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.
Review from last week
$10K and Up (Justin Rose, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele)
As the week went on Rahm was by far my favourite choice up top and a player I wanted to be overweight on. That did not work out great for me as Rahm struggled to avoid big numbers and ended up missing the cut. Of this group only Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose made the cut and Spieth was the only one who was in the hunt with a T8 finish while Rose finished T58. Unfortunately, Spieth was the only guy I was off of entirely in this group and while I was underweight on Rose, Fowler and Schauffele, I was heavily overweight on Rahm, which meant the majority of my teams started with a $10k salary missing the cut.
$9K and Up (Francesco Molinari, Tony Finau, Bryson Dechambeau, Paul Casey, Kevin Kisner, Ian Poulter, Louis Oosthuizen)
My three favourites by the end of the week in this group were Francesco Molinari, Tony Finau and Louis Oosthuizen. While Finau performed 2nd place finish, Molinari was subpar T53 and Oosthuizen had the dreaded pre tournament withdrawal, which resulted in 15% of my lineups being dead before the tournament began. Not much else to say with this group, I was off or under on the missed cuts of Dechambeau, Kisner and Poulter and although I had ownership on Casey I was under the field average.
Matthew Fitzpatrick – DK: $8500
Loved Fitzpatrick this week and was over field average using him in 17% of lineups. Fitzpatrick made the cut but didn’t really get anything going for the weekend and finished T66 while being outscored by most of the 8k range of players.
Zach Johnson – DK: $7900
I was off of ZJ and his 13% gpp ownership – at least I got one right this week.
Sungjae Im – DK: $7700
Liked Im for GPP’s while others had gotten off of him, that didn’t work out well for me.
While these picks certainly do not look good the Charles Schwab Challenge was a weird event with an anomaly of a week with less than 5% of lineups getting 6/6 through and right around 80% of lineups being 4/6 or lower for the week. A few GPP lineups made me slightly positive on the week as I was overweight on both Kevin Na and Tony Finau – cash was another story as you will see I narrowly missed the money line this week.
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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.
- The Memorial is played at Muirfield Village, a Par 72 measuring just under 7400 yards. The course plays right on the easier side (30th/51) but is in no way a simple track
- The course gets to 7400 yards in a unique way. Although the course has six par fives over 450 yards it also has all four par fives playing under 600 and two of those under 550.
- SG: Approach important as always but has been historically indicative of success at this event. This is info form our Research Station last year, as you can see Approach is key at this event and players that are gaining stroked in this category typically find themselves atop the Leaderboard.
- Again we get a smaller field with 119 instead of 140 +, I wrote up last week in an article for members how I typically alter my lineup construction slightly when this is the case.
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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, Tiger Woods, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Patrick Cantlay)
The top tier is always interesting, however I think we have a very unique situation this week with so many three of these five coming off of poor performances. Typically we see ownership spread out amongst the top in these better than average fields where fantasy players have multiple choices – this week I think we could see the opposite and instead see ownership flock to McIlroy and Cantlay. Upon first look it’s much more appealing to play McIlory with back to back top tens or Cantlay with three straight top tens compared to Woods Missed cut, Rose’s T58 and Fowler’s missed cut. I think, like many others I will be on McIlroy and Cantlay, however the thought of a top end player at potentially lower ownership is very enticing, I will update my final notes Wednesday to let you know where I am looking.
$9K and up (Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, Matt Kuchar, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele)
This tier also has an interesting dynamic. With so many of these players playing great and/or being underpriced, I could see alot of people starting teams in this range and avoiding the top salaries entirely. Starting with Spieth we see Jordan starting return to his past form. Tony Finau just had an impressive second place finish making him an enticing option. Matt Kuchar is steady as always and has back to back top tens. We have not seen Justin Thomas priced this way in a long, long time – despite coming off injury says he is feeling great on Instagram. Day also seems slightly underpriced and has been playing great golf. And finally Hideki and Xander seem to be great course fits to me. I find this range tough because there really is validity behind all of these guys for GPP purposes. Upon first look my personal favourites are Finau, JT, Day and Hideki but I will update on Wednesday with more reasoning in final notes.
$8K and up (Bryson Dechambeau, Gary Woodland, Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen, Henrik Stenson, Rory Sabbatini, Jason Kokrak, Phil Mickelson, Marc Leishman)
Not as appealing as the group above, I could see these high $8k guys being low owned as players try to force in 2 of the above $9k guys. I think within this group we likely see ownership funnel to Scott, Stenson and Kokrak. If we can find out if Oosthuizen’s neck injury was serious or not I don’t mind getting a few shares at reduced ownership. Aside from that I see myself likely fading quite a few within this group.
Peter Uihlein – DK: $7200
Trending the right way with a T13 and a T5 in the last 2 weeks. Has shown in the past he goes on streaks when hot.
Russell Knox – DK: $7100
Looked Great last week, has been up and down recently but I like the course fit for Knox.
Adam Hadwin – DK: $7100
I like Hadwin as well at this pricepoint. He is a player trending in the right direction, I could see him carrying a bit of ownership.
Joel Dahmen – DK: $7000
For GPP purposes I am not quite ready to give up on Joel Dahmen. His missed cut last week had one solid round and alot of missed puts where it could have easily went the other way.
Cash Game Review
I will end each article going over my double-up cash game line-up for the week, breaking down my plays and reflecting for the following week
The Team (9.5-7.5) – Current Streak 2 loss
Francesco Molinari – T53
Paul Casey – WD
Scott Piercy – T19
Billy Horschel – T19
Russell Knox – T8
Nick Taylor – MC
The team missed narrowly missed out on cashing by less than 5 points. The team was looking alright on Friday, but a withdrawal from Paul Casey and a +4 to miss the cut by Nick Taylor sunk them for the week. When constructing the roster I was locked in on Horschel and Knox for the price savings and as the week went on really wanted to find a way to find a combination of Paul Casey, Francesco Molinari and Rickie Fowler – as the week went on I couldn’t find a lineup I was comfortable with that included Fowler and one of the others so I elected to roster Casey and Molinari. I was high on Taylor throughout the week and by rostering him I could afford one of the best values in Scott Piercy. I still feel confident in my team and realistically think the team would have made the money if Casey did not get sick and that it was a week where I felt very confident in the overall construction as a whole.
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