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.
Congrats to multiple DFS Army members on great weeks!
Review from last week
$11K and Up (Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson)
To begin the week I discussed how both were great options and that I likely wanted to be overweight on both compared to the field. As the week went on I stuck with this idea up top and ended up with 30% on DJ and 15% on Brooks. This worked out well with Brooks as he finished second and had the 2nd best fantasy score on the week. However, with DJ being overweight was not as successful as DJ struggled and had a mediocre performance for the week at a premium price.
$10K and up (Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay)
I wrote up how Patrick Cantlay was the guy I wanted to be overweight on in this group and that continued into Thursday. I ended up overweight on Cantlay and Rory, right around the field on Spieth and underweight on Tiger. This result was not necessarily good or bad upon reflection. From a performance standpoint, McIlroy led the way out of this tier and I had more of him while I was under on Tiger who had the same amount of points as Cantlay for $700 less. However, I also think upon reflection the Cantlay pick was not the greatest – he was coming in with great form but I don’t think the course was the best setup and in retrospect there were other options coming in for less with less ownership that were also extremely viable.
$9K and up (Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Justin ThomasP, Jon Rahm, Jason Day, Francesco Molinari)
Day was my favourite, followed by Rose and Molinari and JT. On the other end, I was very underweight on Rickie and Rahm as I thought Rickie wasn’t worth the price for the expected ownership and I did not think the course was the greatest fit for Rahm’s game. While being overweight on Rose was great the rest of my picks for the group were subpar. I essentially didn’t roster Jon Rahm, which was not ideal given his result. I was also slightly overweight on JT, the only player above $9k to miss the cut entirely.
Standouts for me
Hideki Matsuyama – DK:$8800
Hideki was core for me and I was heavily overweight (50%). This worked out great as Hideki had the 8th best performance of the week
Adam Scott – DK: $8600
Scott is another guy I loved this week, but my 22% ownership ultimately came in just narrowly above the field average in the $10.
Webb Simpson – DK: $7700
Webb was absolute chalk this week and for good reason. I personally tried to play at right around the field and differentiate elsewhere. I ended up with 30% ownership, slightly below the 33% Webb got in the $10.
Henrik Stenson – DK: $7600
Stenson ended up being a core play for me at 30% ownership. This worked out well as Stenson put up four solid days and ended up with the 13th best fantasy score on the week.
Erik Van Rooyen – DK: $6900
Van rooyen became a favourite of mine for the under $7k crowd, as Byeong Hun-An was the only other player I had any sort of confidence in. I ended up being about double the field with 15% ownership on Van Rooyen.
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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 Travelers is played at TPC River Highlands – a par 70 measuring 6,841 yards
- This is very short by PGA standards, however, this Pete Dye track challenges players in other ways than distance off of the tee
- Although it is a Pete Dye track we have seen a few unconventional winners at this event – Bubba Watson has won three times over the years for example
- Although length off of the tee is somewhat minimized here due to the design there are still holes you can attack and can give yourself a few more chances to have a pitching wedge in if you have the distance
- Overall, I will be looking for course history much more than usual, while also relying on approach statistics while specifically looking at approaches under 175 yards because of the length of the course
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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 (Brooks Koepka, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Francesco Molinari, Jason Day)
This top tier is filled with elite talent which makes it really hard to make decisions on where to go. Upon first look my thoughts are to go with the players I think I can get underweight. Obviously Brooks is the favourite, however I think all five of these guys can win at this track, if we can get one at under <10 ownership when none of them are coming in with bad form I will be happy.
Justin Thomas – DK: $9800
I think JT is probably the most interesting of the top end salaries to me as he is the only one (outside of Finau) coming in off of a missed cut. JT is obviously an elite talent, but he has not looked quite like himself sense returning. If we get into another situation where JT is over 15% owned given his recent performance I want to be underweight or off of him. On the other end, if JT suddenly becomes very low owned then I am willing to take a chance on an elite talent at a low ownership #.
Brandt Snedeker – DK: $8600
Snedeker was the second highest owned player at nearly 27% and did not help out owners with a subpar performance. Personally, I was underweight on Snedeker as I saw him coming in around 30% and wanted to take a stand. Despite this I think if Snedeker owners from last week suddenly turn elsewhere I have belief in a guy who has been trending upward the last month or so.
Viktor Hovland – DK: $7900
Hovland is coming in with a ton of buzz as an amateur after great performances at this years Masters and the U.S. Open. I really do not have my mind made up yet, I will likely have some of Hovland but if we see an amateur creeping up into one of the top ownership spots for the week I will have no issue being heavily underweight and will shift to a few others.
Emiliano Grillo – DK: $7900
Grilo had a great week at Pebble approaching the green, leading the field in SG: Approach. The problem for Grillo came putting, something that is much more likely to flip week-to-week. I am on Grillo this week.
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 (12-8) – Current Streak 2 win
I ended up with two teams this week as I liked quite a few guys and I felt I minimized my risk by using the same core and switching out a few guys
Tommy Fleetwood – T65
Hideki Matsuyama – T21
Matt Kuchar – T16
Adam Scott – T7
Webb Simpson – T16
Brandt Snedeker – 77
I had a very hard time building a team I felt fully comfortable with this week and ended up with the following. Hideki and Kuchar were absolute locks for me that I wanted on my team regardless. From this point I tried my hardest to fit in the rest of my core of Henrik Stenson, Webb Simpson and Adam Scott but could not find a way to fit all three and be comfortable. As a result I ended up without Henrik Stenson and added Brandt Snedeker and Tommy Fleetwood. In a week with plenty of 6/6 line-ups I was pushed into the money by strong performances by Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama and a great Sunday by Webb Simpson to vault my team securely into the money.
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