DFS Golf: Fall Swing Favorites – Safeway Open

After the shortest off season in professional sports, the PGA Tour is back with the Fall Swing and the Safeway Open! 

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.

After a disappointing Ryder Cup (for the USA) and the shortest off season in professional sports we are back to kick off the 2019 PGA Tour season. The first event of the Fall Swing is the Safeway Open in Napa, California at Silverado Country Club. For a event that is the first of the 2019 season, I’m kind of blown away by how strong the field is, Patrick Cantlay, Brandt Snedeker, Joaquin Niemann, Phil Mickelson, and two time defending champ Brendan Steele are all in the field this week in what should be an exciting and fun tournament.

We also get our first look at the 2019 Rookie Class highlighted by studs like Sungjae Im, Anders Albersson, and Max Homa. I’ll highlight a few that you need to know later in this article. Lets get to the course breakdown

Course Breakdown:

We head back to the west coast for the first event of the 2018-2019 to Silverado Country Club in Napa, California. The course was built in 1953, but redesigned into what it is today by Robert Trent Jones Jr. in 1966. It played host to multiple PGA Tour events over the years and was purchased by among others, Johnny Miller in 2010. Miller put his personal touches on the course and they were awarded a PGA Tour event in 2014 and have hosted the Safeway Open since then.

The course is a par 72 and a short one at that measuring only 7166 yards. Last year’s winner Brendan Steele shot a cool -15 to win by two. The cut last year was even. There are lots of birdies to be had on this course if you can find the fairway and hit it tight on these approaches of 140-16o yards (where the majority of their approach shots will come from)

One thing to note is how much easier the back plays than the front. This could come into play and it might be worth looking at guys who tee off on the back day one as they get a little easier start and can build some momentum early in their round.

The greens are poa annua and as such are difficult to read for those who aren’t used to playing on them. Targeting players with course history here, or players who traditionally play well on the west coast will be key. They also have quite a bit of slope and leave some interesting putts for those who can’t get it tight.

The fairways are tight (even Johnny Miller thought so as part of his redesign he widened many) and tree-lined. The field average here for fairways hit is a little over 50%, so those who can hit a little over field average in fairways should find themselves climbing the leaderboard. The rough isn’t super penal, but its tough to attack the pins here for there.

^^^^ This info can be found in our Research Station under the Tournament Breakdown Tab^^^^

This is a plodders course in the sense that you need to hit fairways and greens and hopefully get a hot enough putter to make some birdies. Shorter, straighter hitters have had success here as well as good wedge players, those are two of the ideal ‘player types and if we can combine them, even better.

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 as well as the Averages by Finish tab to see what we want to target this week.

 

So…what do these two charts tell us? The first thing I notice is in the Strokes Gained (Event) chart is that Strokes Gained Approach is king here. Thats really nothing new but its important to note. I also see that Off the Tee stats will be fairly important, as well as putting (in tournament).

As we go to the Averages by Finish chart, what I look for is confirmation of what I see in the first chart. SG Approach is important, but how important? If we look we can see that the winners averaged 1.2 strokes gained approach more than those who finished in 20-30th place. Thats a pretty big gap. Greens in Regulation and SG approach go hand in hand, and you can see that hitting greens is huge. Especially when you compare the event averages to the season long averages.

SG: Off the Tee is important as a whole. If we look at the Season Long Averages, typically only the player that wins has a large increase in SG: Off the Tee over the field, while here its not as big and you need to be gaining strokes off the tee to make the cut here.

While this is a tight course, it doesn’t appear that driving accuracy gives players much of an edge here, compared to season long averages. We want to target guys who are around 55% or better in DA.

Lets breakdown the field looking at a few of these categories.

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.

Chez Reavie leads the way here, followed by everyone’s favorite Canadian who can’t putt Corey Conners. Both are solid plays here, but as we go down this list we find two of my favorite values on the entire board in Sungjae Im and Joel Dahmen. This course is perfect for Dahmen, fairways and approach shots? Thats his forte, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him at the top of the leaderboard contending  come Sunday. Sungjae Im led the Web.Com in money this year and had a solid 42nd place finish at the PGA Championship in St. Louis this year. He’s a guy who I expect to contend this week and next week be priced up in the 8K range.

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.

Projected course score is a little difficult because we don’t have a ton of data on the Web.Com guys but of the regulars, here is who rates out the best. It’s no surprise that we see these guys here, as they are all elite ball strikers. Well 3 of them are and then there is Phil Mickelson who I think I could have beat head to head at the Ryder Cup last week. I’m going to have a hard time rostering him here, even with his course history, he was BAD in Paris and while he does have good course history and is comfortable on Poa, I’m going to be holding my breath and closing my eyes if I click on his name in a roster.

Brandon Harkins should be a sneaky value at that price on both sites and as always just needs a decent week putting to contend. Cantlay and Niemann are two of the favorites and they should be. I’ll have a ton of both in lineups.

Strokes Gained: Approach

Again, tough without a ton of data on the Web guys, but here are the top guys in SG Approach from last years tour regulars.

Joel Dahmen tops the list and like we said earlier, he should be a fantastic course fit here. I don’t have a ton of interest in anyone else besides Cantlay, and Ryan Moore. Moore has great CH and while his priced up, he brings a ton of win equity.

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

SG: Off the Tee, Double Bogey or Worse %, Birdies Gained, Greens in Regulation %,  Medium Par 4 Score, and Long Par 3 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:

Patrick Cantlay: DK $11,600/FD $11900 

Cantlay is the highest priced player on the board this week on Draftkings and second highest on Fanduel, but he is an absolute lock for me here. A California kid who is comfortable on Poa greens and has played extremely well on the West Coast should be in contention for a win here. I think he’s viable in Cash and GPP and I NEVER pay up this much for players in cash, thats how confident I am (and there’s a ton of value down the board).

Cantlay statistically should tear this course apart. He is tops in the field when it comes to medium par 5 scoring, and one of the better in the field with long par 3 scoring, his projected course score is tops as well. I really think this course sets up great for him, and obviously we don’t know his mind set but I would assume he might be a little upset that he didn’t make the Ryder cup team (though after watching their performance, I wouldn’t be) and wants to come out and prove that  he should be there. Everything lines up for him statistically to do so and I will be massively overweight to the field on Cantlay this week.

Other options in this tier: 

Ryan Moore, Adam Hadwin, Joaquin Niemann, Emiliano Grillo (former winner here) Brendan Steele (back to back champ)

Fades in this tier: 

Phil Mickelson, Brandt Snedeker, Denny McCarthy (Waaaaay too expensive on DK)

Projected Chalk (highly owned): Joaquin Niemann, Brendan Steele, Emiliano Grillo 

MID:

I’ll be going all the way to the bottom of this tier for one of my favorite GPP plays on the board this week.

Bronson Burgoon: DK $7500/FD $8400 

Burgoon went on an extremely impressive run last year where he finished top 6 in 2 out of 3 weeks in fields that were very similar to this. The rest of his year was typical of a PGA Tour rookie with Missed Cuts and 40th place finishes, his performance helped him all the way to the Dell Championship though of the FedEx Cup Playoffs which is impressive for any Rookie.

Last year, he was entering this event coming off a 4th place finish at the Web.Com Tour championship and was not phased by his first event with the big boys rattling off a solid 17th place finish. I would assume those good memories are still there and he’s excited to play this week. Course history aside though, Burgoon is actually a really solid play here if we look at those key stats we talked about earlier.

Burgoon bombs the ball of the tee, but unlike some other bombers, he is fairly accurate with it. He does a good job avoiding big numbers (though there isn’t a ton here) and he hits Greens in Regulation at a pretty good clip.

He’s one of the best Poa putters in the field, and in this tier, he is first in SG: Approach and he is second in Projected Course Score behind chalk Chez Reavie. 

I think Burgoon makes an excellent low owned play this week and while I don’t think he is cash safe, he is definitely going to be making a lot of my GPP teams as a pivot off the chalk Chez.

Other options in this tier: 

Chez Reavie, Dylan Fritelli, Chris Kirk, Luke List, Russell Knox 

Fades in this tier: 

Ollie Schneiderjans, Bud Cauley (love the guy, but this is his first event back), Sang Moon Bae (He’s a free square on FD, play him there, fade him on DK)

Projected Chalk (highly owned):

Sang Moon Bae (on FD), Harold Varner III, Chez Reavie 

LOW:

This one is super easy for me, as I’m a huge believer in this guys game.

Sungjae Im: DK $7000/FD $7800 

Even if you don’t follow the Web.Com tour you should still know who Sungjae Im is. Im, the 20 year old South Korean, won twice on the Web and had 3 runner up finishes. He lead the money list by $156,832 dollars. Thats a crazy lead and $185,039 more than Brice Garnett who was the web money leader in 2017. To say Im was dominant in 2018 actually might be a bit of an understatement.

This is the same situation that we saw with Norman Xiong (Panda) earlier this year where everyone and their mother was talking him on twitter as the second coming of Tiger. While Xiong has talent, he has never proven that he can win, or even contend on any tour. Sungjae has done that and then some. Im also proved he can compete with the big boys by making the cut at both the PGA Championship and the US Open. The spotlight doesn’t phase him.

His form at the end of the year on the Web was less than ideal, but he had already locked up his tour card and had nothing to play for compared to guys who were fighting for their lives at the tour championship.

Another interesting reason to play IM is that his odds to win don’t fit his price which is why we project him as an extreme value down here.

I’m seeing his ownership projected anywhere from low single digit up to around 10% and my guess would be we see low single digit ownership on him. I think he’s cash viable this week. I think he’s a slam spot in GPP and if he is 4% owned I will likely be at minimum 5x the field on that ownership.

Other options in this tier: 

Joel Dahmen (lock for cash) Curtis Luck (My other favorite low owned play, has been excellent on the Web and has experience on tour), Sam Ryder, Sam Burns, Martin Laird, Bill Haas, Brandon Harkins, Carlos Ortiz, Tyler Duncan, Corey Conners, Fabian Gomez, Richy Werenski, Johnson Wagner, Scott Piercy 

Fades in this tier: 

Chesson Hadley, Hunter Mahan, Kevin Streelman 

Projected Chalk (highly owned):

Sam Ryder, Joel Dahmen, Tyler Duncan 

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: Patrick Cantlay, Ryan Moore, Joaquin Niemann, Emiliano Grillo

9K: Adam Hadwin, Brendan Steele

8K: Chris Kirk, Russell Knox, Russell Henley 

7K: Jaime Lovemark, Dylan Fritelli, Chez Reavie, Bronson Burgoon, Sam Ryder, Patrick Rodgers, Scott Piercy, Curtis Luck, Joel Dahmen, Sam Burns, Sung Jae Im. 

6K: Richy Werenski, Brandon Harkins, Fabian Gomez, Tyler Duncan, Corey Conners

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’ll try to jam two guys from the 10K in as often as I can.