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 uanble 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!

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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.

 

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Key Stats: 

Key Stats to look for this week – Birdies Gained, SG – Approach, Driving Distance (length is huge here!), and Projected Course Score.

You can find all of these key stats in our DFS Army research station accessible ONLY for our VIPs.

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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!

Rory McIlroy is skipping the Omega Dubai Desert Classic to tee it up at the Farmers Insurance Open for the first time in his career and opens up as the second favorite. He’s followed by last year’s winner Jason Day who has dominated this course during his career.

But the real story is the return of Tiger Woods to this event as he kicks off his season. Tiger’s return to dominance last year was fun to watch and I look forward to him keeping it going this year. My childhood was defined by Tiger fist pumping at Augusta and playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004. I love me some Tiger here again this week.

Tony Finau has some strong course history but he has to play with Tiger this week, something that Rory McIlroy has been quoted as saying costs you one to two strokes a round.

This seems like an excellent course fit for Cameron Champ given his length off the tee, his odds to win don’t necessarily represent his DraftKings price of $8500 which is where I’m going to get my exposure.

Draftkings has a beautiful price range that is centered around this +5500 to +6600 odds bracket with guys like Sungjae Im, Luke List, and Aaron Wise all in play.

One thing to remember this week is that just because someone missed the cut the previous week doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play them. Luke List is a great example of that. He shot -7 to miss the cut by two, but that’s a pretty impressive performance regardless of what the cut is. He plays a little better in rounds 1 and 2 (was a combined -2) and he’s likely a guy getting a ton of buzz because of his length.

Harold Varner and Keith Mitchell are two guys who are underpriced as well and will likely be popular in GPP’s.

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 got a little trigger happy. Typically MyBookie.ag is one of the slowest in terms of updating their golf outright odds throughout the day. Betting outrights is typically not a winning proposition most weeks, but I couldn’t ignore the value on these four. They were getting slammed on other books and their odds were decreasing exponentially, to the point where I just couldn’t sit back anymore and had to hit them for one unit a piece before their odds dropped.

Tiger Woods +1800 (I just want a piece…because I’m nostalgic…but he also has played this course 17 times as a professional, won 7 of them, including a US Open, and has an average finishing position of 7th). (already down to +1400 on Bovada)

Jordan Spieth +4000 He’ll be 27 or 28-1 by the end of the week. He’s priced below a ton of guys that he’s clearly a better player than. (already down to +3300 on Bovada)

Hideki Matsuyama +6600 Just another strong value play. He’s world class when he’s on. T12 and t33 last two trips here. (Already down to +5000 on Bovada)

Keith Mitchell +16000 This is a bombers course and Mitchell is one of the longest on tour. T63 in his first go-round here last year. Already down to +12500 on Bovada.

Once the FRL markets opened up on MyBookie.ag I was blown away that they didn’t split the FRL markets for South and North Courses, and this is something we can take advantage of. The North course played over a stroke easier last year, and the First Round Leader, Tony Finau teed it up there on day one. Since they aren’t split, I jumped on a bunch of guys who are all playing on the North Course in round one and are great round one scorers. Only 1/3 of a unit, though I did put a decent size bet on Adam Svensson as he’s been great in round one. I covered most of my outrights with T5 Bets, not my long shots though as those are a bit more of a lottery ticket than anything. If Keith Mitchell is in contention, I’ll just hedge on Sunday. I like Johnny Vegas alot this week in both DFS and Betting. He’s a great play when he’s on a course he’s comfortable with and is good on Poa Annua.

One interesting thing to note though, is that Jason Day was last year’s winner and shot over par on day one at the south course, and then went nuts on the North course the next day with a 63. I think there will be a market after round one to jump on guys that maybe got off to a slow start on the South Course.

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: 

I love Tiger here, but so does everyone else so don’t be scared to look elsewhere. Be sure to watch as ownership trends start to come together as the week goes on and don’t be afraid to make a contrarian play. I was so close to clicking Phil’s name last week and then I got caught up in him tweeting that he was rusty and faded because of that. The game theory play would have been to go overweight at that point because everyone else was panicking too.

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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