantlay had a great tournament too finishing in a tie for 17th. He struggled to string birdies together and his approach game wasn’t what it has been. My other favorite play in that range Ryan Moore had a great week and finally found the putter gaining almost 6 strokes for the week which is miles better than anything he did in 2018.

We also saw the emergence of some rookies other than Im who played great golf. Jim Knous and Chase Wright both finished in the top ten and are names to remember going forward.

This week get the CIMB Classic in Malaysia, and as I said in the opening there is a huge purse here of over 7 million dollars and lots of players are getting paid appearance fees of 5-6 figures to come over and play. The course is unique to pretty much anything we play in the States. This event is also no cut so you want to target birdie makers and players who have played here before as they often are able to figure out the course short water filled course, though this year with the new green and fairways surfaces, the field should be leveled a bit. One thing to note is that since this is halfway around the world in Malaysia, lock is EARLY, WEDNESDAY AT 7PM CST! Let’s get to Course Breakdown and Key Stats.

Course Breakdown:

The CIMB Classic is held on the west course at TPC Kuala Lumpur in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a par 72 and SHORT measuring only 7005 yards. Heck even Mr. 2 Handicap himself, @choppodong  could keep up with the big boys here and he hits it 220 off the tee.

 

It’s not quite the Sony Open in terms of super low scoring but its a similar set up to the John Deere, the last three winners have shot -24, -23, and -26 so its clearly a birdie fest.

The front 9 yielded 32 eagles last year which is a crazy number and played more than a full stroke under par. The back played a little more difficult including a tough finishing stretch of 16-17-18 (relatively) that all played just a bit under par. The par 5 18th yielded only one eagle on the week. So we can’t expect our guys to make a huge move coming in.

The course went through a major overhaul in the offseason switching from paspalum grass to TiffEagle Bermuda on the greens and Championship bermuda in the fairways. Paspalum drains extremely well and also is really grippy and slow on the greens. This course will play much differently with the surface change. Greens which were some of the slowest on tour will now run on the fast end (around 12 on the stimpmeter) and the fairways will be soggy. Traditionally they play preferred lies here anyways, but I would assume it will come more into play with the grass switch and weather forecast. Even with pick, clean, and place we should see our fair share of mudballs if it rains like its supposed to.

This is a ball strikers course with lots of wedges into greens and total driving will also be important with lots of water in play. Length isn’t that important here with it being so short, but even so we have seen quite a few ‘bombers’ litter the top ten of this event. With the soggy bermuda fairways this week, length might come into play a bit more as guys won’t see as much run on their ball off the tee.

Lets take a look at the weather, because I think that is going to play a big role this week.

Looks fun right? Rain is in the forecast every single day and there will be a lot of stopping and starting. With humidity above 75% all week, the real feels most of these days is hovering in the upper 90’s. Its going to be as much a test of who can handle the weather as who can handle the golf course. It’s a realistic possibility that this tournament gets shortened as well. Just another reason to take a few shots but not go all in this week!

One thing to consider this week is the players coming to Malaysia from the Safeway open in Napa Valley. Lets take for example, Brandt Snedeker/Kevin Tway/Ryan Moore who were all in the playoff on Sunday night that finished around 6 PM local time. In all likelihood they flew out Monday morning, its possible they got on a flight around Midnight as LAX has some flights then, but lets assume they flew out Monday morning around 6 AM California time. That means that they flew out at 5 PM local Malaysia time Monday. The average flight with connections takes around 21 hours, its possible they were able to fly directly there on a private flight, but even then its a bit over 18 hours for the flight. That would put them landing in Malaysia around Noon local time on Tuesday or later. Unlikely they would practice on Tuesday, and now its Wednesday there and raining all day. Its feasible to think that those guys won’t hit a golf ball until they are on the range on Thursday. That’s not a situation I want to target, even in a no cut event.

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 Safeway Open.

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. Typically we look at the Averages by Finish tab as well but there is no shot tracker for this event.

What this chart shows us is what type of players do well here. SG: Approach as usual leads the way and we see a strong correlation with SG: Off the Tee as well, at least for those who are really gaining strokes off the tee on average.

This is a difficult tournament to get a gauge on, as is any that we don’t have shottracker data on ,what we can look at though is the historical performances on this course and then look at the players season long averages from that year and see if there is any correlation there.

What sticks out to me here is that driving distance correlates well with good performances here. This looks at the best 345 performances here since 2014 and then shows what those players were doing well for the season prior to playing in this tournament.

As you can see there is a strong correlation to Driving Distance. In fact according to our PGA guru Taco, this is the 3rd highest correlation with driving distance on tour. While this is a short course, the bombers tend to do pretty well here, likely because of the 4 drivable Par 4’s, and their ability to attack the par 5’s. Driving Distance is something I will key on this week, as well as SG: Approach as that is next highest correlation.

Driving accuracy doesn’t correlate at all, but you do need to be accurate during the tournament, either way not something I’ll really target.

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.

Jason Kokrak leads the way here coming off a string of pretty good performances and he fits the criteria we want with a player who is pretty long driver of the golf ball. No course history here, but didn’t play last week so should be well rested.

Following up Kokrak is a guy who HAS played here before, in fact multiple times and won here when this course hosted the European Tour and that guys is Anirban Lahiri. Recent form leaves a lot to be desired but you can’t deny his course history.

The rest of these guys all interest me some, especially Keith Mitchell who has seen a pretty big positive drift so far this week in terms of odds. Abraham Ancer is not a guy we typically think of as a bomber but he gets out there close to 300 on average and though he did pull out last week with a hand injury, so carries some risk, but is a boom or bust type option.

Driving Distance:

Since we show that season long driving distance correlates with players who perform well here, lets take a look at the top five in the field in that stat.

Killa Keith Mitchell leads this list, followed by the usual suspects of Gary Woodland, Kevin Tway, and Jason Kokrak. The player that may surprise some is Justin Thomas not typically known as a bomber, the little guy gets it out there further than you would expect and I’m sure his distance off the tee has something to do with him being a back to back winner here.

Strokes Gained: Approach

Billy Ho just crushing it with approach as usual, and while hasn’t played here since 2014 there isn’t another golfer hotter than him right now. Gary Woodland showing up here is encouraging as well since he is someone who bombs it. Thomas Pieters is another bomber and if he’s been solid in approach he’s someone I want to get exposure to. Oh weird, JT shows up here too…Lock Button on him this week.

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

SG: Off the Tee, Projected Course Score, Birdies Gained, Greens in Regulation %, and  Short Par 4 Scoring 

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Fall Swing Favorites:

Typically, each week I write a chalk donkey article, breaking down who the chalk is and where you can pivot, but through the fall swing I’m going to be trying out a new format where I give you my three favorite plays in each tier as well as the other players I’m considering and those I’m fading. Chalk in the fall swing almost always has to be eaten due to the fields being not as strong as a normal tour event. I’ll also include my projection of the three highest owned players in each tier, along with my full player pool at the end.

Tiers: 

I utilize Draftking pricing, but these are applicable to any site usually.

High: Salary of 9K and UP

Mid: Salary of 7.5K – 9K

Low: Below 7K

High:

Justin Thomas is a lock button here and I believe I’ve already made a case for him, so I’ll give you another player I’m considering strongly in a high percentage of my lineups. 

Gary Woodland: DK $9700/FD $10500

If we’re going to stick with the bomber narrative here, I don’t think there is a player that is a better fit that Mr. Woodland. He absolutely smokes it off the tee (and he’s accurate) and he’s one of the best players in approach as well.

Gary’s SG: ARG stats leave something to be desired and at a course where I think he can bomb it and have a chip onto the green on some of the short par 4’s, I have some concern but not enough to get me off him. Gary crushes short par 4’s and he should be able to take advantage of the short par 5’s here as well.

Woodland hasn’t missed a cut since the Players Championship in May and hasn’t finished outside the top 50 of an event since the Open Championship. Thats an unbelievable solid string of performances. He also has two 2nd place finishes here in the past so he is comfortable with the course. The course going to all Bermuda helps him as well, Gary’s not a great putter and fast green surfaces actually benefit poor putters like Woodland, even though that seems counterintuitive.

I look for Gary to contend here for a win this week and with the value available in the 7k and below range, I think you can easily stack him and Justin Thomas together and build a stars and scrubs lineup that can pull down a GPP.

Other options in this tier: 

Billy Horschel, Paul Casey, Keegan Bradley, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Benny An, Kyle Stanley

Fades in this tier: 

Brandt Snedeker, Ryan Moore

Projected Chalk (highly owned): Will update on Wednesday

Mid:

Thomas Pieters: DK $7500/FD $9700

I’m going to stick with the bomber narrative and highlight Thomas Pieters here, but really more so than his ability to bomb the ball, what I like the most is that this a complete misprice by the DK Algorithm. Pieters is the class of this range at 69th in the Official World Golf Rankings and is more appropriately priced given his talent and class on Fanduel.

It’s a gift that they gave us Pieters at this price, because its really easy to fit in him with some of the studs at the top end of this range. Pieters came into this event last year off a string of really poor performances and finished 44th, this year the form is much better with three top ten finishes in his last 7 starts worldwide, and gets to come to a track that should really suit his game.

The bomber narrative here appears to be real and not only does Pieters bomb it, but he is also great with the approach game. He is a very similar player to Gary Woodland and yet we get him at over 2k discount on Draftkings. If you were so inclined you could actual fade Woodland in this spot and play Pieters, though why not just play both?

In 2018, Pieters finished in the top 20 almost 30% of the time and played in some of the strongest fields in golf compared to the rest of the field here. He’s drifting in the positive direction, and while I think he will be popular I’m going to be locking him into a lot of GPP lineups this week and I’m hopeful that we see the Pieters who doesn’t break 2-3 clubs this week as he has been known to do when things don’t go well.

Other options in this tier: 

Benny An, Charles Howell, Cameron Smith (one of my favorite plays), Louis Oosthuizen, CT Pan (Another favorite in this range) 

Fades in this tier: 

Kevin Tway, Danny Lee, Pat Perez

Projected Chalk (highly owned): Will update on Wednesday

Low:

There are a ton of great options down here, especially for GPP, and while I really want to highlight Kiradech Aphibarnrat his form has just been too bad recently even though he is seeing massive line movement. I’ll have some but not as much as I would if he was playing any sort of decent golf. 

Keith Mitchell: DK $6900/FD $7700

Let’s make it three for three with the bomber narrative here. Keith is one of the longest players and he loves to make birdies. He also unfortunately loves to make bogeys too, which is why we don’t see him up at the top of the leaderboard near as much as we should.

This should be a great course fit for Killa Keith and he has the 12th highest projected course score despite being the 44th priced player. I love playing guys like Keith in no cut events because even if makes some bogeys, he more than makes enough birdies to make up for it. He has the best AVG FP gained of anyone below him and is better than anyone above him all the way up to Benny An at $8900. Thats crazy. If we look at birdies gained, he gains more than anyone all the way up to Emiliano Grillo all the way at $9500.

We want guys who make birdies in no cut events and literally no one does it better than Mitchell. We get him at a birdie fest course and its not crazy to think that if he can limit his bogeys or even just his big numbers on the card he could easily find himself in the top ten here on Sunday.

Other options in this tier: 

Si Woo Kim, Stewart Cink, Abraham Ancer, Jason Kokrak, Austin Cook, Anirban Lahiri, Ryan Palmer 

Fades in this tier: 

Kiradech Aphibarnrat (not a full fade, I’ll still have some but his recent form is terrible), Shubhankar Sharma, Joel Dahmen, Nick Watney, Anyone coming over from the Safeway. 

Projected Chalk (highly owned): Will update on Wednesday

Deep GPP Punts:

I absolutely don’t think you need to go there but if you are looking for a super contrarian play and need some salary savings I think there are three really viable punts in this low priced range that I want to highlight.

Gaganjeet Bhullar, John Catlin, Justin Harding 

All three of these guys are Asian tour regulars who have great recent form coming into this event. Check out their last few events.

Players who play on the Asian or African tour are there for a reason, and mostly its because they can’t make it on the PGA tour or even the European Tour yet. Some are able to come over and play after a few years and these three look like they might be ready to make the jump. This is a great event for them to prove themselves and I expect all three to come out and play well. I wouldn’t put all my marbles into their baskets, but in a no cut event I think they are at least worth a dart throw or two.

Player Pool:

Here is my projected player pool for the week for GPP. I try to keep it somewhat tight 25-30 unless I’m putting in 150 lineups, then I’ll expand it. Again, pricing/pool is for Draftkings.

10K: Justin Thomas, Paul Casey 

9K: Keegan Bradley, Gary Woodland, Kyle Stanley 

8K: Ben An, Louis Oosthuizen, Cameron Smith, 

7K: Charles Howell, Thomas Pieters, Si Woo Kim, Jimmy Walker, Stewart Cink, Austin Cook, Jason Kokrak

6K: Keith Mitchell, Anirban Lahiri, James Hahn, Ryan Palmer, Gaganjeet Bhullar, John Catlin, Justin Harding 

Note: There are a lot of players here in the lower price ranges. I think a Stars and Scrubs approach is really viable this week and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a ridiculous amount of Justin Thomas (over 60%) in my lineups, so you need to have some of these scrub value plays to make those lineups work.