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.

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.

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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.

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Key Stats: 

Key Stats to look for this week – Birdies Gained, SG – Approach, Avg. FP Gained, and Projected Course Score.

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The Field:

In this section, I’ll cover who is in the field this week, the odds, any pricing discrepancies, and a few of my favorite plays on first look!

Jon Rahm returns to defend his title and will likely have to fight off first-time entrant Justin Rose and California kid Patrick Cantlay to do so. He goes off as  +650 favorite and the likely highest priced golfer in DFS.

Coming off a strong performance last week and returning to a tournament he has won in the past, Hudson Swafford looks to be a decent value at +4000, but is someone I want to wait on for tee times.

If we can refer to Charles Howell III as Mr. Waialae,  then Adam Hadwin should be Mr. La Quinta. He loves this area and has three top 6 finishes in a row here.

Abraham Ancer limped to the finish line last year with a 77 in the final round, but was in a position to do well coming in, and should get another look this week.

While some may be tempted to play C.T. Pan here he missed the cut last year and really struggles on overseeded Bermuda greens, not something I want to get involved in.

Since he hasn’t teed it up yet this year, you may have forgotten about Chesson Hadley, he was t42 here last year and had a nice run of form in the fall which makes him an interesting DFS and betting play.

The one guy I really want exposure to in DFS and Betting is Asian Tour Order of Merit winner, John Catlin. Catlin went the non-traditional route after a solid career at University of New Mexico and went to the Asian Tour after college. He struggled there and actually had to go down to the Asian Developmental Tour before working his way up to the Asian Tour and winning the Order of Merit last year (points total winner, like FedEx Cup). Catlin is here on a sponsor exemption but is no stranger not only to the area, but playing against PGA tour pros as he played in the WGC-HSBC and CIMB classic last fall. He’s a birdie maker who can go low, and likely will go massively underowned in DFS and at +20000 makes a great top 20 bet when those odds come out.

Beat the Bookie Betting Card:

Something new I’m adding each week to this article is my personal betting card for the week for Outrights, First Round Leaders, Top 5’s and Top 10’s. The real bread and butter with golf betting is tournament and round matchups but I’m saving those for our Beat the Bookie VIPs!

 As a rule, I typically don’t bet many outrights under +3500 unless its an extremely weak field (DJ at the FedEx St. Jude last year comes to mind) It’s just not a +EV most weeks when you think about 156 guys teeing it up. Hitting 3-4 outrights a year is a fantastic year for most golf bettors. The return on investment of hitting an outright at 50-1 can pay for a long dry spell (which is fairly typical in golf betting if you are only playing Outrights, FRLs and T5/T10).

I’m going against that a bit this week as I’m clicking course horse Adam Hadwin’s name at +2500 before he gets bet down.

Kevin Streelman is a long shot +15000 and has struggled to make cuts, but looking back at last year, he showed up and played well at courses he’s had success at. I’m not a huge believer in course history, but I think it makes some sense, especially at a tournament with three courses. He was t11 here in 2016, t29 in 2018.  He likely may be a better a t10 bet, but at 150-1 I think I can get involved and hope he gets hot this week.

I added Harris English once the draw came out. He’s playing at the Nicklaus Tournament course to start which is a draw that I like. He then gets the Stadium Course on Friday and it’s likely to be soft and wet from the rain on Thursday Afternoon/Night meaning that he should be able to fire at pins. He’s coming off a solid top 25 performance at the Sony and is a player that has much better splits on the west coast. English was T11 last year and I’m hitting him across the board for an outright, a t5 and a t10. He’s a fantastic DFS play too.

I added some long shot bombs for t10. George Cunningham is a Web.Com player playing here on an exemption and has bet down from over 500-1 to 200-1 in outrights and I think he has a great shot at a top 10. Don’t love that he’s starting at Stadium, but is a good look here. I want a piece of Joaquin Niemann at t10 because I think he’s going to be massively chalky in DFS and will likely be a fade for me so I’ll hedge here just in case he goes nuts.

John Catlin is a player I love as stated earlier in this article and ath +700 number for a top 20 is nice and was an auto hit for me.

I’m going to hold off on making any more outright bets until I see the tee time draw which likely be on Tuesday Night/Wednesday AM. At that point I’ll update the card with those bets as well as any FRL or Top 5/Top 10 as they haven’t been posted yet.

I’ll have Head to Head and full tournament matchups posted for our Beat the Bookie VIPs on Wednesday. These are truly where you can make your money in golf betting, while not as sexy or as big as an outright win, they are much more profitable.

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Final Thoughts: 

This event is a bit tricky to handicap because of the three different courses. I’m planning on targeting players in this order of courses the play:

LQ – La Quinta

NT – Nicklaus Tournament

SC – Stadium Course

1. LQ, NT, SC
2. NT, SC, LQ
3. SC, LQ, NT

You don’t have to fully fade players starting at the Stadium Course, but it’s typically the worst draw, and one I’ll try to avoid if at all possible in DFS. In betting I will completely fade it.

We will have content for you all through the week at DFS Army. Our research station and domination station optimizer will be updated on Tuesday and I will have my full Chalk Donkey article breaking down all the ownership and GPP strategy for our VIP’s on Tuesday night! If you aren’t a VIP yet, use code UPNORTH for 20% your first month!

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!

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