Every week on the PGA Tour a new course means a new set of challenges. This article will examine the course being played and give specific insight on some keys for the week that other previews may be overlooking. This article will also breakdown players who stand out on both FanDuel and DraftKings for Cash Game and GPP formats. Finally, I will be reviewing my picks from before and going into a deeper dive on my Cash Game team in an attempt to better my own process while hopefully helping you with yours. For more updates throughout the week follow me on twitter @_bschnarr
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Congrats to multiple members of the Army on a solid weekend, no major wins this week but that just means we’re saving them for The Desert Classic this week.
Review from last week
In this section I will break down the players I wrote up from the prior week, how they did and how I played them in my line-ups.
Justin Thomas – T16 – 100.5 DK Points (12th) – 35.42 % Average Ownership
JT came in at over 35% ownership and was by far the highest owned player across GPP’s. None of this was necessarily surprising as all of the stars were aligning for another impressive performance out of Thomas. None of JT’s rounds were disappointing but the week as a whole he seemed a little bit off, amassing 12 bogeys that kept him out of serious contention on the weekend. Despite not necesarilly performing as well as fantasy owners would have liked, outside of Leishman by 18.5 points and Dechambeau by 2 points Thomas was the best performer over $10k salary wise and gave you a shot in your lineups.
Hideki Matsuyama – T51 – 72.5 DK Points – 10.37% Average Ownership
I liked the idea of playing Hideki expecting lower ownership with high upside. I was pretty surprised to see Hideki end up at 10.37% average ownership despite that number being inflated by the 16.28% of people who used Hideki in the $1500 event. Hideki certainly did not ruin your team like Cameron Champ or Paul Casey, (others in the $9k Range) but Hideki was outperformed by basically everyone else in this range and your salary could have been spent in a much more effective way. Thanks Hideki.
Kevin Tway – MC – 28 DK Points – 16.66 % Average Ownership
I wrote up Tway as a good cash game candidate given his salary. Fortunately for me I was able to get off of him in cash, although it really didn’t make a difference.
Sungjae Im – T16 – 94.5 DK Points – 10.74% Average Ownership
After a rough opening round Sungjae answered back with a solid -6 to make the cut for the weekend. Another solid round on Saturday put I’m in contention for a top five finish but was unable to get much going on the Sunday. For his price, Im was a terrific play and outperformed the majority of the field in the 7k to 8k range.
Course Preview
In this section I will point out a few things that I find interesting about the course. If you’re a member at the Army you also have Josh’s article for more extensive reasoning on what the key stats are and our Domination Station showing what stats have been the most important historically.
- The Career Builder Challenge has changed names and is not The Desert Classic, (for those confused on the name) the most significant
- Only two of the top 20 last season started at the stadium course. The year prior it was 5 of top 21 and in 2016 it was 8 of 24 starting on the Stadium course. So well the trend may not typically been as significant as last season there does appear to be an advantage in playing players starting at La Quinta or the Nicklaus Tournament Course, something to definitely be mindful of this week.
- Players play three different courses which may minimize the significance of course history but I do not think you should entirely throw it out the window. Well every course is different there are certainly similarities between the southern California courses.
- Jon Rahm this week is in a similar situation that we saw Justin Thomas in last week. The clear favourite at an event they’ve won at, you should expect to see similar ownership up top this week as we did last.
- I would never trust my counting if I was you but I do see 95 players priced at $7K and under as opposed to 81 last week (which I feel like is higher than usual. Well you may find a potential diamond in the rough within this price point the vast majority of these players are essentially unplayable which means a higher percentage of ownership will fall on a smaller number of total players. It’s important in GPP’s to be mindful of the fact that most player pools will be shorter than usual and to give yourself a unique line-up this isn’t a bad week to keep a few $100 in salary off the table or find low-owned pivots with high upside.
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Interesting Plays
In this section I will discuss plays that I like/dislike and guys that I find interesting for the week. Because this article comes out on a Monday this list can change, anyone I change my mind on will be discussed later in the week in our PGA coaching channel
Jon Rahm – DK: $11600 FD: $11900
As mentioned above, I see Rahm much like JT last week and expect a similar ownership up top. I really do like Rahm this week, as he has looked good in the Tournament of Champions and has had prior success here. The important point for me will be just how much ownership we expect but I am expecting to be starting many of my line-ups with Rahm this week.
Justin Rose – DK: $11000 FD: $12100
Rose is also interesting as all eyes will be on him and his new Honma clubs. I really do not know how it will impact him but I think it is something the field may overreact too (especially with Rahm as such an obvious, safe play). IF we are seeing lots of talk about Rose’s irons and the uncertainty surrounding them I have no issue pivoting to Rose and getting him at a low ownership #.
DraftKings Second Tier (Cantlay, Hadwin, Howell, Putnam, Mickelson)
This group is interesting to me as I am unsure how ownership will break down. Howell and Putnam were highly owned last week and performed for fantasy owners, we know psychologically it is very hard to get away from what just gave you success. Hadwin is the course horse that has dominated this event, Cantlay has been fantastic lately and is always popular among the sharps and Mickelson always carries a bit of ownership because of his name. Personally my current favourite to least favourite for GPP’s goes as follows – Cantlay, Hadwin, Putnam, Howell, Mickelson. As the week goes on I will discuss in final notes how expected ownership and research potentially changes this order.
Luke List – DK: $9000 FD: $10100
List is making his first start sense his interesting T4, MC, T4 swing season. List has also been up and down at this event with a MC, T41 and T6 in his three appearances at this event. The inconsistency should obviously worry you for cash games but makes List enticing to me in GPP events.
Brian Harman – DK: $8800 FD: $10200
Although he destroyed my cash team last week I like the idea of going back to Harman this week. Missed cuts happen and this is an event Harman has had success at recently with T20, T3 and T11 finishes in the last three seasons.
Daniel Berger – DK: $7700 FD: $10800
The price discrepancy here is absurd as we see Berger as the 5th highest salary on FanDuel and the 28th highest salary on DraftKings. Berger should realistically be somewhere in the middle but the discrepancy makes him likely very under owned on FanDuel and highly owned on DraftKings.
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Cash Game Review
I will end each article going over my cash game line-up for the week, breaking down my plays and reflecting for the following week
The Team (0-1)
Charles Howell – $8900 – T8
Zach Johnson – $8600 – MC
Matt Kuchar – $8500 – WIN
Adam Scott – $8300 – MC
Brian Harman – $7900 – MC
Chez Reavie – $7600 – 3rd
I began finalizing my team by locking into place Charles Howell, Matt Kuchar and Chez Reavie, all three our typical cash game players, I was okay with every price and felt I could build a great team with those guys as my locks. Then I began tinkering around with the rest of my players and salary. My short list for the next few spots included; Grillo, Paul Casey, Zach Johnson, Adam Scott, Brandt Snedeker, Patton Kizzire, Adam Hadwin, Scott Piercy, Sungjae Im, Kevin Tway, Andrew Putnam and, Kieth Mitchell. Of that list 8/12 made the cut, which is another thing I like to track for the year to see if I was close or not.
I ultimately felt I could go two ways with who I had previously locked, I could grab Casey or Grillo and that would force myself onto Putnam or Mitchell and one of Piercy or Tway – or, I could round out my line-up with ZJ and Scott, which got me onto Hadwin or Harman for my final spot. Unfortunately for me I chose the worse of the two initial options and then picked Harman over Hadwin (Hadwin’s performance would have been enough for my 4/6 team to cash). Despite this I feel it is incorrect to look at week-to-week performance in cash games as correct or incorrect and instead evaluate the validity of your overall roster construction as a whole.
For the week I think I was spot in with my initial locks, CH3 was likely the lowest price we will see him during the California swing while he racks up the top 20’s, Kuch was in a good spot at a good price and so was Reavie. For the most part I think the rest of my shortlist was too, just a few too many guys putting up duds who usually do not.
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