Schnarr’s Super Picks DFS PGA Preview – Arnold Palmer Invitational

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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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 – T30

 I wrote up how the price was justifiable but that it put playing JT in a tough spot. Early in the week I was instead on other players in the top range due to JT ownership expected to be high. As we got closer to lock the thought of JT running away with the tournament scared me into getting him in line-ups. I ended up slightly under the field with 20% ownership, allowing me to spread out to others in the top tier that played better…. And the ones who played worse

Rest of $10K plus on DraftKings (Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler

On this list I ended up favouring Brooks for GPP’s and Sergio for Cash/overall. I also ended up with a lot of Adam Scott and was relatively low on Rickie. Rickie’s late run did hurt slightly but with Brooks being my main guy in GPP’s I did fine on this range for the week.

Gary Woodland – T36

Loved Gary this week in all formats, ended up with a bit too much ownership that hurt the GPP’s when Gary went the wrong way on Sunday.

Cameron Smith – MC

I ultimately ended up with little of Smith personally as I went in other directions with my team construction.

Kiradech Aphibarnrat/Luke List – MC/MC

And right here is where my GPP team’s faultered. I was overweight on both of these guys as big risk/reward plays. Ultimately, both did not reward me and the missed cuts at 15/20% personal ownership dragged me down quite a bit.

Russell Knox – T51

 Knox was another one for me that I was on in every format. The performance was not great but it was not terrible and still kept me alive in cash games.

Sungjae Im – T51

 At 15% average ownership across GPP’s it appeared no one got off of the Sungjae train. I was right around the same ownership, thinking I would be overweight, and this looked great on Friday. Then the weekend came and Im slid all the way down the leaderboard to T51, still could have been worse for his price.

 

Overall, I think this is a week that gave me a great reminder about golf for DFS purposes. All of these guys are human and nothing is guaranteed. The DFS community as a whole seemed so sure on JT who narrowly avoided missing the cut, a guy like Woodland came in with ridiculous form and underperformed. Any week any player out here can do anything and while it’s a little surprising to see JT and Woodland down the leaderboard it’s a good reminder that anything is possible and nothing is a certainty in this game.

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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.

• Even with Tiger dropping out, the top end of this field is loaded. Well a few notables are missing 7 of the world’s top 10 are here. Outside of JT being 30% and Rickie being 10% owned this past week, we have typically seen ownership spread out amongst the worlds top players, which I think is an important thing to remember when making line-ups this week.
• 7400 yard + par 72 this week. All par fives are gettable and birdies/eagles are out there for guys, I will be emphasizing par 5 scorers this week.
• Course history gets a bit of a bump for me personally as we have seen some guys who aren’t superstars on tour do consistently well here. It’s always hard to tell if, Rory for example, has three top tens we chalk that up to the course or the fact that it’s Rory just playing the way he’s capable of but here when we see certain guys who aren’t necessarily elite do consistently well here it makes me more inclined to take course history for everyone into consideration.
• 120ish players this week instead of the regular 140+ changes the percentage of players making the cut significantly higher. Expect to see more 6/6’s and adjust your strategy in GPP/Cash games accordingly. For me in cash this likely means being a little more aggressive with my final build.

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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

$10K and up (Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka)

 This range is absolutely loaded this week. Rory has been the most consistent player in 2018 finishing with a top five in all four of his appearances thus far. Rose, although he missed his last cut in Europe won his last event in America at the Farmers Insurance Open. Fowler has a win earlier this year and a T2 last week and Brooks relatively struggled early this year but is also coming off of a T2 finish. I can’t fault you for playing any of these guys and also find it extremely difficult to say play one over the others. I think I might end up being on all four and trying to go overweight on whoever we are expecting might slip through the cracks a little, while matching the field with the rest of the players.

$9K and up (Jason Day, Bryson Dechambeau, Marc Leishman, Hideki Matsuyama, Phil Mickelson, Tommy Fleetwood, Francesco Molinari)

Another great list of players is the $9K range for the week. My first thought was to get back on Bryson after the disappointing performance in Mexico. I think because of the price tags, we could see the low $9k end of Fleetwood/Phil/Hideki pick up lots of the ownership while Leishman will likely be lower owned due to price. I personally see myself as of now most on Dechambeau, Hideki and Molinari for different reasons, I will break down more in my final notes.

Lucas Glover – DK$8200

 Glover is one of the first ones I noticed in my initial scroll through and think he makes for a great cash game play here at this price. Outside of Waste Management, Glover has been on fire here and has played great at API in the past

Si Woo Kim – DK$7800

 Si Woo has been playing fantastic golf as of late with two straight top fives. Well this probably means Kim is due for a MC, I think the price is too tempting to be off of him in GPP’s this week.

Adam Hadwin – DK: $7700

He may not seem like the greatest course fit but Hadwin did come 6^th here in his last appearance, albeit it was after a win and showing much better form, ill still have a bit of Hadwin this week as he is a good fit for the tough par threes and I like the price.

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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 (4.5-2.5) One Team Cashed, One Team Did Not

So it might seem like cheating to make two lineups last week – but it’s my challenge my rules!

Team 1

Gary Woodland – T36

Emiliano Grillo – MC

Scott Piercy – MC

Michael Thompson – T16

Jason Kokrak – T9

Russell Knox – T51

 

Team 2

Sergio Garcia – T9

Gary Woodland – T36

Michael Thompson – T16

Russell Knox – T51

Jason Kokrak – T9

Jim Furyk – T9

 

When building teams I typically end up with one line-up I settle on for cash, however, when I am not set on that line-up I often make two and split buy-ins. This week I down low I loved Michael Thompson, Russell Knox and Jason Kokrak in cash. Up top I loved Woodland, these four became my cash core. Ultimately, I made the first line-up and felt comfortable with it initially. As we got closer to lock on Wednesday night I became second guessing the line-up and really wanted to find a way to fit in Sergio. When I subbed in Sergio for Woodland I thought about subbing in Glover for Grillo, however I really wanted to keep Woodland. I had no issue subbing out Piercy and found I could get off of him, onto Furyk and that allowed me to upgrade Grillo to Sergio. This ultimately worked and Team 2 was comfortably in the money throughout the week. To end Saturday both of my teams were in the money ultimately with guys moving backwards on Sunday team 1 was not able to hold on to the cash line.