DFS Golf: Fall Swing Favorites – Mayakoba Golf Classic

The PGA Tour heads down to Playa Del Carmen and El Camaleon Golf Course for the Mayakoba Golf Classic 

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.

As much as I hate to say it, Bryson Dechambeau is one of the best golfers in the world. With the win last week at the Shriners he has vaulted up to number 5 in the Official World Golf Rankings and he has FOUR wins in the last 5 months! That’s an insane stat and I think its fair to say that we should mention him in the same breathe as guys like Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Rose. A major win is in the offing and I wouldn’t be afraid to bet him at every event next year before he wins again.

Last week was pretty solid for this article and me. 21 out of 28 guys in my player pool made the cut and my core crushed with Patrick Cantlay finishing runner-up and Sungjae Im finishing 15th. If Carlos Ortiz would have made the cut we would have been in for a really special week.

There were a couple of big storylines last week and one was the return of Jordan Spieth. Spieth looked great to start the week shooting 66-68 and gaining over 4 strokes putting. On the weekend though he seemed to fall apart, especially with the putter, losing just over a stroke on the final two rounds. He also really struggled with the driver all week.

One player that really impressed me last week though (or continued to impress me) was Abraham Ancer. He had a great final round shooting 66  and finishing T4. In fact, that was his third 66 of the week. He only had 3 bogeys (and two doubles) on the week. While he had one of his best weeks putting on the year, he also was able to hit over 73% of his fairways. Had he been able to be a little sharper with his irons he would have been running away with the tournament. He’s going to win soon and its possible that it happens this week.

Overall, it was a solid week for me and hopefully for you too! I like that we got back to a cut event and it’s getting me excited for the spring when we get back in the real swing of things with full fields of the top talent in the world! Now, onto this week and the course breakdown.

Course Breakdown:

The Mayakoba Golf Classic is held at El Camaleon Golf Course in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. The course resides at Mayakoba Resort and as such plays like a resort course, fairly soft and easy most days. The course is designed by Greg Norman and is SHORT measuring under 7000 yards. It is an extremely interesting layout going through the Jungle that surrounds the resort, coastline, and swampland on different parts of the course.

At 6987 yards, this is one of the shorter courses that players will play all year. It is a par 71 with 12 par 4’s 4 par 3’s and 2 par 5’s. The fairways are fairly wide and easy to hit, but are lined with canals, swamp land and jungle which can make golfers feel like they are more difficult to hit than they actually are.

Accuracy off the tee is vital here. Putting the ball in the right position and avoiding the native areas or hazards is huge. The grass on the whole property is Paspalum which is bouncy and usually gives players a good lie in the fairway. They are also able to throw darts right at the pin and it’ll likely stick without much roll.

This video gives you a good idea of the type of golf course this is and some of the intimidating tee shots, especially in the jungle portion, its basically fairway, semi-rough, good luck finding your ball.

Last years winner shot -20 and the cut was at -1 and better. You need to make birdies here and take advantage of opportunities, particularly on the twelve par 4’s.

The greens are a little bigger than normal and are fairly flat not leaving many difficult putts. They play much slower than what pros are used to though, typically coming in at a little over 10 on the stimpmeter.

Wind will likely play a factor here at some point during the tournament, especially on the coastline holes. The weather looks pretty good for this week, but being in the Carribean it’s likely that golfers see some short rain breaks at some point. Typically one day is marked by golfers playing preferred lies because of weather.

Overall this isn’t an extremely difficult layout, but its one that creates sightlines that can make golfers uncomfortable, and if you aren’t great off the tee it can be a pretty long week.

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 OHL Classic at Mayakoba. Unfortunately, the PGA tour doesn’t send their shot tracker technology down here, so it’s another week where we don’t get SG data or have SG Data from previous years.

One thing I like to look at first before we get into the key stats is the Results by Stokes Gained tab and averages by finish on the RS. Unfortunately, we don’t have strokes gained data so the results by strokes gained tab doesn’t work for us, but we do have averages by finish and we can draw some conclusions from that.

The first thing that stands out to me is that you have to be accurate off the tee here (at least in the event) but you don’t necessarily need to be long. It’s striking that the average driving distance is only around 280 yards for those who made the cut and those who missed the cut.

The other big thing is that in tournament, you need to hit Greens in Regulation. SG Approach will be vital here and is something we can target to identify players who can win/compete here. If you look at the difference in season-long approach statistics from those who made the cut here and missed the cut, it was the biggest difference of any of the strokes gained data.

SG: Putting and SG: Around the Green are, as usual, just noise and not something that we should be focusing on this week.

Value Tab: 

The next thing that we look at is the value tab. 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.

I have to giggle a bit as I see this. I made a dummy cash lineup on Monday when salaries came out, which was about 24 hours before the RS was completed, and all five of these guys were in my lineup.

Needless to say, I love these guys this week, and so do our projections. Emiliano Grillo has back to back top tens here, and last time he teed it up at this event Abraham Ancer had a top ten as well.

I think this course sets up well for CT Pan. It’s short, requires accuracy off the tee, and rewards guys who are good iron players. I don’t think it matters where Sungjae Im tees it up, he’s going to compete and has the skill set to win anywhere.

Joaquinn Niemann is coming off a fifteenth place finish at the Shriners and if there is a part of his game that is miles above everyone else it’s his off the tee game and that is something that I want to target here.

Strokes Gained: Approach (Last 25 rounds)

SG: Approach is going to be key here this week. I want to look at the last 25 rounds because I think that takes out some of the variance in it and should give us a good idea who is been hitting the irons well the last few months. At this course with the big, undulating greens you want to pick golfers who are able to hit it tight or in the right area at least, and SG: App can help us do that.

No surprise here with some of the top names. Billy Horschel and Joel Dahmen are two of the best iron players on tour and are always here.

Sam Ryder went deep last week on Sunday making a ton of birdies and makes a really interesting play here. Mackenzie Hughes is another interesting name and one that I’ll be looking at in GPP. He’s struggled here the last two years missing the cut, but has been better lately.

Rickie Fowler finished second here last year and had a great Sunday as well at the Shriners and should be primed for a nice week.

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

SG: Off the Tee, Driving Accuracy,  Double Bogey or worse %, Birdies Gained, Greens in Regulation %, Fantasy Points Gained and Projected Course Score 

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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:

Emiliano Grillo: DK $9700/FD $11500 

Emiliano Grillo comes in this week off a 14th place finish at the WGC-HSBC and heads into a course that he has two top tens on.

Grillo crushes it off the tee and with approach. He has a 70% driving accuracy and a 69% greens in regulation which are the two big keys we want to look at this week. This course requires you to find the fairway and hit greens to give you a chance at birdie, and Grillo can do that with the best of them.

If Grillo’s putter heats back up he could literally run away with this thing. When he went on his run earlier in the year where he seemed to be in contention every week, his putter was hot fire. If he can find some form there this week on the paspalum greens that he’s typically very comfortable with, the rest of the field could be in big trouble.

Either way, I think Grillo continues his run of good form on a course that he’s comfortable on. He’s my favorite player to start cash lineups with and I think he makes a fine GPP play as well. He should be fairly highly owned though so a pivot to a guy like Zach Johnson for a few hundred less or up to a high priced Charles Howell III could be a good differentiator.

Other options in this tier: Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Billy Horschel, Charles Howell III, Zach Johnson, Gary Woodland

Fades in this tier: Jordan Spieth (should crush here, but his off the tee game was brutal last weekend as well as his putter) Si Woo Kim (he can’t putt like he did last week again) Luke List, Cameron Champ 

Projected Chalk (highly owned): Gary Woodland, Rickie Fowler, Emiliano Grillo 

Mid:

Matt Kuchar: DK $8200/FD $10900 

The fact that Matt Kuchar is this price, in this field is somewhat appalling to me. When I went through the 9k range and didn’t see his name, I just assumed he wasn’t playing. $8200 for MATT KUCHAR this is a guy who has won a Players, an Olympic Bronze, 7 time tour winner, and 4 time Ryder cupper. I get that his recent form hasn’t been what we typically expect from a guy like him, but come on.

He hasn’t had a top ten since the Open Championship, but he has also only missed two cuts in that time period and at this price he’s in an absolute slam spot.

If we look at the Strokes Gained tab we can see that Kuchar’s big issue this year has been off the tee. He’s only positive in strokes gained off the tee in aobut 20% of his rounds, while he is losing over a stroke to the field in 30% of the time. That’s an issue, but at the same time he is hitting 64% of fairways.

Strokes gained off the tee, basically favors longer hitters who hit it in the fairway (formula basically is distance to hole and fairway = strokes gained). Kuchar, a guy who struggles to break 290 on a normal day is never going to be a leader in strokes gained off the tee, but when we go to a course where distance isn’t necessarily important and accuracy/placement correlates more with success, the field is leveled for a guy like a Kuch. I really think this is a place that he can excel because he isn’t required to do much off the tee.

I have some concerns that he’s not quite the birdie maker we need here in what should be a scoring fest, but I just can’t get over the price here. I think you can play him in cash, I don’t know that I will, but I love him in GPP this week at single digit ownership. I’ll play players of his pedigree at low ownership every day over the new flavor of the week in GPP.

Other options in this tier: Abraham Ancer (chalk but I love him here this week), Joaquin Niemann (another guy who I love, cash/gpp viable), Sam Ryder (really good form coming in), CT Pan (barely getting any buzz, can win this thing, perfect course for him), Scott Piercy (appears to be back), Sungjae Im

Fades in this tier: JJ Spaun (mega chalk, no thanks), JB Holmes 

Projected Chalk (highly owned): JJ Spaun, Abraham Ancer, Joaquin Niemann 

 

Low:

Kevin Streelman: DK $7100/FD $8600 

Streels comes into this week with a bit of rough form, but has two straight top twenty finishes here and this is a course that really fits game.

Anytime there is a shorter course that requires precision off the tee and great iron play, Streels is in the conversation. He’s a guy who will drive you nuts though with a 74-63 to make the cut or something like that on the number. The big downfall for him is usually putting and at a course like this with the paspalum greens there isn’t a ton of emphasis placed on that which makes me feel much more comfortable playing him.

Streels ranks number one in the field in fantasy points on long par 4’s of which there are five this week. The recent form is obviously concerning, but his course history and skill set make him one of my favorite cheaper options this week.

Other options in this tier: Cam Davis, Martin Laird (love him this week), Harold Varner III, Anders Albertson, Graeme McDowell, Danny Lee, Brice Garnett (loves this part of the world/grass surface), Seth Reeves, Fabian Gomez, Richy Werenski, Brandon Harkins 

Fades in this tier: Sam Burns, Joel Dahmen 

Projected Chalk (highly owned): Cam Davis, Joel Dahmen, Danny Lee 

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: Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, Billy Horschel 

9K: Emiliano Grillo, Charles Howell III, Zach Johnson, 

8K: Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer, Scott Piercy, Matt Kuchar, CT Pan, Sam Ryder 

7K: Sungjae Im, Cam Davis, Martin Laird, Harold Varner, Graeme McDowell, Anders Albertson, Kevin Streelman, Ryan Armour, Viktor Hovland (super punt GPP only)

6K: Danny Lee, Brandon Harkins Seth Reeves, Brice Garnett, Carlos Ortiz, Mackenzie Hughes, Sebastian Munoz, Fabian Gomez, Richy Werenski, Adam Svensson

Final Thoughts: 

Two cut events back to back, I don’t even know what to do! No shotlink data this week though so likely no showdown notes. Don’t go crazy with your bankroll but cash games are all viable again this week and I like the idea of MME’n a few tournaments with a small player pool like the one listed above.

I’ll post some updates in my coaching channel as I start to build more lineups today. Make sure to join in and ask any questions. Lock is 6 AM CST on Thursday!

Join us in our coaching channels this week and let’s win some money! I’ll be there off and on all week and ready to help you before lock on Thursday!

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!