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DFS Golf: Chalk Donkey – WGC Mexico – Draftkings and Fanduel DFS PGA Advice

The Tour heads to Mexico for the first World Golf Championship event of the 2019 Season as Phil Mickelson 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!

What a week…the weather made this an interesting one and for the first time in my memory, we saw a tournament completely reset. Players were out on the course Thursday morning, and the horn sounded and pulled them in after only a few holes. In a somewhat unprecedented move, the Tour decided to completely reset the tournament and start over. The deluge of rain had washed out some of the tee boxes and hole locations and it was necessary to move them. To protect the field they reset the scores and started over.

Players were barely able to play any more holes on Thursday and the whole tournament got thrown off kilter. Some players finished Friday morning and weren’t back out till late Saturday morning. Others had to play as many as they could Friday, and finish the second round Saturday morning. All in all, it was a long grind for many of these players and took quite a toll on some. The leaders had to play 34 holes on Sunday which is NOT something they are used to.

J.B. Holmes slowly grinded his way to a victory while Justin Thomas blew a four-shot lead in Rickie Fowler fashion. While he was still great with his irons, his putter let him down, losing almost 3 strokes with his putter on Sunday. J.B. meanwhile led the entire field in putting.

Pre-tournament tip, Si Woo Kim kept his solid form going and had a fantastic Sunday, shooting 66 in the final round to wrap up a solo third place finish. Hideki Matsuyama also had a solid final round 67 to sneak into the top ten. Tiger Woods just ran out of gas after a long Sunday to fall out of contention and finish T15.

One of the big Sunday stories though was the collapse of Jordan Spieth. I was someone who after three rounds felt like Spieth was starting to figure it out and was looking at his odds at Augusta and thinking about pulling the trigger. He wiped all the confidence I had in him on Sunday with a brutal 81. He completed the Am-Slam with a bogey, double, triple, and quad, all on the same card. He really struggled around the greens, and couldn’t quite find a way to fight back. Adam Hadwin was similarly bad, but he did it over two days, shooting 77 on both Saturday and Sunday to kill some DFS players dreams. He actually hurt players by making the cut.

We get a 72 player no-cut WGC event in Mexico City this week so while we don’t have the cut sweat we do need to nail the top of the board with our DFS picks. The one benefit though of these smaller events though is that there are some values on the Outright board. Typically anything over 150-1 is a real long shot, but we get players this week with a legitimate chance to win.

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Course Breakdown:

The WGC-Mexico Championship takes place at Club de Golf Chapultepec in Mexico City, Mexico. A 7345-yard par 71, but plays much shorter given that it’s at 7800 feet above sea-level. That makes it the highest altitude tournament on the PGA Tour’s schedule. At that altitude, the ball flies anywhere from 8 to 12 percent further than normal. So essentially this course plays at well under 7000 yards given the altitude adjustment. Players will have to adjust and club down often, given those who have played here before a distinct advantage, though I’m sure all of the players will have the trackman out on the range getting their yardages dialed in prior to teeing off on Thursday.

With such a short course, there’s not much to defend from a low score and you can see that from the scoring average being over half a stroke under par last year. In the two times they’ve played here, the winning score was -18 and -14 and only 17 of 64 last year and 31 of 76 the year before shot over par.

While the course is short, players who hit it a long ways still do have an advantage around here, especially if they are somewhat accurate off the tee. The tree-lined fairways provide some defense, but players who are long, aggressive, and accurate can have a short chip or pitch into a lot of these greens. They also can find themselves dead to rights behind some trees if they miss. Players have found success here doing it both ways. DJ has found success relying on his distance (T49 in fairways hit), and so has Phil (T55 in fairways hit) in their wins, but guys like Tyrell Hatton (T3 in fairways hit) have had success just hitting fairways and finding greens.

The other defense is difficult to read green complexes. Not only are they difficult to read, but they are poa annua, which as you know gets quite bumpy as the day goes on and players will struggle with the bounces. Last year, it seemed like everyone needed tap ins to make birdies with how bumpy they were. For example, last year’s winner here Phil Mickelson only made 304 feet putts for the week and was top 15 in the field. Last week at Riviera Justin Thomas was pretty poor in terms of putting, especially Sunday and made 342 feet of putts. It’s a tough week for putting, but if you can read the greens and don’t get so frustrated with the putts not dropping when they should you can have a good week.

One way to beat the greens though? Stick it tight. Which is what we’ve seen on the leaderboard here over its two iterations, ballstrikers galore in the top ten. Sergio Garcia, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, and Tyrell Hatton have back to back top 15’s here. Daniel Berger has had quite a bit of success here as well.

With Kikuyu Grass fairways/rough and Poa Annua greens we can likely give a bit of a bump to players who had a solid week at the Genesis Open as that is similar conditions. Other courses that we can look at in terms of correlation are Valderamma, East Lake, and Firestone. Tree-lined fairways, kikuyu grass, and small greens are the main factors you need to consider when looking at courses that are a good match.

Are you using the Domination Station to build lineups? If you are building more than 20 lineups and aren’t using it quit wasting your time! Check out the tutorial to learn how!

–>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 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AM.

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.

A really interesting set of players here popping as the value on this slate, and a group that you could actually all fit on the same roster. While I think most people (myself included) will be going down the Stars and Super Scrubs route, a balanced build might be a great hedge.

I chase Emiliano Grillo every week he tees it up and this week will be no different. His form is middling with a couple of 30ish place finishes, but he’s a great course fit here with his solid approach/off the tee game and he is due some MASSIVE positive regression with his putter. His long term SG: Putting (50 rounds) is more than a full stroke better than his last ten. Gets to putt on Poa which is a good surface for him and one he hasn’t putted on yet this year. At his price on DK he’s a core play for me.

Tommy Fleetwood is another player who I roster most weeks and he has been quoted as saying he likes the way this course suits his eye and how it reminds him of playing on the Euro Tour. I think we’re due a Euro Winner at this event and I love Tommy’s chances. He’s been top 15 in both turns here and while the current form leaves a bit to be desired, I like his chances.

Gary Woodland and Webb Simpson have both had a bit of trouble here in their prior trips, but both are playing excellent golf. Webb played beautifully here last here just couldn’t putt to save his life (weirdly enough he won a few months later putting the lights out). Woodland has the approach game to contend here, he just needs to hit greens in regulation and stay out of the bunker/collection areas. Both could be under-owned here.

Rafa Cabrera-Bello crushed it here last year, particularly in RD 4 to vault himself up to a 3rd place finish. The form is right, and I love the course fit for him. Underpriced on DK but actually might be the better play on FD as he is in a dead zone in terms of pricing.

SG: Putting-Poa

I don’t like to target putting. It’s a stat that is hugely variant. Looking at SG logs you can see that guys putt well one day and don’t the next. Check out Rory McIlroy’s last 20 rounds putting.

Hugely variant. Lost 2.8 strokes putting, gained 3.2. lost 3.2 gained 2.7. It’s insane how fast it can flip. That being said, it appears that being able to read these greens, and not get frustrated by the ultra bumpy poa has been a huge advantage for players here. As with most tournaments, you need to putt well to win, but we’ve seen huge swings in the leaderboard just based on putting alone in the two times the tournament has been held here.

It’s not an end all be all thing for me, but if a player putts well on Poa I’m giving them a little bit of a bump. It’s worth noting that we don’t have a ton of rounds tracked with this so take it with a grain of salt.

A couple of names pop here for me. Alexander Noren is a world-class golfer who isn’t getting a ton of love and is severely underpriced on DK. He’s played here twice and should be comfortable, making him a great play.

Ian Poulter has struggled with the putter lately but is traditionally a much better poa putter than any surface. Should get some positive regression. He’s also been absolutely on fire and NO ONE is talking about him. I love him here on both sites.

Finally, Russell Knox is another guy who is a good putter, but traditionally better on poa. He went through a stretch last year where he was TURRIBLE. And I hate to jump the shark here, but I think he’s back. He’s played well the last few weeks and has played really well tee to green. I’ll be on him on both sites.

Projected DK Score:

Projected DK Score (formerly Projected Course Score)is one of our best stats. This takes the current course into account. The FP/H averages by each hole type on the course are added up to create a raw per round FP scoring projection. It’s a good way to find out who is a course fit here and statistically should have success.

No surprises here. The worlds best player typically dominate here. So we see the top of the Official World Golf Rankings right at the top. The one interesting piece here is Tony Finau. 

I think Finau is underpriced, particularly on DK. He has similar win equity to those priced above him, and not only that, he’s looking to be around 12% owned. Love me some Finau here.

The big question this week is how you construct your roster, and can you afford two studs? I think you can, but you absolutely have to nail one your scrubs and the issue is that it’s likely going to be a euro tour player that we don’t have a ton of data on. Are you willing to take that risk? I think that’s likely what it takes to win a gpp this week, though if you go balanced and the studs dud you have a shot. Traditionally though, this has been a stud dominated course with major winners littering the top ten.

Fantasy Points Gained: Long Par 5’s.

The long par 5’s are where you need to make your bread and butter this week. They are the easiest, second easiest, and fourth easiest holes on the course, and you absolutely need to score on them to be in contention here.

A lot of the typical bombers that we expect, but a few players like Jordan Spieth and Sergio Garcia make the list. Spieth is going to be virtually unowned this week following his collapse on Sunday at the Genesis Open, but he’s really played well over here the years, with back to back top 15’s. Even last year when he was playing poorly in the spring, he had a nice showing. I think he’s a great GPP Pivot off some of the chalkier players in his price range.

My hope this week is that the world just keeps denying Justin Thomas is a good golfer and he comes in under-owned again. Right now that doesn’t look to be the case, but a guy can hope, right? He just does everything so well and he’s going to be fired up to get back out there after a tough loss last Sunday.

Tom Lewis is a guy we have about zero data on in terms of shot link, but believe me…he’s a stud. He’s had a massive ascent up the world golf rankings and is going to be a guy you hear about for a long time, and you’ll also hear more about him in the pivot section later!

One thing, that puts us at a huge advantage is the Domination Station. If you aren’t using it to build lineups you’re crazy! Check out how it 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 (though only 134 this week, making it more important to get 6/6) 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.

In a no-cut event, it takes on a little bit of a different spin. A chalky player at the top of the salary scale you have to ask yourself a few questions. Say he’s going to be 25% owned. “Is he going to win?” and “are the odds of him winning better than 1 in 4, equal to, or less?” If it’s less then I think a fade is in order. The same conversation can be had with chalk at the lower salary range. Will he be in the top half of the field? Will he be in the top 20? Etc.

And now, here my friends, are this weeks’ Chalk Donkeys:

Above 9K Chalk

Justin Thomas: DK $11,800/FD $12,000

Projected GPP ownership: 20%-24%

Justin Thomas is a stud. I love him. He’s a monster. Is he going to win this tournament 1 out of every 5 times its played? Vegas doesn’t seem to think so as he’s priced at 9-1. At this price on both sites, he essentially needs to win to hit value. Is he going to do that?

The only viable argument against JT this week is that he’s going to be highly owned and essentially needs to win to hit value. I really think I’ll probably just be around 25% and hope that he comes in under-owned so I’m a little over the field. The pricing is such that you can afford him and another stud. If he wins, you’re golden, really if he top 5’s your probably in good shape. You can full fade here and hope he continues to struggle like he did on Sunday at Genesis, but I’m going to bet that was a one-off and he’s back on it this week.

I’ll have similar to the field in terms of ownership because I think he DOES have about a 1 in 5 chance of winning here, but this isn’t a spot to go overweight or all in my opinion.

Above 9K Pivot: 

Xander Schauffele: DK $9,400/FD $11,200

Projected GPP Ownership: 8%-12% 

I’m going right back to the X man this week. He had a real tough round 1 at the Genesis shooting 74 and losing almost three strokes putting. He was able to fight his way back, make the cut, and finish T15 for the week!

If we look at his rounds from last week at the Genesis, you can see how he improved as the week went on, and played extremely well over the weekend, having the third lowest round on Saturday.

Schauffelle was 18th here last year and that was prior to him going on a real run at the majors and improving his OWGR to the point where he is the top ten in the world now.

X is a stud, and I’m going right back to the well here as one of the lowest owned players above 9K. (Rickie Fowler may end up being lowest here, but I don’t have much interest). Most of the ownership here will go to Hideki Matsuyama who everyone and their mother is loving this week. In a small field event, you want to leverage ownership wherever you can and I’ll be well overweight of a cheap Xander if he is going to be under 15% owned.

Other highly owned players (over 15%): Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm

7.5K – 9K Chalk

Gary Woodland: DK $7900/FD $10,100

Projected GPP Ownership: 16%-20%

Woodland is getting quite a bit of buzz this week along with Tommy Fleetwood and Sergio Garcia in this range (I’m all in on both, check out my Coaches notes)

Gary has back to back top 10’s coming into this event but has really struggled here over the last two years, never finishing above 35th place. If we look back to last year, he made 2 Eagles, 10 birdies, 10 bogeys, and 3 Doubles. Where he struggled was hitting approach shots into greens, especially on the par 3 7th where he hit it into the water on back to back days in rounds 1 and 2.

So how are his irons coming into this event?

Not too bad. Some really solid rounds, but a few poor ones too. As I look through his shot tracker stats from last year, I see that he hit quite a few greens, but really was nowhere near the pins. It’s my assumption that he struggled with distance control at altitude. While he was hitting greens, he’s an awful lag putter and that put him in a bad spot. Want to check out his shot tracker from 2017 and 2018? Check it out here –> Gary Woodland Shot Tracker  You can also check out anyone’s rounds here.

I don’t think that Gary is a ‘Bad’ play by any means, but there are others that I want to target in this range that just look like ‘better’ plays.

7.5K – 9K Pivot:

Byeong Hun An: DK $7600/FD $9200

Projected GPP Ownership: 4%-6%

If you know me, you know that I looooove me some Benny An. 6% Ben An? Getting me all hot and bothered here.

An is a stud tee to green, one of the best on tour. He bombs it. Can score on Par 4’s and Par 5’s. and puts himself in just generally great positions all around the course. Where Benny struggles is….on the green.

In 2017 when he played here he finished 48th and was top 5 in SG: Approach…and dead last in SG: Putting. Losing almost 5 full strokes putting. He was DEAD LAST in distance of putts made. He putts even close to his baseline and he finishes in the top 30. Through this all though, he still shot a 66 in round 2 which was the second-best round of the day.

Essentially with Benny, you are banking on his elite iron play and hoping that he’s close enough to the pin that his poor putting doesn’t matter.

Other highly owned players (over 12%): Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Rafael Cabrera Bello  

NOTE: I looooooove Ian Poulter this week! Everyone is going to be off him since he hasn’t played on the tour in a while, but he has gone T6, T3, T6 on the European Tour in his last three events. He’s likely going to be around 10% owned, but I’ll be at least 3x the field.

Check out my Preview Article for my full betting card!

–> UpNorth’s PGA Preview – WGC Mexico <–

Below 7.5K

With the majority of the ownership clocking in up top and a balanced build making a lot of sense this week, we don’t have a ton of chalk down here. It’s POSSIBLE that Henrik Stenson gets chalky but I actually doubt he’s much more than 12%. The price is crazy for him and I’ll take a few shots but the industry as a whole doesn’t really seem to be on him. Another guy who is a core play for me here is Emiliano Grillo and he will likely be somewhat highly owned.

There’s a couple of European players I really like down here that I’m going to highlight for those of you making stars and scrubs lineups. They’ll likely be unowned as we don’t necessarily have stats on them because they play overseas and the Euro Tour doesn’t have shot tracker.

Matt Wallace: DK $7300/FD $8800

Love Wallace in this field. Excellent player on the European tour that will be massively under-owned. Should have made the Ryder Cup last year as he won THREE times.

Joost Luiten: DK $7300/FD $7800

Excellent cash play typically. I’m going to have close to zero on DK but he’s in a smash spot on FD at this ridiculous price. Was T37 last year here. At 7800 on FD if he finishes in the top 40 he smashes value. Sixth at the Saudi last week and 3rd at Abu Dhabi HSBC. Took some time off last year with an injury so his game log is next to nothing.

Alex Noren: DK $7100/FD $9600

Excellent DK play but might get a bit chalky. Could be a better play on FD as he’s in a pricing bubble and people will likely stay away. Pops as a really good Poa putter.

Tom Lewis: DK $7000/FD $7000

For whatever reason Fanduel refuses to respect the Europeans and we always get them at a discount here. Tom Lewis is a stud. He’s had a huge ascent up the OWG rankings. He started 2017 ranked 370th in the world. Is now ranked 57th. The price on FD is insane. Check out his form.

Won the Portugal Masters and then went on a huge run of excellent finishes. Last week’s finish in the Super Six is not concerning as that is a funky match play event and he got on the wrong side of the draw with the weather at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic. Lewis is an absolute stud and is a core play for me this week in pretty much every format.

Alexander Bjork: DK $6100/FD $7600

A DK play for me at this price where I’m going to smash him. If you were a member last year you know I love Bjork and his game really should fit well here. He has excellent form coming in, and while I like him a bit less than a guy like Lewis or Wallace, his price is incredible on DK and lets you do quite a bit with your roster.

Really playing well on the European Tour and for $6100? You can do much worse for $1000 more!

GPP Core:

Want to know who is my GPP Core? How bout Taco or Brody’s? Check it out here on our brand new Coaches Notes page.

Final Thoughts: 

A no-cut event is always a bit tricky, but especially a WGC where you get lots of players that most of the casual fans have never heard of coming over from the European Tour. My advice this week would be to play the same amount of volume, but shift a bit more of your action to GPP’s, due to the huge variance we can see in these no-cut events. If you want to keep your volume the same in Cash/GPP make sure you are building more of a ‘hybrid’ type cash lineup with a little more risk.

The cream has always risen to the top here over the years, whether it was played here in Mexico or at Doral and I don’t expect that to change this week. I do think that a ‘Stars and Scrubs’ lineup is likely the best way to win a GPP, but a balanced build will likely keep you in the cash. Hitting on the ‘scrub’ is going to be key to taking down any GPP this week.

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!