Jeff’s Hardcore Core- The Open Championship

The week started out very ominous last week as Danny Lee withdrew with an “injury” on Thursday. Everything pointed to Lee playing well last week, but as we all know he is a headcase and has showed that several times in the past. I unfortunately had to kiss 25% of my rosters goodbye early. Other misses were Kevin Na, Johnson Wagner, and Sebastion Munoz who all surprised us with lame efforts. We got $6,600 Robert Garrigus through the cut and I was feeling really good about it only to learn of him doing exactly what we ranted about on last week’s podcast, being disqualified for a scorecard issue. Luckily those were the only low-lights and we had a ton of highlights starting with having the winner, who I have been high on for a long-time, Bryson Dechambeau. I ended up having significant exposure to Bryson and was very happy to see him owned by under 15% of the field in most every GPP.  He was the 9th guy who has won this season out of my preseason Crystal Ball article, with a few other real close calls.  Hopefully we can check off a couple more before the season comes to an end.  We also got solid performances from Daniel Berger (T5), Bud Cauley (T12), Daniel Summerhays (T12), Chad Campbell (T12), Trey Mullinax (T19), and Ben Martin and Chez Reavie (T39).  Overall a solid week as a ton of members won a bunch of money in GPPs, but frustrating for those who owned Lee and Na.

The Open Championship is upon us and I am not sure if it is my favorite major, but I really truly enjoy it. One reason is I can get up in the middle of the night and watch it uninterrupted, unlike most weeks when we have chaos around our house and my kids are insisting that I play whatever the sport of the day is with them, instead of watching golf, (which they say is “so boring”).  Some of you can relate to how hard it is to focus on golf with distractions surrounding you. I will set my alarm for about 2 am each day and wake up to a couple of piping hot cups of coffee and lay with a blanket over me on the couch, (because I like blasting the air conditioning in summer) and enjoy what has been one of the best covered golf tournaments of the entire year.

Of course with the major, we have the traditional millionaire maker tournament on Draftkings, which I have mixed feelings about. I like that it draws the attention of novice players to the game of DFS golf. I also really like having a big prize up top, although it is such a gigantic disparity between 1st and 2nd, it is a bit absurd. Anytime, there is life altering money up for grabs, you will have some entries from me, although the amount of them have gone down considerably from where they once were. Also, with the major, we get other intriguing GPPs, which is a rarity these days on Draftkings. In the $333 contest, we have a $100,000 top prize, which I really like. I wish the days of the $3 150 max entry were not gone on DK, but it sounds like they are. The $8 Best Ball contest only has a top prize of $25,000, so I will be playing my multiple lineups over at Fanduel where they have a max entry tournament with a $6 buy-in and a $50,000 top prize, which is much more appealing to me. If you want to sign up over at Fanduel and join me in that contest click here: Sign up at Fanduel.

As I do for every major, I advocate strongly for you to play in cash games. We have had only 1 losing major in the last 3 years when it comes to cash games. Part of the reason for that is there are so many novices playing in the milly maker that they are on the site anyway and throw money into 50/50s as well. The other reason is because there are so many options with such a deep field. Most weeks on the PGA Tour there are a handful of guys that have the very best chance to win. With majors there are more than 25 guys that we can legitimately say have the predominant chance to win this tournament. For the cash games, I would recommend you stay balanced in the $9k and $7k range. Zach includes his cash game core in The Daily Spin and I usually stick to GPPs, because that is what I really specialize in, but I am going to include below the guys I will be using the most in my cash games this week and a few examples of some possible teams that I will be playing.
Jeff’s Strategy & Hardcore Core- The Open Championship
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