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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Congrats to multiple DFS Army members on recent wins!
Review from last week
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
$12k Brooks Koepka
I advised Brooks as viable depending on ownership with the caveat that you realistically need him to win and/or have him and the winner to make any noise in GPP’s given his price. As the ownership was looking to pile up in the $5 (ended up at 14.86% Brooks ended up being a no-go for me in a week where I played far less.
$10k and up (Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas
DJ and Rahm were the two I wrote up as my favourites in this range and that remained consistent throughout the week. DJ was ultimately the worst result in this range but really did not necessarily destroy teams by any means as he finished with a top 25 fantasy performance. Rahm turned out to be the stud you needed up top as he finished with the third highest score and did so with only 15% ownership.
$8800 – Adam Scott
With a fantastic Sunday Adam Scott vaulted himself into a top five and finished with the fifth best fantasy performance on the week. As mentioned in my writeup, I was a real big fan of Scott and he ended up making it onto both my cash teams and I was heavily overweight compared to the 10.1% field average.
$8300 – Tony Finau
Finau had a so-so week ending up right in the middle of those who made the cut with a T30 finish. Within his price ranged Finau was outperformed by Reed and Spieth but outperformed the majority of the $8500-$8000 price point in fantasy points per $
$7900 – Shane Lowry
I was very high on Lowry and well over the field average of 4.18%, however Lowry never really got it rolling and finished with a sub-par performance.
$7500 Joaquin Niemann
Suprisingly, at the thought of the week I thought there was potential for Niemann to come in at a lower ownership number than others near him in Snedeker, Howell and Im and as a result I liked the idea of playing Niemann. I still played Niemann, however when it was apparent my thought on Monday was not correct I luckily shifted some ownership to both Snedeker and Im who were two of the studs to have in this range.
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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.
- Medinah Country Club is a long par 72 measuring 7,657 yards. The course has been played a few times, most notably and most recently in 2012 for the Ryder Cup – also in 2006 and 1999 for the PGA Championship, Tiger won both of those events.
- The general sentiment is this course will also test players off of the tee in regards to accuracy. You can get into a lot of trouble with wayward drives so players can’t simply grip it and rip it this week.
- Also as Josh wrote up the greens are small and lined with bunkers and lots of tricky shots if players are off, Greens in regulation will be huge so SG: Approach will also be getting a bump from me this week.
- As we have much less data then most weeks I do not want to go crazy over analyzing a course that we do not have a full understanding of from a DFS perspective, as a result for me a lot of my plays will be going with the hot hand and getting guys who are coming into the event playing well and gaining strokes in the reliable metrics that have proven valuable regardless of the venue.
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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
$11K and Up (Brookes Koepka, Rory McIlroy)
It is only $100 off but I was surprised that this group did not also include Jon Rahm. Nevertheless, we see two studs who you can justify playing any week. Rory put on a clinic last week but made too many bogeys which kept him out of contention, and Brooks had an up and down week but is likely coming into an event that’s right in his wheelhouse with how many are expecting the venue to play. Both are obvious top options and it’s tough to advise against either, right now if I had to pick I am likely well overweight on Brooks and around the field on McIlroy.
$10K and up (Jon Rahm, Dustin Joshnson, Justin Rose, Justin Thomas)
Just like last week I think I will once again be heavily on Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson. I would expect Rahm to carry the most ownership of anyone above $10k, but I think he’s playing too well and lines up too well for this course to ignore. On the other hand, I would expect DJ is the lowest owned up top while also thinking he is an elite course fit when on his game and as we have seen over the years is the type of player who can come in and win any given week.
$9K and up (Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Reed, Webb Simpson, Adam Scott, Tommy Fleetwood)
In this next tier we have the next group of elite studs who provide the opportunity to get a top tier player playing top tier golf at a discount price. Scott was my guy last week and I think I will be on him once again at a course where you’ll need that approach game to be on if you want a shot at the win. Patrick Reed is super interesting as he obviously is coming off of a win and has a great recent log but is still a confusing option to me. Reed’s been getting it done off of the tee and with the putter and I think if there was a venue to punish you for being off on your approach game this would be it. With the rest of the options in this tier I think Reed will likely be the one I have the least of.
Jordan Spieth – DK: $8900
I wanted to right up Spieth simply because he has had one of the most unique and interesting years of anyone on tour – Recently he has been, by PGA standards, so bad off of the tee and approaching the greens while simultaneously being elite around the greens and putting. This has resulted in some up and down finishes recently, including a T6 last week. Spieth is confusing and has shown with the way he’s playing he can grind out a round under par or blow up for a 80. I am off of Spieth until we see the consistency off of the tee but if he can ever figure that out and keep a bit of his magic around the greens we could see Jordan back to winning events regularly very soon.
Bryson Dechambeau – DK: $8300
At the center of controversy this week was Bryson Dechambeau. I think the collection of viable options around him combined with the majority of Golf fans against Dechambeau we could see a scenario where Dechambeau comes in at a low ownership #. I certainly am not going to make a habit of basing ownership projections on sentiment of the average fan, however I do think in general the average DFS Golf player is following along and I think there is a bit of a likelihood to overlook and/or not want to play the guy going through a bit of controversy. As a result I’ll have a few shares and try to be overweight on a guy I think will likely be owned less than just about everyone outside of Day in this $8500-$8000 range.
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 (15-13) – Current Streak – Draw (1 win 1 loss)
Team # 1 – win
Adam Scott – 5th
Colin Morikawa – T52
Hideki Matsuyama – T30
Tony Finau – T30
Patrick Reed – Win
Shane Lowry – T52
A 6/6 with the winner was more than enough to ease into the money in cash games for the week. While 4/6 had middling results the strong performances of Reed and Scott along with the extra holes on the weekend were more than enough for this team to comfortably be in the money.
Team #2 Loss
Justin Rose – T10
Xander Schauffele – MC
Adam Scott – 5th
Shane Lowry – T52
CH3 – MC
Kyle Stanley – T71
When looking at both teams you can see that the core pieces for me this week were Adam Scott and Shane Lowry. I felt both were tremendous prices and offered a lot of flexibility. Unfortunately this week I thought was another good chance to diversify and put in two teams in an effort to limit risk. On this second team I went a bit more ‘stars/scrubs’ by trying to fit in Rose/Xander, unfortunately Xander had an uncharacteristic miss-cut, which was very unfortunate. Down low I went with CH3 which I think was a legitimate mistake, not just for the missed cut, but I think in my mind I was going with the ‘safer’ option in the $7600-$7400 range when I should have just went with Niemann who has been making cuts and playing great. I still like the Stanley pick despite the less than stellar result.
With draws the last two weeks and a losing streak prior that ends my cash game season with two no cut events upcoming. Unfortunately for me the past few results put my winning percentage at 54% for the year in double-ups, while still profitable this is lower than I would ideally want it, especially sense just 2 months ago we were well north of 60%. I hope everyone who read week in and week out was able to take a few thoughts here and there and use and incorporate the ideas into their own lineups in a positive way.
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