Jeff’s Hardcore Core- Mayakoba Classic
After one event in the United States the tour heads out again, this time to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for the Mayakoba Classic. We have plenty of course history to work off this week as well as a handful of Fall events to work off of to get a feel on who is in the zone this Fall season. Still a few events left this season, but even more exciting are some of our most popular articles will be coming soon. Zach’s analysis and summary of all the winning GPP rosters throughout 2018 has proven to be an industry leading trend anaalyzer and imperative for anybody who wants to stay on top of where the industry is headed. The Crystal Ball article that I put together every year seems to always exceed its loft expectations and I hope we can continue on our run of 4 great years. Team FGI member Blair Bushey who lives out in Vegas made an insane amount of money winning outrights on many members of that article last year. I was also able to cash some real nice tickets with the likes of Patrick Reed, Webb Simpson, Bryson DeChamabeau, Alex Bjork, Andrew Landry, Aaron Wise, etc. We only get a couple of weeks a year without a PGA event and I always use those weeks to research, research, research. Both on a player level and on a DFS level. I recommend you do the same and be ready for the kick off of the season in Hawaii right away in January. We will dive into the Mayakoba Classic, but first lets recap our results from last week’s Shriners.
What went right? The first goal we have in GPP play is to get all six players through the cut. For the most part, with the exception of Russell Henley and Adam Schenk we did that. Twelve of the fourteen players in my core made the cut and guaranteed us four full rounds. Without getting 6/6 through, it is impossible to win a large field GPP. A few of my mid to high priced guys did very well, they just couldn’t put up the huge finish we needed. Rickie Fowler (T4) and Gary Woodland (T10) were two of my three high priced choices and both obviously had very respectable finishes. If combined with guys like Sam Ryder (3rd), Scott Piercy (T10), Sii Woo Kim (T15), Kevin Tway (T23), Kramer Hickok (T23), Cameron Davis (T28), or Anders Albertson (T28) all members of my core, you would have had a very nice week. We really needed a little bit more though from both Woodland and Fowler based upon their price. I found it very interesting that neither the winner of the big $5 GPP of which there were 35,000 entries or the $44 GPP contained the winner of the tournament Bryson DeChambeau despite the fact that he was owned by 14% of the field. Not very often do you see a winning roster that does not contain the winner of the event, much less if they were double-digit owned.
What went wrong? Look no further than the third of my high owned players, Jordan Spieth. I really felt like his game fit perfectly for TPC Summerlin and thought he would really be focused on getting off to a good start of the season after a disappointing 2017-2018. He looked great in the first round and sat at -5. Even heading into the weekend he was in good position, but it all came undone the final two rounds. It was certainly disappointing, but anytime I can get a player of Spieth’s caliber at under 15% owned in that type of field, no matter the form, I am going to have some exposure. Henley missing the cut was bad, but I only had 15% exposure. The two guys up top that I strategically faded due to expected high ownership were Finau and Cantlay. One clearly worked out nicely and the other did not. In retrospect I would probably do the same thing seeing that both their ownership was 20%+. I thought Woodland would be around the same, but as it turned out he was 33% in the $5 and had I known that I most likely would have pivoted off of him as well. It turned out fine with his T10, but I like the idea of fading guys owned by a third of the field no matter what.
Onto the Mayakoba Classic, good luck Team FGI!
Jeff’s Strategy & Core- Mayakoba Classic
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