One last chance to tune up before the PGA Championship, the tour heads to Trinity Forest and the AT&T Byron Nelson Championship!

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 for DFS golf 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 win for golf twitter! Everyone’s favorite follow @maxhoma23 broke through for his first win on tour! Less than 9 months ago, he had to birdie the last four holes to make the cut and get himself into the Web.com tour finals. Now he’s a winner on tour. The 417th ranked golfer held off charges from Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, and Rory McIlroy to secure his first win and a two-year exemption. With the win, he gets into all of the majors, including the Masters’. He tweeted this about the Masters’ earlier this year.

I don’t think I’d be nervous on the first tee at my first Masters. It’s always been a dream of mine to play that tournament. I’d jump right past nervous and skip straight to violently ill, unfit to be in public

— max homa (@maxhoma23) April 10, 2019

Can’t wait to see that next year! Overall, it was a bit of a funky week. We had MULTIPLE WD’s (withdraw) for the first time this year. Sam Burns, Gary Woodland, J.B. Holmes and Byeong Hun An all withdrew either in the middle of rounds or after rounds this week, crushing lineups in the process.

It was a bit of a funky leaderboard, with lots of value players and studs. Homa led the way at 0.65% but there were 6 players in the top 10 under 10% ownership, and a couple of them were what we would consider ‘studs’. As always, it’s important to target some of these players with the pedigree who are going overlooked in GPP. Sergio Garcia is the prime example of that. He was coming off a really solid performance at the Zurich (albeit a team event) and was trending towards low ownership all week. He ended up coming in at a ridiculous 4.5% ownership and carded a top ten. Patrick Reed and Henrik Stenson both hovered around the top ten all week at similar ownership and while they smashed value, they could have been GPP winners had they not had a poor Sunday.

When playing GPP’s over the long term, making strong plays on guys like this is a profitable strategy. While yes you need the winners, in large GPP tournaments, getting these low owned players who pop are what’s going to put you over the top and climb the leaderboards. My strategy is I play GPP to win, and Cash games to min cash. Not the opposite. Which means that while yes a min-cash in GPP is great, and often helps out a poor week, I want to win them. Trying to min cash them is not a profitable strategy long term. Often to win you need to have that under-owned stud who finds his potential. In the same vein, I’m not trying to win a double up, I just want to get across the line. That means I don’t do anything crazy there, I just build the most solid lineup I can even if it doesn’t have a ton of upside because more often than not, just getting 6/6 into the weekend is enough to get across that cash line.

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Trinity Forest, the home of the AT&T Byron Nelson for the second year in a row is a good test for those preparing for the PGA Championship next week at Bethpage Black. It’s long, like REALLY LONG. And it’s going to play ridiculously long due to the high amounts of rain they’ve had this year (and more in the forecast for Tuesday/Wednesday), but you can absolutely score here with the big bermuda greens. It’s a bit of a links-style in the middle of Texas with no trees on the property and if the wind picks up it’s going to be an issue. Overall, a really fun test and interesting course that should give the winner some confidence and momentum heading into next week’s PGA Championship.

Course Breakdown:

Located just southeast of downtown Dallas, TX, Trinity Forest Golf Club is a Coore and Crenshaw design that is essentially brand new. The course was completed in 2016 on the site of a former landfill. It is a much different test than the PGA Tour members are used to as it is completely treeless and open to the Texas Wind that can wreak havoc on a golfers game.

This Par 71, played at an average of 7380 yards last year depending on the setup. The tour has the ability to stretch it out well past 7600 if needed, but last year with the rain they kept it shorter, allowing the shorter hits to have a chance. This year, with how much rain the course has had over the past few weeks, and the projected inch of rain it will see on Tuesday/Wednesday, it’s likely that it will be playing EXTREMELY long at least on Thursday/Friday. The typical run off to native areas that Coore and Crenshaw designed to hurt the longer player or player who makes a poor club selection likely won’t come into play as they will be able to grip it and rip it for the most part.

Trinity Forest is known for not only the treeless course and the double green on holes 3/11, but also for their extremely wide fairway. The field AVERAGED 80% of fairways last year with only one golfer coming in under 60%. Despite the wide fairways, and while I think it’s going to be a bombers paradise, there are other ways to get it done around here. Players like Brendan Grace were strong around the greens last year, while Aaron Wise crushed his approach shots, and Marc Leishman putted the lights out.

SG: Approach is probably the biggest indicator of success here. Players need to not only just hit greens (they are the biggest on tour) but get it close as they are very undulating, which is typical of a links-style course. Only one player in last year’s top ten gained less than 2 strokes approach for the week.

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The greens are bermudagrass and typically pretty slow. Contrary to popular belief, slow greens benefit good putters and it may be worth targeting some good bermuda putters again this week.

One important thing to note is that over half the field did not play this event last year and will be getting their first look at it. They also might get washed out on Tuesday/Wednesday meaning they will be playing the course a bit blind come Thursday morning. Typically at a regular PGA tour style course, this wouldn’t be a huge deal but at a links-style course, I think we can give a bit of a bump to those who played here last year.

While we saw this course get tore up last year, particularly the Par 5’s, I think we see a much lower winning score this year. I doubt we get to the -23 we saw from Aaron Wise and think this comes in at around -16/-17 for the winner. Regardless though Par 5 scoring will be huge and something I’m targeting.

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Key Stats:

Key Stats to look for this week – Birdies Gained, Par 5 Scoring, SG: Approach L25, SG: Off the Tee, Driving Distance, Course History, SG: Putting Bermuda, 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!

With the PGA championship next week, we get a bit of a ‘weak field’ as most players are taking the time to practice for Bethpage Black on their own. If it was me though, I’d be here sharpening my game on a track that while a links-style could be considered similar at the very least off the tee.

Brooks Koepka loves to tee it up in the week prior to a big event and will be doing so again this week and leads the field in odds to win by a pretty large margin. Koepka is clearly the class of the field but has struggled a bit to show up at events that aren’t majors. It’s hard to fade him, but at this short of a price (and likely high price in DFS) I think the argument can be made to be underweight.

Following Koepka are two players that at times have looked fantastic and lost others in Hideki Matsuyama and Jordan Spieth. Deki has three top tens on the year but hasn’t cracked the top twenty in his last three events. Spieth has shown signs of life this year despite not having a top ten, and this is a course he’s very familiar at. I think Matsuyama is a great cash game option in DFS and Spieth makes a contrarian GPP play.

As we slide a little lower we find two guys I’m very interested in. Henrik Stenson is a links specialist who despite carrying the reputation of only hitting his three wood, is very comfortable with driver off the tee as he showed at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship. The concern is his putter, but this course should suit him enough that he can overcome that weakness. Along with Stenson, I love Keith Mitchell who finished in the top 5 last year and is coming off a top ten finish last week. He’s playing excellent golf and this is a fantastic course fit for him.

As we go down the list there are a few Europeans who make a ton of sense this week despite it being their first trip around the course. Thorbjorn Olesen, Lucas Bjerregaard, and Thomas Pieters are three European bombers that will be making my lineups this week.

Past those three I have a ton of interest in Justin Harding, Trey Mullinax, Kevin Tway, and Dylan Fritteli.

While not the world’s strongest field, I think it’s a really fun field with lots of great options on a course that should be a ton of fun to watch on TV.

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 a 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).

My outrights have a strong European flair this week, and also includes four of the longer hitters on either tour.

Going back to the well with Henrik Stenson here at a course that should really fit his style. While long, he has excelled at longer courses over his career and his game is trending in the right direction. He’s one of maybe 5 really ‘class’ players in the field and the one with the best odds value in my estimation.

Thorbjorn Olesen and Lukas Bjerregaard at +5000 are two of the longest players on the European tour and have had really similar results this year. Both finished 21st at the Masters in their last start and should be great course fits. I like the value on them at 50-1 as if they were normal tour players would likely be priced in that 30/40-1 range.

Dylan Frittelli is a former Texas Longhorn who has had some success when playing in Texas as a professional over the years and is playing some of the best golf of his young career right now having made four cuts in a row. Rates out really well for me as he’s a great par 5 scorer and excellent wind player.

Finally, a player who burned me last week in DFS that I’m going right back to, Wyndham Clark. Clark struggled at Quail Hollow but should benefit from the wide fairways and big greens. Also, an excellent putter who had a rough week last week.

I’ll have Head to Head and full tournament matchups posted for our Beat the Bookie VIPs on Wednesday. And there are some reaaaaly juicy ones this week! 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:

One week till the PGA Championship. Be smart and don’t blow your whole bankroll this week. There are milly maker satellites available and its a great week to play those!

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 Wednesday afternoon! If you aren’t a VIP yet, use code UPNORTH for 20% your first month!