Jeff’s Hardcore Core- FedEx St Jude Classic

After a not so great week at Colonial two weeks ago, where we missed on Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka, we hit damn near everything at The Memorial.  We have been waiting for Bryson DeChambeau to win and have been on him most every week this season as he was a guy I featured in the Crystal Ball Article at the start of the year, and we got paid off huge this week. I heard from tons of Team FGI who loaded up on him in DFS, as I did, and I also heard from a ton of you who had outrights on Bryson to win, as I did as well.  I personally had him at 55-1, but heard from some who had up to 60-1.  Personally I had a bunch of teams in the mix on Sunday in the $5 150-max GPP on Draftkings. One of those teams ended up in 4^th place for $10,000. As is usually the case anytime I don’t take first place and win the huge prize there is a bit of disappointment involved knowing how close I was even though the winnings were pretty respectable.

When I wrote my column originally, I included Jordan Spieth in my core, but as the week went along and as I continued to construct different lineups, I soured on him.  I wanted DJ and JT as my highest owned top tier players and I was not able to build lineups that I liked with Spieth taking up 20% of ownership.  That combined with the massive amount of buzz in the industry liking Spieth (although his ownership did not end up as high as the buzz would have led us to believe) I decided to leave him out.  I put an update in my column and gave folks a heads up in my email and I am hoping most of you decided to go the same route, because Spieth continued his porous play and missed the cut. I pivoted off Spieth in several spots including Stenson and Grace, but also dropped down and had more balance as well. I mentioned some of those in my Wednesday email including Kyle Stanley and Ben An.  Outside of Spieth and Day, you really could not have gone wrong with any of the top tier guys as DJ, JT, Rory, Rose, Stenson, Fowler, and Woods all provided ample value. It was the $7k and $8k range that made all the difference last week and that is what I talked about in my column as to where my focus was.  Finau, Mickelson, and Grillo were all good in the $8k range. In the $7k range we crushed with Moore, Uihlein, Cantlay who where all outstanding.  Even those of you who were crazy enough as me to mix in 10% exposure of Gary Woodland got paid off.

We talked a lot about it on the pod, but last week was such a perfect example of why we preach certain concepts all the time.  One of those concepts is building a tight core.  Heading into Sunday, I knew I had multiple chances at taking down a large prize because I had large exposure to many of the guys in the mix.  As you know, if one player on your roster faulters, it singlehandedly knocks you out of contention in fields of 100,000+ contestants.  I actually had a team sitting in 3^rd place about midway through Sundays round comprised of DJ, Mickelson, Finau, Cantlay, DeChambeau, and Uihlein.  Unfortunately for that team, Kyle Stanley, Ben An, and Justin Thomas made huge late charges and knocked it back (actually finished all the way back at 64^th). Fortunately, however that team was not my only bullet and actually had another one with Stanley, and An mixed in guys I owned a ton of- Justin Thomas, DeChambeau, Mickelson, and Finau. When you hit your core, the more combinations you have, the better your chance of hitting the winner is.  The winning team was actually DJ, Finau, Cantlay, DeChambeau, Stanley, and An.  So the only difference between my 4^th place roster and a $100k win was basically having Cantlay instead of Mickelson (JT actually had more DK points than DJ). So even when you completely crush your core, it still does not ensure a win, but it sure helps having multiple shots.

Another concept that I talk about, especially in my Wednesday night emails is that of stacking tee times.  I always analyze the forecast to see what to expect and if there is a clear indication if a certain tee time wave will have a significant advantage. Last week there was a high chance of thunderstorms throughout the first two days of play.  When that is the case, it is very difficult to predict which wave will have the advantage because we are unsure of when exactly everybody will end up playing because of delays.  This is why we always advise to stack both sides of the slate and I specifically mentioned that last week was the perfect week for that in my email.  As it turned out there was a weather delay on Friday afternoon and the am/pm tee time wave was the recipient of very soft/calm conditions both Thursday morning and Friday afternoon, especially after the rain showers and the delay.  The difference between the two waves of tee times was a massive three stroke edge for the Thursday am/Friday pm tee times. An, Uihlein, Cantlay, Stanley, JT, Rose, Woods, DeChambeu, Niemann, etc were all a part of the beneficial am/pm tee time wave.  If you were to have stacked a chunk of your teams, like we talked about with that wave, chances are you built some pretty nice teams.

I talk about how difficult GPPs are to win.  I have been playing DFS golf since its inception and it continues to be more and more competitive all the time. Simply trying to choose the best golfers is not probably going to be enough to make you successful playing GPPs long-term. This is why I stress making sure you are armed with the knowledge of bankroll management, roster composition, aggregate ownership, strategic fading, game theory, and any other edges we can possibly play (like tee time stacking) to give us the leg up over the competition. I am so proud of Team FGI and seeing the massive amount of our logos at the top of the leaderboards every week.  I know that you folks understand what it takes to be successful playing DFS and in particular GPPs.  Let the other folks out there throw darts and try and hit the magic bullet lineup, we will stick to the principals that have been winning for over four years now.

Jeff’s Hardcore Core- FedEx St Jude Classic
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