Every week of the year the PGA Tour plays on a new course. There are some examples in other DFS Sports of environment impacting performance, such as Coors Field in Baseball; Golf, however, offers an entirely unique environment each and every week. This article will break down the week’s PGA course and attempt to find what skill sets are needed for success. This article will then combine the course breakdown with the DFS Army Domination Station and give a few players to target in both Cash Game and GPP formats. For more updates throughout the week follow me on twitter @_bschnarr
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CJ Cup Recap
Justin Thomas – T36 – 81 DK Points
I wrote up JT as a likely chalk play at the top end that I did not necessarily agree with. I mentioned other top end players that were cheaper and likely lower owned. Luckily for me this turned out to be true as JT commanded plenty of ownership, had a mediocre result and the slightly cheaper options other outperformed JT entirely or performed very similarly at a fraction of the price.
Paul Casey –T18 – 90.5 DK Points
I wrote up Casey as a player I really liked in the next grouping of players. Casey has begun to show a bounce back of form after a bad end to the season.
Emiliano Grillo – T55 – 67.5 DK Points
Unfortunately I was on Grillo this week as I saw him as a great option that would not be overly owned. Grillo has a terrific third round but was unable to get it going the final day when everyone was putting up birdies.
Sunjae Im – T41 – 75.5 DK Points
I wrote up how Im would likely become chalky as he was a pretty obvious/interesting player for other touts to write up. All the narratives were going his way and so was ownership, with a near 29% average across the 3 major DraftKings GPP’s. That high ownership was enough to get me off of Im and pivot to Rafa Cabrarra Bello (T3) and Kyle Stanley (66th)
Joaquin Niemann – T36 – 70 DK Points
One guy I was unable to get off of this week despite ownership was Niemann. Surprisingly, Niemann came in lower than I anticipated with a 14% average across GPP’s which I was very happy with Wednesday night. Niemann never really got it going for the weekend.
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Course Breakdown
The PGA Tour makes its final stop in South East Asia with this loaded field for the WGC-HSBC Champions. The event again takes place at Sheshan International Golf Club. A solid 10 million dollar price pool clearly enticed most of the top players in the world as this event is stacked. At the top we see DJ, Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy and a few more of the worlds top players making an appearance. Once again, this event locks Wednesday Night so get your lineups in. Finally, for all of my cash game focused friends we have yet another no cut event.
The course itself is a par 72 measuring right around 7,270 yards. Over the years we haven’t really seen a specific type of player dominate but we have seen a trend in top end players winning this event. Last year Justin Rose won with Brooks and DJ tying for second, Hideki won the year before with Mcilroy right in the mix. One key I will be focusing on this week with no cut is Par five scoring. With four longer par fours and all par threes measuring over 200 yards Long Irons will be very critical to success, probably part of the reason why we often see top players always in the mix. I will be relying on our statistics from our DFS Research Station to ensure I am considering every player who has been gaining strokes in this area. I will also be heavily focused on Shots Gained: Approach as this stat is always crucial to success. With the event being a no cut I will be bumping up importance of Birdie or Better% as well. Also with no cut, I will be a bit more likely to go for a stars and scrubs approach when creating lineups, with many top guys often finding success here I am hoping to make lineups that can fit a few studs and fill them out with smart leverage plays lower in my lineup.
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Interesting Plays
Brooks Koepka – DK: $11000 FD: $12600
I wish I could say I had more of Brooks last week. While I got off of Thomas I unfortunately was barely over average ownership on Brooks. Coming into this week I would expect to see more of the same out of Brooks on a course he looked terrific at last season. The new world number one has looked terrific in his last little stretch of golf. I would imagine Brooks is the highest owned out of this top tier of players but I still think I will eating the chalk and riding with Koepka this week.
Hideki Matsuyama – DK: $10100 FD: $11400
Out of everyone over $10000 on DK I could see Hideki being the lowest owned. Although he has won here the rest of Hideki’s resume is spotty at best with two WD’s and two finished outside of the top 40. Despite this, Hideki has shown he can win here (albeit during the best stretch of his career and maybe anyone’s career (4 wins, two seconds and a 5th in 7 events)) and I do really like his recent results. I am hopeful that I am correct about ownership and I can get a relatively under owned superstar in a good spot.
Francesco Molinari – DK: $9800 FD: $11300
I find this whole range between Finau and Paul Casey as extremely interesting because you can make a case for all five players this week. Molinari is tough for me because I could see the ownership ending up on him. While I like everyone of the five in this range I think my play with Molinari will be ownership based. I certainly will not be fully fading Molinari but if we are expecting the number to be high for the week I have no problem going under expected ownership and spreading out the wealth to the other talented players within the range.
Tommy Fleetwood – DK: $9500 FD: $11600
If you are looking for a great top end value look no further than Tommy Fleetwood. Although the course history is not terrific we have seen a new Tommy as of late and he can help fill out a great lineup with his affordable price. If you are playing Tommy get ready to be surprised by the ownership, I think he will likely be one of the higher owned players but I also wouldn’t be shocked if we see much of his ownership go to Molinari.
Jon Rahm – DK: $9300 FD: $11000
Rahm is interesting to me because the price screamed value to me on my initial look through but the more I analyze the less sure I am of that. Rahm has a lot to proof this year, after a terrific first half of the season that saw Rahm ranked as high as 2nd in the world he slipped back a bit and did not play his best golf to finish of the season. I personally like Rahm this week and I think his style is fantastic for no cut events, I am praying that people did not have the same initial response to his price that I did and that we can get Rahm at a normal ownership level.
Thorbjorn Olsen – DK: $7900 FD: $8900
Olsen is one of my favourite plays for the week. I think with the stars/scrubs approach more people will likely employ this week you will likely be able to get Olsen at a low level of ownership with his tricky price tag. Although he does not jump off of the page he is one of our bigger higher value for the week according to our domination station.
As always, these are initial thoughts and not necessarily the plays I will be making. As the week goes on I will update my thoughts in our member SlackChat as well as discussing multiple other players and my thoughts for both Cash and GPP’s.
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