The Albatross – FanDuel Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Shell Houston Open by Erik Dantoft

The Puerto Rico Open turned out just as I had suspected it would, unpredictable and up-side-down.  Graeme McDowell and Graham DeLaet were the two most expensive golfers last week and both missed the cut while a near minimum salary golfer in D.A. Points won the event.  If you enjoyed the Puerto Rico Open and also embraced the variance associated with a tournament with that, I encourage you to try out the FGI Euro Tour package and play Euro Tour DFS over on DraftKings.  Events like the Puerto Rico Open practically happen every other week over on the Euro Tour and offers a different level of DFS Golf satisfaction when you’re able to get six golfers through the cut and hopefully built a lineup with some upside.   Playing Euro Tour DFS also helps with identifying golfers coming over to the PGA Tour that may be trying to improve their form for an upcoming major like the Masters in two weeks or that are just ready to compete versus a higher level of competition.  This week though, our attention shifts to the Shell Houston Open which is the final tune-up event before the Masters.  A lot of the top ranked golfers that participated in the WGC – Dell Technologies Match Play event are part of this field so we’ll be able to use our regular FanDuel Rd 1-2 & Rd 3-4 strategies again to give us the best possible edge.

The team at FanDuel that is in charge of their PGA pricing must still have their training wheels on.  I mention this because they released their PGA player pool at roughly the same time as DraftKings this week but apparently didn’t double-check the latest PGA news before making everything official.  If they had they would have found out that Dustin Johnson withdrew his name from the field this week so that he could rest up and prepare for The Masters.  This oversight on their part literally gives us a discount on the entire rest of the field because everything starts with the salary of the best golfer.  With DJ out, Spieth now becomes as close to a must play as possible for Rd 3-4 golfers because, in my view, we’re getting him at an $800 discount with better odds to win.  This is one of a few pricing inaccuracies for us to exploit this week.

Overall FanDuel Strategy for the Shell Houston Open:  Since the pricing in general this week makes it easier to build a high-end lineup with quality Rd 1-2 & Rd 3-4 golfers, we’re going to be using one set of optimal Overall weights in the FGI PGA Model.  We will have the usual heavy emphasis on Current Form & Key Stats since those two metrics are our best indicators for predicting the future success of a golfer and then an equal blend between Vegas and Course History with our remaining points.  Below are the Key Stats weights for the Shell Houston Open courtesy of our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics (@FGMetrics on Twitter) as well as the Overall weights for the FGI PGA Model: 

FGI PGA Model Key Stats weights:

                SGT2G: 25%

                SGP: 15%

                PROX: 15%

                PAR5: 20%

                BOB%: 20%

                SCRAM: 5% 

FGI PGA Model Overall weights:

                Current Form: 35%

                Key Stats: 35%

                Vegas: 15%

                Course History: 15%

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