DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey – Desert Classic
The tour comes back stateside for the 60th Desert Classic as Jon Rahm looks to defend his Title!
My name is Josh Thomas, and I am a PGA and NFL Coach here at DFS Army! Welcome to the 2019 PGA Season! We here at DFS Army have got you covered this year with my weekly preview out on Sunday Nights, Chalk Donkey article breaking down the ownership projections, where to pivot, and GPP strategy out Tuesday Nights, and our Research Station that is full of more information than you could ever need!
Matt Kuchar had a stumble early on Sunday but held off a charge from Andrew Putnam to take home his first title of the year at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Kuchar was absolutely solid all week and he solidifies that the Mayakoba Classic is a great course correlation (he won there this year too). Our betting card was full of near misses, with Mr. Waialae himself, Charles Howell III having a great tournament but just missing out on the top 5. Dom Bozzelli was in a position to capture a top ten at +1600 after three rounds but the pressure got to him on Sunday and he fell all the way down to T33.
The Chalk Donkey picks had a decent week, though Emiliano Grillo couldn’t quite catch CH3 and Brian Harman was a complete and utter bust, destroying lots of solid lineups. Brice Garnett made the cut and had a solid week. Matt Kuchar and Keith Mitchell were both in our core, which helped cash games out tremendously. The big mistake looking back was not being on Andrew Putnam. We were all in on him during the Tournament of Champions, and it was a process mistake to not get him in our core here. The putter is likely to cool off for him at some point, but we should have been riding that momentum into last week’s event.
This week the tour comes back stateside for the 60th edition of the Desert Classic. This event was formerly the CareerBuilder Challenge, the Humana Challenge, and the Bob Hope Classic. No matter the name change its a fun event that sees the pros play three different courses over three days before finishing with a second round at the PGA Stadium Course. There is also a pro-am portion of this event which means that the pros see accessible pins that can lead to some low scores.
Course Breakdown:
The Desert Classic presented by Workday is a traditional stop on the tour’s west coast swing and is held at three golf courses in the La Quinta and Palm Springs area of California. It is a pro am and since there are three courses involved, the cut is after 54 holes, not 36 like a traditional 72 hole tournament.
The three courses are:
PGA West – TPC Stadium Course: 7,113 yards – Par 72
La Quinta Country Club: 7,060 yards – Par 72
PGA West – Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course – 7,159 yards – Par 72
Players will play them all and them return to the TPC Stadium Course for the final round.
La Quinta Country Club and the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West are two of the typically easier courses of this event, with La Quinta playing a full 3 strokes under par and Nicklaus over 2.5 strokes under par. They are short par 72’s and with the easy pin placements for the amateurs the players eat these courses up. Typically, you want to target players who start on one of these two courses as they have the advantage of getting off to a hot start and ride that momentum into the weekend.
Last year the rotation of La Quinta, Nicklaus Tournament, and Stadium Course was the rotation that helped Jon Rahm secure a victory. Playing the Stadium on back to back days is usually a good thing as that memory of where to hit it is fresh.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the scoring average at the Stadium Course was SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the rest of the courses at -.818. Some of that had to do with weather on the weekend being poor and a high scoring average on Sunday, but it’s still worth noting that this course is one of the most difficult to play. In fact the par 3, 13th was one of the 50 hardest holes on tour last year.
The greens here are different than what most players are used to as they are Bermuda overseeded with Rye Grass and Poa. This leads to a lot of grain in the surface that can pull the ball and makes them hard to read. This type of grass is what players from the northern half the US or Canada grew up on because of the cold weather so there is some advantage for the guys from up north.
Weather USUALLY doesn’t play a factor here and thats why players love coming here. Sunny California in the middle of January at courses with pristine conditions is enough to overcome the pains of playing in Pro-Am for four days, and we see some of the biggest names in golf here year after year.
One other thing to note about this course is that the Stadium Course was host to PGA Q School in 06 and 08 and a lot of these guys have played here before, albeit a much different test.
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One thing to note about last year’s leaderboard is that only TWO of the top twenty players in the field started their tournaments on the Stadium Course. There seems to be a real advantage to starting on either the Nicklaus or La Quinta. Those two golfers (Brendan Steele and Grayson Murray) both had excellent rounds on the other two courses to make it through to Sunday.
The scores will be low, you have to make birdies here to be in contention and limit the bogeys. Last year, Jon Rahm had 26 birdies and eagle to go with only 6 bogeys (4 at the Stadium on Saturday) and had two bogey-free rounds, those bonuses will likely be huge this week in DFS.
One thing, that puts the DFS Army VIP’s at a huge advantage is the Domination Station. Check out how that works here!
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What is a Chalk Donkey?
First, let’s break down what I consider to be ‘chalk’. Let’s look at 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 Desert Classic
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?
Course Rotation:
One thing that you’ve likely heard a lot about this week is what the best course draw is. As you know the players play three different courses this week and there is typically a better ‘draw’ for low scoring.
Typically, the best draw is La Quinta (LQ), Nicklaus Tournament (NT), Stadium Course (SC)
La Quinta has the lowest scoring average, followed by Nicklaus, and then players get to play the difficult Stadium Course on Saturday before the cut. If they make the cut they get to play the Stadium Course back to back, which is another advantage.
The second best draw is typically NT, SC, LQ. And the worst draw is typically SC, LQ, NT.
While you should take this into account, it gets a little bit blown out of proportion because typically the best golfers start their tournaments at La Quinta so that they are playing the Stadium Course on Saturday (where the majority of the cameras are). In fact for this year, every single golfer in the 9K-10K salary range on DraftKings starts at La Quinta. La Quinta is clearly the easiest course in terms of scoring average regardless of the day, but the draw bias is likely more because of the best players playing that course first than the order of courses.
I think in GPP there is a lot of merit to playing golfers that are on the Stadium Course on day one as they are likely to severely underowned because DFS Golf Twitter is ablaze about course draw. Adam Hadwin sticks out as a guy who has tore this course up and is starting there.
Personally, I’ll have a mix of each, I’m not going to go overweight on La Quinta just because of the draw. Play the best golfers in the best spot regardless, when you chase stuff like this it typically doesn’t end well. If you are going to go overweight, I suggest going WAY overweight in GPP. 6/6 golfers on one course. If you think there’s an edge, go all in!
Value Tab:
The first thing I look at every week when I open up the RS 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.
Joaquin Niemann tops the list here as the top value on the board as the books aren’t giving him much of a chance here, pricing him below Corey Conners to start the week. He’s seen some positive drift which indicates that the public feels like he has a much better shot than Vegas does. This is first go round at the Desert Classic and first-timers typically struggle a bit with the course rotation but he’s still a massive value at this price.
After a solid placing last week, Conners is getting tons of love and actually might end up higher owned than fellow Canadien Adam Hadwin who has shot a 59 here before, albeit at a much cheaper price tag. I’m the biggest Conners fan boy there is but this just doesn’t seem like the spot for a guy who can’t putt to save his life.
The player I’m really interested in here is Richy Werenski. Richy hasn’t played since the fall swing but his long term form is excellent, and he has a top 30 and a top 10 here in his last two trips. He’s a decent value play and a nice pivot off chalk Niemann.
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 the field.
Justin Rose tops the list here and its no surprise as he has been absolutely fantastic in the last 15 events. The concern with Rose this week is that this is his first tournament since he skipped the Sentry Tournament of Champions and he has made a switch to Honma golf clubs. As of Tuesday he hadn’t settled on a bag yet and wasn’t sure whether he would use a Honma driver or his TaylorMade driver from last year. He also is unsure what putter he uses. All of that together makes me a bit concerned, and if I’m concerned, so is the rest of the industry, which means this might be a great spot for us to jump on in GPP if it’s going to drive down his ownership. I’m seeing him projected anywhere from 15%-25%. If its the low end of that, I think doubling the field at around 30% is a sharp play, but at 25%, doubling puts us at 50% and thats a lot to ask for any golfer.
George Cunningham pops here and is a guy I really like but this data is only over 8 total rounds. Cunningham is west coast guy and playing on a sponsor exemption since he is a Web.Com guy. At 2% ownership it won’t take much to be over the field on him and he has a ton of game.
Johnson Wagner shows up again as well, but those three consecutive missed cuts concern me here. He made the cut last week though and shook some rust off and at 6300 he doesn’t need to do much.
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. For this week, Taco went through and ran projected course score for one round at LQ and NT and two rounds at SC.
Philly Cheesesteak Phil Mickelson tops the list here. Outside of last years blow up here, he has had a ton of success with multiple top 30 finishes. This is essentially a home event for him in Southern California and he’s very familiar with the course. Concern is that he is coming in having not played a competitive round of golf since the first weekend in October.
Rose should fit well here, though he has never played here. He has had a ton of success on Pete Dye courses over his career including a third place finish at the 2012 PGA Championship which was held at Kiawah Island, one of Dye’s most famous designs.
Everything matches up for Patrick Cantlay to play well here and is a player I’ll likely be pretty heavily invested in. He hasn’t played this event since 2012 and it was played on different courses then.
Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the Chalk Donkeys:
Birdies Gained, Medium Par 4 Scoring, SG: Approach (last 25), West Coast Field Rank, Short Par 5 scoring
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Who are this week’s DFS Chalk Donkeys?
In this section, each price range’s (Above 9K, 7.5k-9K, and Below 7.5K) Chalk Donkey will be identified, and a few pivots will be offered. I use DraftKings pricing since that is where I usually play, but their pricing is usually similar to FanDuel and when a player pops as a value on one site but not another I’ll make sure to mention it.
It’s important to remember that just because someone is going to be highly owned, doesn’t mean that they are a bad play, but if we can gain advantage on the field by fading a player owned by 25% or more, typically that’s the right move. There are typically 156 golfers in an event and only 70 and ties make the cut. Essentially you have to look at the ownership of a player and decide if the odds of him missing the cut are equal to or greater than the ownership. If that’s the case then a fade is typically the right play.
And now, here my friends, are this weeks’ Chalk Donkeys:
Above 9K Chalk
Jon Rahm: DK $11,600/FD $11,900
Projected GPP ownership: 20-25%
Rahm is likely to be the highest owned player in the field this week as he returns to an event that he won last year. He had an 8th place finish at the Sentry Tournament of Champions so he should be in solid form coming in.
Having played at Arizona State, he is familiar with not only these golf courses having played college events here, but the area and type of golf that is required to play well on these tracks. The question is can he pay off his salary, especially considering the high ownership?
All signs point to yes here in terms of form, course history, and key statistics. Rahm is a smash play. That being said, he is VOLATILE. He tends to have blow up rounds, especially at inopportune times. I think back to last year’s French Open when he was in contention before a final round struggle had him finish 5th. (along with his countryman Sergio Garcia who also struggled in the final round he was actually leading though.)
Rahm’s a great play this week, and likely my One and Done pick. That being said in GPP he needs to win or at minimu top 5 to pay off his salary and ownership and the roster construction without him feels like the way to go. I think this is a situation this week where you need to go way overweight or not have him at all.
Above 9K Pivot:
Luke List: DK $9000/FD $10,100
Projected GPP ownership: 10%-15%
Full disclosure, I’m a Luke List truther. I love List. At pretty much every track he plays. That being said, I do think he is a great course fit here, especially at the Stadium course which is a Pete Dye design. List crushes Dye courses, specifically Harbor Town which is the host of the RBC Heritage where he finished 3rd last year. Harbor Town is another course where you have to be accurate off the tee and put yourself in position to attack pins, similar to the Stadium Course.
List has a top 6 finish here three seasons ago and even though he missed the cut last year, it was more or less because of a difficult draw given the weather conditions.
He is what many would consider a ‘bomber’ because of his average driving distance of 315 off the tee, but has shown that he is able to play on these shorter tracks like we will see this week, and in fact has performed better on them.
List has been strong on the west coast over his career and should be very comfortable on the overseeded bermuda greens.
List isn’t a core play for me this week, but he will still find his way into plenty of lineups for me and makes for a great GPP pivot off the higher owned players in this range.
Other highly owned players (over 15%) Aaron Wise, Chez Reavie, Adam Hadwin, Justin Rose, Jon Rahm, Charles Howell III
7.5K – 9K Chalk
Hudson Swafford: DK $8300/FD $8,200
Projected GPP Ownership: 17%-22%
While not likely the highest owned in this range (that honor belongs to Joaquin Niemann) Hudson Swafford is the one chalk player that I struggle to swallow his ownership.
I get the love here. He is a former winner here and had an excellent performance last week at the Sony Open. But lets be honest…Swafford hasn’t been over 8K in an event that wasn’t an opposite field event in years and now that he is he’s going to be 20% owned? Oofta.
I think he’s a good play this weekend don’t get me wrong and I’ve bet him in some tournament head to heads which were great values…but this is still Hudson Swafford.
One thing we’ve added to the Research Station this year is a Head to Head comparison tool. With this tool you can compare any two golfers on all of the key statistics. So let’s do that here with my 7.5k-9K pivot.
7.5K – 9K Pivot:
Richy Werenski: DK $7600/FD $9600
Projected GPP Ownership: 7%-10%
Richy is in a great spot this week and has good course history and a fantastic run of form in the fall swing. He should come in about half as owned as Swafford and at a 700$ savings. How does he compare to Swafford in the rest of the key statistics though? The new Head to Head comparison tool in the RS is a great way to check that out!
As you go through the comparison you can see that the RS does all the work for you showing an X on the players side that has the advantage. In an event that puts an emphasis on Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach, Werenski has the clear advantage here as he has the advantage over the last 10, 25 and 50 rounds.
Werenski also has an advantage in top 25% rate and top 10% rate. Long term they are pretty similar players with similar statistics. Swafford might be a little more consistent (as evidenced by the advantage in top 50% field rank) while Werenski has higher upside in terms of top finishes.
Their fantasy points/hole are similar but Swafford has the slight edge in projected course score.
The other thing we can look in comparison is course history and form over the last year.
You can see Werenski’s solid of run form in the fall, and how overall he has had the higher finishes comparatively. Last year at this event they both finished 29th and the year before Swafford won while Werenski was 9th.
Overall, we have two EERILY similar players so in GPP which would you rather have? The one that’s higher owned and higher priced? Or lower owned and lower price. For me its a pretty simple answer. Give me Werenski in GPP and if Swafford is chalk in Cash so be it, I’ll eat it.
Other highly owned players in GPP (over 15%): Joaquin Niemann, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im (he’ll be close, might not get to 15%)
Check out my Preview Article for my full betting card!
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Below 7.5K
There isn’t any real chalk below 7.5K this week. Si Woo Kim is likely the highest owned of this group around 9-10% as he gets the ‘Pete Dye Specialist’ treatment here and had a top ten in his last appearance three years ago. He’s a fine GPP play and 10% isn’t a ridiculous ownership down here and I think he’s a solid play even though he missed the cut last week, hopefully he shook rust off. There’s one player down here though that I’m heavily invested in.
Harris English: DK $7200/FD $7500
Projected GPP Ownership: Under 3%
English is coming off a solid performance at the Sony Open where he finished T22 and comes to a course that he has had some success on in the past including a top ten last year and not missing a cut here ever.
Harris is on a string of really, really good form right now that he carried all the way through the fall into the start of the season. He hasn’t missed a cut since the Northern Trust and the week before that he had a T11 at the Wyndham. Last year, English went on an awful stretch where he missed a ton of cuts and really struggled with his game. That was 6 months ago and since then he has been one of the most consistent performers on tour.
English isn’t a cash type player but makes a great gpp play as he has a great chance to top ten at minimal ownership. At one point in English’s career, people in golf were talking about him as the next big thing. He has never lived up to those expectations and in fact, those expectations probably hurt him over the last 3 years. It appears that though that his game is really coming around, especially on the greens.
This is a low owned GPP Punt, but one that I’ll be 4 or 5x the field on in my GPP lineups as I bank on recent form and course history here.
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.
Justin Rose
Adam Hadwin
Patrick Cantlay
Abraham Ancer
Luke List
Sungjae Im
Beau Hossler
Danny Willett
Brendan Steele – love him this week!!
Richy Werenski
Anirban Lahiri
Harris English
Matt Jones
Brandon Harkins
Final Thoughts:
This is a bit of a funky week with the three different courses and draws and not my favorite week to play cash, but I do like playing hybrid lineups this week. So I’ll enter the same lineup in a double up, a triple up, a quintuple up, and a GPP or two, particularly single entry.
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 let’s 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!