Jeff’s Hardcore Core- Farmers Insurance Open

This is the week we have been waiting for as Draftkings has finally woken up from their NFL slumber and given us some exciting contests that DFS golfers should have each and every single week. We have the first $100,000 first prize up for grabs in the $3 birdie, plus $50,000 to the winner in the $333 Club Pro, and $20,000 for the Dogleg. We will hopefully continue to have bigger and bigger contests now that football is over and the masses will be shifting to golf. I always like this time because you see more and more poor opposing lineups, undoubtedly coming from novices to DFS golf.

Last week I talked about implementing a more balanced approach with your lineup composition because of the lack of stars in the field and it proved correct. The vast majority of my rosters in GPPs featured the middle priced guys who for the most part did very well. CHIII, Steele, Dufner, List, Lahiri, Glover, Piercy, and Laird were among my highest owned guys and they all made the cut. If you chose to go a stars and scrubs approach, then my core did not do so well. Guys like Schauffele, Dechambeau, Smith, and Huh all missed the cut. This was the main reason I did not like a stars and scrubs approach because I did not love the guys at the bottom, however I really did like Huh and was blown away by his really pathetic performance. I was down a little bit overall in GPPs for the first time this year, so needless to say, I want a big win this week to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Torrey Pines and the Farmers Insurance Open is our next stop. Every year I target driving distance as a key stat (with the exception of a few guys like Snedeker), and every year it has paid off for me. In the last three years, I have been net positive on GPPs for the Farmers, so you could say I am looking forward to it.
You will notice that as with major tournaments, Draftkings has softened the pricing to allow for some all-star type lineups. That combined with the fact that they released the pricing early and badly missed on several players, makes it incredibly easy to build teams that look too good to be true. I will talk below about how I am going to attack this week and those different variables.

Best of luck this week!

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As I mentioned there are several guys who’s price is out of whack, partly because the pricing was released early. Martin Laird and Adam Hadwin, are a couple of the names that leap off the page and backed up by our Sportsbook Odds vs. Daily Pricing Tool. These are not tough to spot and for that reason, all of them are going to be highler owned in GPPs. Your approach should be different if you are doing one or two teams vs. if you are doing 20 or 50 teams. If you are doing a couple of teams, I really think you need to fade these guys. Building a roster of Day, Snedeker, Walker, Hadwin, Swafford, Laird, etc looks like a world beater, but it is going to be the chalkiest of the chalk. I would recommend pivoting off of these guys with your one or two lineups and grabbing some lower owned guys who may not have a long track record on this course.
If you however are building a lot of teams, like myself, I think you need to include a few of the chalky plays, just because there is so much value in them. You might still be underweight on them comparative to the field, but I think you need some exposure. Be sure to look at our Ownership Prediction Tool to get an idea of what we believe ownership percentages will look like this week. We are not perfect, but for the most part we are really close most of the time.

I will also be employing many stars and scrubs type lineups this week. Unlike last week, this week we have a few of the top players in world who have a very good chance of winning, especially on a course that over history has featured top players in the world winning. Plus it is really easy to build solid teams, even if you wanted to stack DJ and Day or Day/Snedeker/Walker, or DJ and Matsuyama. It would be hard to imagine those top priced players not factoring into Sunday afternoon like last week’s Career Builder.

Jason Day
Dustin Johnson
Brandt Snedeker
Jimmy Walker
Jon Rahm
Gary Woodland
Brendan Steele
Jamie Lovemark
Kevin Chappell
Charles Howell III
Luke List
Jason Kokrak
Sii Woo Kim (Here is my GPP special of the week. The last two have been great with Grace and Lahiri. My disclaimer is this is an extremely high risk play and if you are doing just one team, maybe don’t take this big of a risk, but if you are doing a bunch, mix him in, because he will be low owned and has huge upside.
Aaron Wise
Martin Laird
Adam Hadwin
Grayson Murray
Beau Hossler

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