Jeff’s Hardcore Core- Shriners Open

We are back to the good old U.S.A this week for the Shriners Open as we had our last bit of late night, small-field, no-cut golf and I have to tell you I am glad. I do like the night time golf and normally do extremely well with small fields, but it was not happening this time overseas. Our best event this Fall was the Safeway Open and the Shriners will feature most of the same players with a full-field and a cut. What is  interesting is how well many of the guys I highlighted in the Top 10 PGA Tour Newcomers to Target in the Fall article did at the Sanderson Farms event last week. Cameron Champ came out victorious, with Sam Burns, Anders Albertson, and Roberto Castro all finishing Top 10 as well. I am anxious to include some of the newcomers in my core this week. Before we dive into my strategy and core of players let’s recap last week’s WGC-HSBC.

What went right?- I owned Tony Finau on roughly half of all my lineups and a second place finish for his price was certainly good, but it should have been so much better if he could have just closed the deal. Leading for the entire weekend it looked like he would cruise, but in the end he came up short, which has started to become a trend with him. Keegan Bradley was a great play in my core with a 6th place finish for his $7,500 price. Thorbjorn Olesen was another great play as he managed a T7. A few of the guys I mixed in because I felt they would be low owned and wanted exposure that did well were Andrea Pavan (T22), Erik Van Rooyen and Alex Bjork (T28).

What went wrong?- Before the tournament even got going we lost a member of the core when Eddie Pepperell withdrew because of a neck injury after lineup lock. I am of course frustrated anytime somebody withdraws and causes every team with that player to be relegated to the garbage. The more frustrating thing to me is why Draftkings as a company refuses to address this issue, not only with golf, but every sport. Nothing is more detrimental to the user experience then a dead lineup. It happens all the time in football as well when a player gets hurt really early, does not return, and your lineup is worthless and gives you no reason to root for it any longer. It would be so simple to fix this and there are many options, but as a company we have seen countless times over the years how stubborn DK is and how unwilling they are to improve their product. Continuing on with things that give me a headache, let’s talk about Xander Schauffele. Xander is maddening to me because he is all or nothing. Many times you will get a finish near the bottom of the field, but sometimes he pops up and is dominant and wins. The top tier guys that I elected to go with-DJ and Rory were both awful with McIlroy being an embarrassingly bad. It felt like a typical lifeless McIlroy mail it in when he falls back performance. Enjoy your guaranteed paycheck Rory, hope you feel good about it. Two of my higher owned low-price guys Andy Sullivan and Julian Suri both laid eggs for me as well. Overall not a great week at all and can’t wait to get back to a normal event this week.

Good luck this week Team FGI!

Jeff’s Strategy & Core- Shriners Open
Sign up for an FGI account today to see the rest of this post.