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DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey – Farmers’Insurance Open – Draftkings and Fanduel DFS PGA Advice

DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey – Farmers Insurance Open

It’s Tiger Week! Tiger Woods tees it up for the first time this year at a course that some might consider his second home, Torrey Pines!

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!

Adam Long anyone? Seriously…Anyone?! Long was less than.1% owned in the big 5$ Drive the Green Contest on DK, and no one in the top 50 of the contest had him in their lineups. I haven’t seen anyone in the golf twitterverse say they had him in a lineup or seen any physical proof that anyone actually rostered him. He was the longest of long shots at 600-1 and outlasted two studs in Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin to take down his first PGA Tour title and double his earnings from his 6-year career to that point. Couldn’t be happier for a guy like that to win. Golf is such a difficult sport and its quite the grind for these guys coming up on the mini-tours and for them to get this point is remarkable in and of itself but to win is crazy. This was only his 5th start on the PGA tour after years of grinding on the Web.com and basically every single other mini-tour in existence. What a story, gives me chills just thinking about it.

For the second week in a row, our betting card was full of near misses.  We were able to cash that Adam Hadwin T5, which essentially paid for most of the card, but a 25-1 Hadwin win would have been fantastic!

I was heavy on Harris English across the board in DFS and betting and a poor start hurt him and he was unable to find his way back into contention, but he did fight back mightily in RDs 2 and 3 to make the cut. Joaquin Niemann was a trap that we should have seen coming, but the value was there and we had to bite! I actually wish I had played more Kevin Streelman in DFS as he fought his way to a T34 finish even though his form coming in was dreadful.

Overall, this was another week that was a blow to those who don’t believe in Course History. While I totally understand the analytical argument on the other side of this debate, I firmly feel that even if you don’t fully believe in it, you need to take some of it into account. Adam Hadwin just had his fourth consecutive top 1% performance at this event and he will likely be irrelevant again until he gets back to another course he has had some success at…(Valspar in a couple weeks), there really is no other way to explain that. There are examples of this all over the place, and to stick your head in the clouds and say it doesn’t exist at least in some instances is ignorant.

This is all besides the point though because its TIGER WEEK. The big man is back and teeing it up at Torrey Pines, a course near and dear to his heart. Tiger has teed it up at Torrey Pines 17 times during his career as a professional, and won here 7 times, including the 2018 US Open where he beat old man Rocco Mediate on one leg. His average finishing position is SEVENTH in all of those events. Tiger is back baby!

Last week, DFSArmy VIP took down 10K in the Driving Range on DK using our research station and articles at DFSArmy! This could be you!

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Course Breakdown:

The Farmers Insurance Open is held annually at Torrey Pines Golf Course in the beautiful coastal city of San Diego. Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means “A Whales Vagina”.

The tournament uses both the South and North Course, but the players will only tee it up on the North Course once, in the first or second round as the entire weekend is played on the South Course.

The south course, which players will tee it up on 3 times, plays a whopping 7698 yards, which is why traditionally players who are considered ‘bombers’ have had success at this tournament. The greens are poa annua and as with any course with poa greens, they are more difficult to play in the afternoon (as the sun shines, they get bumpy)which is something to remember as we build showdown lineups throughout the week. Not only are the greens poa which makes them a bit more difficult, they are also pretty small, and while hitting the ball a long ways around here is important, having an excellent iron game is something that can be handy too. C.T. Pan used his great approach game in 2017 to overcome a lack of distance off the tee and finish 2nd. Combine the small hard to hit greens and the fact that they roll typically around 12 on the stimpmeter you have a difficult test once you get there.

Driving distance obviously plays an advantage here with how long the course is, but you also need to be accurate. Wayward tee shots can get you in trouble if you leave them in the wrong spots. Contrary to what you would normally think, with how wide open the course is if you miss you actually want to REALLY miss as the farther left or right you are, the easier your shot can be as it can land in another fairway and have a good look at the green. (Probably why Tiger has been so good here).

The winning score around here is usually somewhere between -8 and -10 though there are a few outliers. You can see by looking at how each scored last year that players need to make their hay on the par 5’s, and on the front at Torrey Pines South. Last year the front played slightly under par, while the back was over par. Players who finish on the front get the advantage of playing two of the easiest holes on the course in holes 8-9 as they wrap up their rounds.

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The North Course is a different animal than the south, playing almost 400 yards shorter and also a half stroke under par. When watching your DFS Lineups this week, you will want your players to be under par on the North course, especially if they are shorter hitters, as this is where they can go low.

The North Course has newer bent grass greens as of 2017. The Poa greens previously were slow were a much different test for the golfers than what they see on the south, but after two events, they have done a nice job of getting them pretty similar to each other.

Weather almost always plays some sort of factor here, whether it be from the wind or the rain. Players have seen multiple extremes over the last couples years including having pick and clean place due to the soft conditions in 2017 and having to stop and start multiple times in 2016. In 2018, they had to come back on Monday morning to finish their playoff because J.B. Holmes took 45 minutes to decide he wanted to lay up on 18.

Overall, this is a fun test and I think the course has evolved a bit from a ‘Hit it as far as you can and go find it’ course to one that truly tests all aspects of a golfers game.

One thing, that puts the DFS Army VIP’s at a huge advantage is the Domination Station. Check out how that works here!

–>Domination Station PGA Tutorial <–

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 Farmers Insurance Open.

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?

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 is basically a formula that takes our projection for points this week x 1000/their salary. So essentially its points per 1k.

This is a top-heavy value range this week! Tony Finau leads the way here as he’s underpriced on DK at least considering that he has never finished lower than 24th at this event and is priced below all the studs here. The two big concerns with Finau are that this is his first event of the year and that he’s playing with Tiger for the first two rounds. Regardless, I’ll still have a heavy dose of Finau this week.

Jason Day is another guy that has a ton of excellent course history here, as a two-time winner, he had a great tournament at the Sentry Tournament of Champions finishing 13th, that combined with the ridiculous history here makes him a fantastic play.

Rickie Fowler hasn’t played yet this calendar year, and he has missed three straight cuts here…pass.

Oh, lookie here though…Tiger Woods makes an appearance! Tiger has seen a big positive drift in his odds and I like him to if not win, be in contention this week. Again, hasn’t played all year, but he is pretty used to that. Tiger at Torrey is automatic.

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 again this week as his form last year was incredible. I think he is a good GPP contrarian play as he’ll likely be underowned, but at the price tag and the fact that he’s going to be making his maiden voyage around the revamped Torrey Pines, and the less than inspiring performance last week, he’s likely a fade here for me.

Tiger and Finau show up again, confirming their place in my core and young upstart Cam Champ makes an appearance. I love the price on him this week as he’s a pretty good odds value considering the odds of others around him. Yes, maiden voyage, but Torrey Pines South should be a great course fit for him.

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 Torrey Pines North and three rounds at Torrey Pines South.

 

Last week’s projected course score rankings had Phil Mickelson at the top of the rankings…had we followed that we would have won a lot of money. I’m not going to miss that this time and will plan on having plenty of Tony Finau. Finau’s price is juicy and will likely increase his ownership, in fact, I think he will one of if not THE highest owned player this week.

Justin Rose, on the other hand, is coming off a bit of a disappointing week, but he’s still the world number one and is a good course fit according to our projected course score While we have to pay a little more, we can get him at 1/3 the ownership of Finau. I stand by firm belief that anyitme we can get the #1 player in the world at reduced ownership we have to jump on it.

The question of the week is what do we do with Jordan Spieth? He looks quite lost with his game, but he hasn’t been priced this low in YEARS. I personally already bet him at +4000 so I have a bit invested in him, and may let others chase him. If I’m MME’n I’ll take around 15% so I’m 1.5x the field just in case. He hasn’t played here in 3 years, but before that went MC-19-MC.

Patrick Cantlay is always in a great spot on the west coast but was only 51st last time through here.

Fantasy Points/Long Par 4

With 6 par 4’s over 450 yards on the South Course and 4 on the North Course, being able to play gain fantasy points on these long par 4’s is going to be huge. Here’s who the best long par 4 players are in the field.

When the hole is over 450 yards long, we typically see approach shots in the 175-225 range. This week we expect to see quite a few of those approach shots, in fact, 5% more than average.

Rory McIlroy leads the way in scoring on these long par 4’s and in fact if you look at this whole lineup, you see guys who typically are thought of as great iron players, particularly long iron players. You can make a pretty solid lineup with just these five. Rory’s first time around here is a bit concerning but should come in lower owned.

Hideki Matsuyama is a huge misprice and some chalk you should eat if you are going to differentiate elsewhere. He’s so cheap given his talent. He could win this thing and at 8K that’s some huge upside.

I was on Kevin Streelman last week at a course he’s had some success at and now we get him at a place he’s made 3 straight cuts at and had a 3rd place finish 3 years ago. He’s a frustrating player to roster sometimes, but I think he’s a nice punt play in GPP.

Other stats from the RS I’m focusing on this week: Birdies Gained, Driving Distance, SG: Approach (last 25), West Coast Field Rank, Short/Long Par 5 scoring, 

One thing, that puts the DFS Army VIP’s at a huge advantage is the Domination Station. Check out how that works here! Domination Station PGA Tutorial

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 an 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

Tony Finau: DK $9,900/FD $10,700

Projected GPP ownership: 23-27%

Finau is everyone’s favorite this week, especially considering that he’s the 6th highest priced player and has an unreal course history here. The question this week is what you do with Finau here. Are you going to play him or fade him? I really think you need to be over the field (at least 1.5x so 35-40ish%) or way underweight (5-10%) I don’t think you can justify a full fade here.

Personally, I’m going to be in that portion that will be overweight on Finau this week. There’s a lot of things that are checks against him…He hasn’t played yet this year, he’s playing with Tiger, but all of that is just outweighed by his course history here.

Never worse than 24th in his time here. He’s quoted as saying he loves this course and how it sets up for him and has been a big fan of the renovation on the North Course, as evidenced by his FRL last year and his finishes of 4th and 6th since the reno.

Finau’s game is picture perfect for this course. He bombs it, hits a ton of greens in reg, he’s an excellent par 72 scorer, and he has a top 10% rate of 42% which is 5th in the field. He also has the highest projected course score. As much as I hate eating the chalk here, I think I will with Finau this week and differentiate elsewhere.

Above 9K Pivot: 

Justin Rose: DK $10,800/FD $12,000

Projected GPP Ownership: 7%-10%

Who is the number one player in the world? Justin Rose

Why is he the number one player in the world? Because he’s been incredibly consistent at competing for a win every single week.

What’s his course history like? In the last four years, he has gone 8th, 4th, MC, MC

He’s going to be 20% owned right? No under 10%

WHAT?!

Seriously, I’m all in whenever I can get one of the best golfers in the world at reduced ownership. I typically don’t even care if they are a good course fit. Everyone is all over Finau this week (rightfully so) and Tiger (rightfully so) that guys like Rosey are going to go completely overlooked and likely come in at single digit ownership just because he had a mediocre week at the Desert Classic.

Here are Rose’s results for every tournament he has played since last year’s Farmers Insurance Open. Let me count this up for you.

1 Win

3 Runner Up’s

4 Top Fives (not counting the wins/runner-ups)

2 Top Tens

1 missed cut.

Are you kidding me? And he’s going to be less than 10% owned!? All in.

Other highly owned players (over 15%) Charles Howell III, Jon Rahm, Tiger Woods, Marc Leishman, Gary Woodland 

7.5K – 9K Chalk

Hideki Matsuyama: DK $8000/FD $10,700 

Projected GPP Ownership: 20%-24%  

I love Hideki this week, and I actually bet him to win when his odds were a ridiculous 66-1. That being said…I don’t love Hideki enough to roster him as the likely second highest owned golfer this week. Any time someone in that 8k range hits the 20% mark, I’m looking for reasons to fade. Everyone and their mother has realized that not only it was a bad line, but also a bad price and has been touting Hideki up. He’s a good play, don’t get me wrong, but at that ownership, I’m going to make a game theory fade or at the very least be way underweight.

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:

Sungjae Im: DK  $7800/FD $9000

Projected GPP Ownership: 6%-9%

I’m team Sungjae till I die. It’s SUNGJAESZN and I’m essentially pot invested until he wins, which is going to be soon. Let’s take a lot at both of these players in our new Head to Head comparison tool.

As you go through the comparison you can see that the RS does all the work for you showing an X on the player’s side that has the advantage. In an event that puts an emphasis on Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach it’s about even between the two. Deki is clearly the better approach player, and Sungjae the better driver of the golf ball. Driving the golf ball, especially accurately has never been Deki’s thing, Hitting beautiful iron shots that land a foot from the hole and he looks disgusted? That’s Deki’s thing.

Sungjae has been really driving the ball well and that should suit him well here, especially on the long south course, and whatever he lacks in strokes gained approach he can save with his excellent SG: Around the Green. The one big concern I have with Deki, especially chalk Deki is how BAD of a putter he is. He’s arguably one of the worst putters in the PGA. You think Spieth is bad? Yeah, Deki makes him look like Brad Faxon some days.

Their fantasy points/hole are similar enough that I really think the drop to a low owned Sungjae isn’t that much of a stretch.

The other thing we can look in comparison is course history and form over the last year.

 

Obviously, Hideki has some impressive course history here (as a rookie, Sungjae has never played here), but if we look at at least recent form, I might give the edge to Sungjae. What we don’t have included here is his T12 performance last week at the Desert Classic where he had an impressive stretch in RDS 2 and 3 where he shot 65-64.

Sungjae is extremely comfortable on the West Coast, a good Poa putter,  and he should have no problem with the switch between courses as evidenced by his performance last week.

Hideki is a decent play this week, but at his ownership, I’ll be way underweight to the field and shifting most of my ownership to my boy Sungjae!

Other highly owned players in GPP (over 15%): Cameron Champ, Brandt Snedeker, Abraham Ancer, Emiliano Grillo, J.B. Holmes 

Check out my Preview Article for my full betting card!

–> UpNorth’s PGA Preview – Farmers Insurance Open <–

Below 7.5K

There isn’t any real chalk below 7.5K this week. Keith Mitchell is likely the highest owned player down here at $7000 as he gets the bump on a course that is considered a “bombers track” Keith is a solid GPP play but his 63rd here last year isn’t awe-inspiring. He’ll be followed or possibly even bumped by local boy Beau Hossler. Hossler has never really performed well here and he’s coming off two missed cuts in a row that he missed pretty badly.

I’m going right back to the well this week with my low owned pivot as this player has a great history at this course as well and coming off a pretty solid outing at the Desert Classic.

Harris English: DK $7200/FD $7500

Projected GPP Ownership: Under 3% 

For whatever reason, the Georgia boy Harris English LOVES the West coast. Check out his course history here! Pretty impressive. He has also seen a pretty solid drift on the betting market and at this price as long as English makes the cut he should hit value.

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.

Last week, English had to go low on the weekend to make the cut and was actually under par in all four rounds which is nice step for him coming into this event.

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. I think he’s a fantastic top ten or top twenty bet as well.

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

Tiger Woods 

Tony Finau 

Patrick Cantlay

Gary Woodland

Cameron Champ 

Abraham Ancer 

Brandt Snedeker 

Sungjae Im

JJ Spaun

Harris English 

Kevin Tway 

Kevin Streelman 

Carlos Ortiz (Super low owned punt that I love here)

Rory Sabbatini 

Final Thoughts: 

I love this tournament, and I love that Tiger is back. This is a fantastic week and one that sets up really well for DFS, and I’m excited to get a 36 hole cut so we can smash Showdown on Saturday.

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!