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 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 (Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy)
In this range with Brooks coming in with lower expected ownership I wanted to be overweight on the world #1. Despite a T24 finish Brooks made a ton of birdies/eagles on the week and ended up with the 11th best fantasy score for the week. Due to being overweight on Brooks and overweight on Rahm in the next group I used McIlroy but sparingly.
$10K and up (Jon Rahm, Dustin Joshnson, Justin Rose, Justin Thomas)
As mentioned above I was heavily on Rahm this week, this worked out decently as Rahm was the 5th highest score on the week, only problem was everyone was far behind Justin Thomas and his incredible 156.5 DK points. For the rest of the group I had about 12% DJ thinking that would get me over the field average, a little under on Rose and a little under JT with his nearly 27% average ownership.
$9K and up (Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Reed, Webb Simpson, Adam Scott, Tommy Fleetwood)
I mentioned how Scott was my favourite in this group and the one I wanted to be overweight on and Reed was my least favourite. Scott ultimately finished 2nd in the group with Reed finishing last. Cantlay was much like JT for me, I had quite a bit, but was still a little underweight of the 19.64% he eventually ended up garnering.
Jordan Spieth – DK: $8900
Despite the big blurb on Spieth I was off of him this week which was good for me as he was the lowest scoring option in his range.
Bryson Dechambeau – DK: $8300
Unfortunately I think I made a major mistake by going to Dechambeau as my primary in a range with Casey, Finau, Kuchar and Matsuyama on the hope the Dechambeau would garner lower ownership. This really did not work out as all players mentioned finished within 5% owned of one another. I still had some of the other guys, but by being just over 2x above ownership on Dechambeau I moved some shares away from some of the highest scoring players on the week.
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Course Preview/Format Discussion
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.
- Course is played at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta Georgia. A par 70 measuring 7,346 yards. This course has hosted this event for years so plenty of data to go off of
- Looking at previous winners and guys that have had success we see a bunch of different play styles, I think instead of focusing too much on any specific stat a general rule for me will be to grab the guys coming in playing well – it’s a 30 person field with a ton of randomness in ownership due to this new format so no need to overthink it from my perspective
- Due to DraftKings format with the new tournament we see players getting the finishing bonus credited for their current place. So JT for example starts with the win bonus of 30 points and it goes down from that.
- Everyones talking about these top few guys and what they start with but I think something that is getting a bit overlooked is that outside of the top 10, the scoring bonus for finishing position really is not that significant down low with the difference between 11th and 30th only being 3 points. I think there is a bit too much thought going towards finishing position from bottom guys moving up, obviously to bank a GPP you’re going to need all your guys to move forward but the way to do that with the values you are inevitably going to need to take is to get the guys who make birdies and have the capability to move up the leaderboard
- While my focus with my values is on scoring I really think up top due to DraftKings format getting the 30 and 20 point bonuses will be huge (obviously). With this course playing tougher the most traditionally and the winner typically coming in about -11, players wont be racking up 100+ points before finishing bonuses. This is a bit of a topic that comes up sometimes in cash at extreme low/high scoring events, at The John Deere Classic for example when we see the winning score well under -20 and tons of guys going -15 or better the finishing position matters much less and you likely need 5/6 or 6/6 through due to the scoring capability of your players for the four rounds. When were at Chambers Bay you can realistically cash with a 3/6 if you nail three of the guys who are able to get you 10+ points a day and strong finishing bonuses because other guys will go +7 and only get you 2 points on the day and having 6 of those is dwarfed by the guy who gets the finishing bonus. With that said this course rates out on the more difficult side, only 6 players were -6 or better last year and a third of the field ended up over par. scoring will be at a premium and as a result the guys up top start with such a distinct advantage that I think its too much to overlook
- The past two points are leading me to a much more stars/scrubs lineup approach for the week – not in the sense that any of these players are scrubs, but in the idea that I will need the low salaries to afford the top guys with the highest likelihood of winning the event
- Overall, the most important point I think is that this is an entirely new format and although we can all theorize and come up with what we think is the optimal strategy none of us really know how its going to play out and how our competitors will adjust to the change. Go with what makes sense to you, for me its going back to the basics of how I construct my GPP teams in general, getting the guys I think can win with guys that can get me a ton of birdies.
***Be sure to check out Geek’s Domination Station tutorial for the massive new update*** CLICK THIS LINK!
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
Justin Thomas $15,500
After four straight finished just inside or just outside of the top 10 JT put together three solid and one out-of-this-world round to win the BMW Championship in dominant fashion. As a result of the win JT comes into the Tour Championship playing terrific golf and anywhere from a 2 to a 10 shot lead on any of his competitors. On the flipside, because of the staggering price it’s really tough to fit in any other top guy unless you basically put in 4 players who all start at -2 or lower. This makes JT a confusing option to me. I will certainly have a bit of JT just due to my general stars/scrub thought this week.
Patrick Cantlay Brooks Koepka (12.4 & 12.2k)
In the next tier we see the next two guys starting at -8 and -7. Again, because of my general strategy this week I think both are very viable and them along with JT are the obvious favourite to end up winning for the week. I think Brooks is likely going to be where I take my stand in this 30 man field and will likely have him in just about every line-up in an effort to be extremely overweight with a guy who can take over tournaments and always puts up plenty of birdies.
Jon Rahm ($9,990)
Jon Rahm starts at -4 this week and is another guy I like up top who I think could do a bit of damage. He has been there week after week as of late and is top five in the field in birdie or better gained according to our domination station.
Justin Rose ($6,900)
Rose is likely the highest owned player in the field based purely on his price. The guy has an absolutely incredible record at East Lake and the price just flat out does not make sense even with the new format. This makes Rose a very weird option this week, do you fade and hope he has a bottom 5/10 performance the a huge portion of the field has on their team? Or do you go overweight and hope Rose repeats his past performances at East Lake? I am going with the latter and Rose will be one of my core cost savings guys to allow me to take a few shots up top.
Sungjae Im ($5900)
At $5900 if Im can keep putting up birdies as he has been then he can easily pay for his salary and them some. Again, likely beginning to sound like a broken record, but with the stars/scrub approach Im is going to be another core piece of mine for the 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 (15-13)
No cash games for me with the 70 player, no-cut format. Record for the year will end at 15-13
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