The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview AT&T Byron Nelson Championship

Welcome to a celebratory edition of The Daily Spin. We had a pretty amazing week here at Fantasy Golf Insider. Our fellow editor, Jeffrey Bergerson, was a big winner across several events last weekend as you may have heard. If you missed it, Jeff won the weekly $300 GPP on DraftKings taking home a cool $20,000. He further leveraged his success by entering the same lineup in the $27 GPP, the $1000 Fantasy Golf World Championship qualifier and also a qualifier to earn a $5000 ticket into the Thunderdome event for the US Open. He placed 7th in the $27 GPP, and won both qualifiers. Team FGI will now be headed out to Boston over Labor Day weekend to attend the first ever Fantasy Golf World Championship event where we will be watching the Deutsche Bank Championship from the 17th and 18th hole along with the other 24 qualifiers. We will be playing for a 1st place prize of $200,000. To get warmed up, we will also be participating in the 50 entrant, Thunderdome tournament for the US Open which he qualified for by winning a ticket. 1st prize for the Thunderdome event is $100,000.

Truth be told, I was too anxious on Sunday and avoided much of the sweat. I spent part of the morning chatting with subscribers and followers awaiting tee off which was once again delayed due to poor weather. Unfortunately, a rough start through the first few holes led to CSURAM88 taking an early lead on Sunday, at which time I put my cell phone on a charger and spent the day playing with my kids and watching a couple of movies. On the other side of the state, Jeff was on his annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip with his family…out of cell phone reception range. Throughout the weekend, I peppered his phone with text messages letting him relive the sweat he was missing out on. I had made a plan to check our scores NBA Draft Lottery style at 6pm when I knew for certain that the tournament would be over.

Little did I know that curiosity had gotten the best of Jeff who had found a local bar to go check on how his team was performing and to watch the final stretch of action. At around 5:30, my wife brought my cell phone down to me as it had someone had called several times. I had a feeling that it was Jeff, but still had not heard any news yet. After weeks of trying to qualify, we had grown a bit frustrated in coming up just short. To hear the news that he had swept through several contests was pretty thrilling after checking the clock most of the day. As most of you know, daily fantasy sports is a game where you experience a lot of heartbreakingly close finishes before finally hitting it on the head like this. We are really excited to represent the team here and hopefully, we will be able to provide you all with some fun coverage from the event later this summer.

What made the weekend complete was listening to all the great feedback from our members and followers who had a successful weekend. The Daily Spin had one of its best weeks overall since its launch and delivered an impressive 14 of 17 players through the cut. Ryan Palmer shocked more than a few of us with a bogey, followed by a double bogey on his last two holes Friday to blow the cut. His play has been a bit erratic this spring. As much of the field owned Palmer, it struck a universal chord of pain across the board. As people stop buying Ryan Palmer, realize it presents a great opportunity to add him to a roster here and there, regardless of whether or not we write him up in a given week.

We continue to hammer home the point that winning GPPs is all about lineup construction. The last two weeks could not have illustrated our point any better. In both cases, owning the highest owned players in cash games did not hurt us in the least. However, if you owned them in GPPs, you were not going to win the event and likely struggled if you owned those players on multiple teams. The math is simple: you need to consider variance and standard deviation when considering the type of lineup you are putting together and the contest you are entering. While I do throw in my one or two cash game teams into GPPs, I rarely would do the reverse. With high variance on the GPP teams I put together, I have have little idea week to week as to which ones would beat half the field, and which ones would fall to pieces before the weekend. That’s the whole reason why most players will enter multiple lineups into a GPP tournament. When you introduce higher levels of variance into your lineups, you’re going to have a much better shot of it working to the high side if you fire a few more bullets.

As for the rest of the picks, we had three players in the Top 5 (including the winner Chris Kirk) and seven in the Top 25 with a range of Blue Chip, Value and sleepers contributing to a profitable week. We did in fact jinx Bo Van Pelt who missed his first cut ever at this tournament in an ugly fashion. Freddie Jacobson was also uncharacteristically poor here in missing the cut badly. Fortunately, if you followed our advice and diversified your sleepers for the limited areas where we advise using sleepers, this did not hurt you too badly as four of our six sleepers did make it through the cut and contributed over the weekend. All in all, it was a strong weekend and we hope that you all were able to cash in on another solid weekend.

Each week it seems like we get a chance to interact with more of you through Twitter and e-mail so please keep your questions coming our way. We are constantly working on new ways to improve the site and make the experience more user friendly so if there is something that we are missing, reach out to us and we will do our best to address it. We have three to four big projects in the works over the next 3-6 months and cannot wait to share them with you. In the coming weeks, we will begin to announce some of the great new tools that will be available in helping you to do even more comprehensive research than before.

Well, that is enough of celebrating our achievements from last week. If you had Ryan Palmer and Bo Van Pelt on many of your teams, you are probably ready to punch me at this point so I’ll wrap up the parade now and get to what you are waiting for, namely the picks for this week’s AT&T Byron Nelson Championship. From what we have seen over the years, the pros are not big fans of this event and have not shown up as often as they did previously during the life of Byron Nelson. The weather is going to be a mess this weekend as well, a theme for Texas golf in the spring, so plan to be up early on Thursday morning checking over the forecast one last time before hitting submit on all of your lineups.

The TPC Four Seasons is a deceptive 7166 yards and plays as a Par 70. The longer hitters have fared well here in recent years with players like Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley, Marc Leishman and Morgan Hoffmann all having a great deal of success. With only two Par 5 holes, these players will be the ones that are going to have the most birdie and eagle opportunities making them that much more valuable under the DraftKings scoring system. Like last week, accuracy off the tee is also helpful with narrower fairways so Total Striking is important. Hitting greens always seems to be a key to success for players here as well so we will combine that with our first statistic and be on the hunt for players with strong ball striking ability. If we have to give a bit on accuracy, we will not have any issues with that so long as they are getting to greens to give themselves the opportunity to score for us. Tee to green play, as always, is of paramount importance. Fortunately, most of the big hitters that we look at this week are strong in the strokes gained tee to green department. As some of the bigger hitters tend to stray from the fairway, they will receive a little boost in our rankings if they are good at scrambling out of trouble to get up and down. We would like to find players that can putt well, but plenty of players have had success here that are not particularly strong putters so poor putting alone (we’re looking at you, Dustin Johnson) will not rule a player out this week. Finally, as you may suspect, we will want to add players to our roster that play well on both Par 4 and Par 5 holes. The longer hitters naturally have an advantage in this area and with the handful of Par 4 holes that play a bit longer than normal, covering that extra distance will be that much more important than normal. To recap, we are going to look at the components of Ball Striking (Total Striking + GIR), Strokes Gained Tee to Green, Par 4 and 5 scoring, and scrambling in our highly selective process of drafting players this week.

Before I get into the Blue Chip players this week, I am again going to leave off Jordan Spieth. He plays great week in and week out and yet, he just isn’t going to score enough again this week to give you the value that you need for a $13,300 salary. He played fantastic golf last Sunday and surged up into a 2nd place tie for the weekend and 101.5 points. If you use the little trick I mentioned last week of cutting off the last two digits of a player’s salary and dividing that by the number of points they scored, you would get (130/101.5) = $1.28/pt. I know most of you just shrugged your shoulders and mouthed, ‘So what?’ to your computer screen. He took 2nd place, sounds like a perfect guy to have on your team right??? Right?? Wrong. If you owned Spieth last week, even 101.5 points was not nearly enough to make value for your roster based upon what you spent on him. Apply $1.28/point across your roster and what do you get? Take your full salary of $50,000, cut off the last two zeroes for ($500/$1.28) = 390.625 points. In the $300 GPP, that would have been good for 129th place, not even close to the money. It gets even worse in the $27 and $3 mine fields where you are playing against many more players.

Let’s do a little more math here since we love math here at The Daily Spin. Our fellow editor, Jeff Bergerson, scored 539 points last week for the win!!! Okay, I am all done with exclamation points for the article. We are going to round that up to 540 points as it divides nicely by the 6 players in his lineup. Since scoring for the Byron Nelson tends to be pretty close to what we see year to year at the Crowne, it is reasonable to guess that 540 will be close to what we need to win this week. With six players, that means we need to score on average, 90 points per player. That is a good reference point, but not terribly practical. You are not drafting players for $6000 with the realistic thought that they are going to score 90 points for you. What we then need to do is to figure out how many dollars we want to spend per point we anticipate needing to score to put ourselves in position to win the tournament. So how much did Jeff spend per point to get his incredible result last week? I’ll get my calculator out for you again ($500/540) = $.926/point Wow, does that help to put things into perspective for you yet? That means that Spieth was roughly 38% less efficient than the average player in a winning lineup.

Well, you say, that was the winning lineup. Yes, you are correct, that was the best lineup of the week we were comparing him to which might be a bit aggressive. Instead, let’s use the last team that cashed in the $300 GPP which posted a score of 420 points (an average of 70 points per player). Under this scenario, player Poppaspicks paid ($500/420) = $1.19/point Spieth remains about 9% inefficient for this lineup.

Now, the real issue is not necessarily that a player performs inefficiently in a lineup, rather, were you able to find other players that could make up the for the slack in your lineup (feels odd to say Spieth was the slack w a 2nd place finish). When you select a player like Spieth for $13,300, it forces you as an owner to take more chances on less proven commodities lower down in the salary chain. These players now must account for their own value, and also that of other players that do not carry their weight in terms of efficiency. What it turns into when building the sort of stars and scrubs lineup that is typically required is to find two to three players who may or may not make the cut, and then adding them to the roster. However, what most owners do not realize is that these players not only must make the cut, but outperform their price far above what was anticipated.

Last week provides what is actually close to a best case scenario for Spieth owners in terms of inefficiency. What happens when Spieth finishs 18th instead of 2nd, which will happen more often than not? The difference this week was 23.5 points (130/78) = $1.67/point. This is a disaster in any format. Spieth averages 89.3 fantasy points per week so I will leave the math to you. Finally, in looking at the top lineups for the $300, $27, and $3 GPPs last week, Spieth was owned in one lineup in the Top 10 in the $300 GPP, one of ten in the $27 GPP and zero of ten in the $3 GPP. Folks, this is a week where Spieth took 2nd place. He was owned by roughly 25-30% of the field throughout these contests. The conclusion on this should be pretty clear in that above a certain salary, it gets very difficult to roster certain players in daily fantasy golf. Unless the typical course score is -20 or better, these very pricey players should be making up a very negligible portion of your rosters each week. The only real way to justify their place on your roster is if there are several grossly underpriced players at lower salaries that have a very strong chance of outpeforming their salaries. This in turn, will hopefully offset any potential inefficiencies that come from rostering top level talent and paying a top level price.

The next section of the column is going to take a bit of a break from what we normally do and give you a little lesson on building a cash game lineup and the reason why each player works well for that lineup, but might not be as attractive overall as a GPP play. This is not intended to be a permanent feature here, but we get so many questions every week on lineup construction that we thought it might be helpful to just walk through the preparation of a quality cash game team that will dominate opponents this week. Too often, we receive questions from owners trying to put together these overly complex stars and scrubs lineups with three big name player and three players that are anything but reliable when it comes to making the cut. Depending on the week, losing one or two players to the cut can be the end of your hopes of winning in a cash game. The reason a certain degree of caution is so important in a cash game is not due to the fact that you are trying to score less points, it’s that you want to protect your point scoring capabilities through all four rounds.

We’ve used a lot of golf examples to illustrate our point in the past. Tonight, we’re going to take it to an even simpler level so that folks get the point once and for all. We want you to consider the example of the weather in a place like San Diego versus that of the desert just to the east of the city. In the summertime, the average temperature averages about 70 degrees for both places. However, the temperature in San Diego hovers between about 65-75 degrees each day while the temperature in the desert ranges between 40-100 degrees. San Diego is your cash game lineup and the desert is your GPP lineup. Variance and standard deviation are not new concepts for fantasy sports and they should be understood within the context of daily fantasy golf. Certain players are much more volatile than others. Reduce volatility when building your cash game lineups and increase it for your GPP lineups. As you will be building far more GPP lineups than cash game lineups, you can expect a lot more of them to miss. However, you should also have a much wider range in terms of upside to compensate for the extra risk.

CASH GAME

Matt Kuchar ($9500) – Maybe the safest player each week going into a tournament, Kuchar is about as steady as they come in terms of making the cut. His form has faltered a bit as of late, but he has still missed just one cut all season. When you combine that with the fact that he has made the cut in all seven appearances here, he makes for the perfect cornerstone for your lineups. He is a below average ball striker, but is still solid with his iron play which keeps him above average in strokes gained tee to green (56th). His putter is still among the best in the game (6th), and as a consequence, he ranks 20th overall in total strokes gained. He ranks 3rd in Par 4 scoring and 11th in Par 5 scoring. Any worries about inaccuracies off the tee should be alleviated by the fact that Kuchar ranks 5th in scrambling. Kuchar is a bit of a marginal play in GPP formats due to his above average price and slight decline in form, but he is as safe as they come for making the cut this week.

Jimmy Walker ($9400) – Walker typically owns a place a little higher up on the salary chain, but recent struggles starting back at The Masters up until now (Walker injured his wrist at Augusta as well) have taken his price down a notch towards the upper end of the value category. This provides us with a great opportunity to lock up another fairly safe play with Walker. Jimmy has missed just one cut in his last eight appearances in Irving with the one missed cut taking place in 2011 under harsher than normal circumstances. On the season, Walker has missed just one cut, at The Players Championship where more than a few high quality players struggled. Walker is an average ball striker (69th), but an very good tee to green player (23rd) and an outstanding putter (1st) placing him 5th overall in total strokes gained. He also ranks 35th in Par 4 scoring and 7th in Par 5 scoring. He seems like he should be able to put it all together here, but it just has never materialized for him, which limits his value in GPP formats given his price.

Keegan Bradley ($8400) – We fully expect Bradley to be very highly owned this week based on his price and history at the course. That level of ownership is a bit of a deterrent to us as it limits our ability to gain upside against our opponents in GPP play. We will still own Bradley for one or two GPP lineups as he is four of four in making the cut, has never finished lower than 29th, and has a 1st and 2nd place finish to his credit. Bradley is steady making cuts overall and has missed just twice in thirteen starts for the season. He ranks 22nd in ball striking and 13th in strokes gained tee to green. Bradley does tend to struggle with his putting, but is a respectable 41st in Par 4 scoring and 37th in Par 5 scoring. Bradley is a hot and cold type of player and has not had as many standout performances as we would have expected this year, but he is at a nice price this week and should sail through the cut and into the weekend.

Russell Henley ($7900) – Yet another player with just one missed cut this season, Henley is a very reliable player to get four rounds in for the week. Given his price, Henley could work in a GPP format as well this week as we are now getting towards the price range where it is not nearly such an effort to make value for a roster. Henley has one of the more well rounded games on tour. He brings a nice mix of distance (36th), accuracy (71st) and GIR (87th) in his game that leads him to be ranked 39th overall in ball striking. He ranks 7th in putting and although he is just average in strokes gained tee to green (81st), he ranks 34th overall in total strokes gained. He scores reasonably well on Par 4 holes (41st) and Par 5’s (72nd) and his birdie percentage (27th) helps him greatly under the DraftKings scoring model. It is his debut here, which makes us a little nervous, but his game does not have any glaring weaknesses so he should handle it well.

Hunter Mahan ($7100) – Mahan has been Mr. Cash Game this season (taking the title from John Peterson after Peterson’s MDF last week). His numbers have been steady all season. Mahan averages 67.6 fantasy points per week. He has been within 10 points of his average in 9 of 14 starts this year. That is what we call low variance. Typically, you can find Mahan situated comfortably between 25-60 in the standings. It is frustrating that with all of the tools that he has in his arsenal, he cannot put things together more consistently in competing for titles. However, steady play works well for our purposes here. Mahan has missed just one cut this season, The Players Championship, where a cut streaks go to die so that is forgivable. Mahan is a good ball striker (42nd), and a good putter (27th). His tee to green game is below average (113th) which has led to most of Mahan’s issues this season. He scores well on Par 4’s (9th) but not quite so well on Par 5’s (94th). Overall, nothing really stand out as being great or terrible. Mahan has not played here in a while, but is 5 for 7 in making the cut and had made three cuts in a row before taking a four year break from the event. We are envisioning a T50 in his future this weekend, and we are okay with that. Given his low price and point average, Mahan could be used in GPP contests this week, but given his lack of real upside and scoring potential, we would limit our use of him.

Jason Dufner ($6900) – The next person to say ‘Skinny Dufner’ around me is going to get kicked in the groin. Hard. I do not care about his divorce either. What I care about this week is that Jason Dufner and Zack Sucher are at the SAME PRICE. Dufner has easily made the cut here in his last four starts and even won the event back in 2012. He faltered out of the gate in missing the cut twice to open the season, but the other two missed cuts are pretty forgivable as he was wiped out in the storm on Day 1 at Valero and played reasonably well before missing the cut at The Players Chanpionship. His putting has been atrocious this season (176th), but he has actually been very good tee to green (28th) to offset most of the damage. He has not played his best golf this season, but his price is so low that he needs to do little more than make the cut in order to deliver value to this team as its final pick. We are not that interested in Dufner at this stage for GPP play just due to the very limited upside we see in his play at this time. We would anticipate a score in the range of 50-65 points for the week.

That is a wrap for your cash game team this week. The total cost came to $49,200 so you have a little room to play if there is a player or two that you really want to keep off your rosters. We will use this team in a couple of high dollar cash games this week so wish us luck. If you want to take it for your own use, we think you will like the results. This is not the sexiest team of the week, but we believe it will get the job done for us.

The rest this week’s article will focus in on the other players that we will be using primarily for GPP play this week. Of the above mentioned players, only Henley and Bradley will see duplicate use in GPP this week for the reasons outlined above.

BLUE CHIPS

UPDATE: JASON DAY WITHDREW FROM THIS EVENT EARLIER IN THE DAY
Jason Day ($11,200) – At his price, we heavily debated whether or not to include Day this week. Of the top three priced players in the field, we felt that Day stacked up best overall and had the best chance of coming close to producing close to full value this week. He will need to finish near the top of the leaderboard to justify his price, but in the end, we chose to include him in part due to all of the lower priced players in the field this week that are priced at a deep discount pursuant to their true value. We think there are enough players in the middle and lower value ranges that can outscore their prices this week. As for Day, he has made the cut in all four starts here with three Top 10 finishes that also includes a win. He hits the ball long and he hits a lot of greens so his lack of accuracy can be forgiven this week. He is good tee to green (30th) and putting as well (29th). He also ranks 1st in birdie average, which will certainly help him to pick up a lot of extra points for the week. He ranks 1st in Par 3 and 4 scoring and 24th in Par 5 scoring. Day may fall a little short in delivering full value this week, but we anticipate that he will be easy to roster this week. Beware of his high level of ownership. It will not surprise us to see him owned in the 25% range this week.

UPDATE: IAN POULTER WITHDREW FROM THIS EVENT EARLIER IN THE DAY
Ian Poulter ($9600) – With flashier names around him, Poulter should be able to avoid being too heavily owned this week. His price is a bit to the high side, so our exposure will be limited, but we do think that his form merits careful consideration this week. After a 5th place finish last week, Poulter has made 10 of 11 cuts this season and has been markedly improved over previous years. He does not quite have the distance of some of the other players we have looked at so far, but he is accurate and hits greens reliably. His iron play and short game are solid as well. He ranks 42nd in strokes gained tee to green and 18th in strokes gained putting. He is 17th in scrambling and ranks 3rd in Par 4 scoring and 37th in Par 5 scoring. He has not played this course recently, but does have one Top 10 finish in three starts. We are hoping that he is overlooked this week.

Ryan Palmer ($9200) – We wish his price had fallen just a little bit further, but perhaps this is a blessing in disguise and will keep even more owners away from him this week. It is always tough medicine to swallow when drafting a player who crushed you the previous week, but it gives us a unique opportunity to score a lot of points when we are the only ones that own him. We are certainly not pushing all of our chips in on Palmer this week, but will have him on a few teams this week with the thought that he will be ready to bounce back. It will either be a pleasant reversal, or it could turn out to be like that girl who always knew how to twist the knife just right each time I went back to her. Palmer struggled here in his first few years before making the cut in his last four tries, including two Top 10 finishes. His stats show a player who should excel here: 14th in driving distance, 43rd in GIR, 14th in strokes gained tee to green, average putter (80th), 35th in Par 4 scoring and 41st in Par 5 scoring. The price is still too high, but we will pay up a bit to keep him mostly to ourselves. He will not want to look like a fool in his home state two weeks in a row.

Justin Thomas ($9200) – His price is beginning to move back towards a range where he could deeply disappoint us, but really like the way he is playing right now after a rough stretch a couple of months back. He was off last weekend so he will come in well rested and ready to play. If he could get his game together on Sundays, he might have already won a couple of events this season. With a lot of buzz surrounding players above and below him in price, we think we can get him before the crowd picks up this summer. He is long off the tee and hits greens leading him to be ranked 46th overall in ball striking. He ranks 31st in strokes gained tee to green and his putting is about average (68th). What makes Thomas special is his ability to rack up a lot of points when he gets a little momentum going. He ranks 9th in birdie average and 10th eagles per hole. While he ranks a rather pedestrian 87th on Par 4 holes, he is 2nd in Par 5 scoring.

VALUE PICKS

Charley Hoffman ($8400) – Charley Hoffman is in great form this year and continues to surprise owners each week. We think there is enough support of Hoffman within the industry so that we will not see a repeat of last week where just 6% owned him in the $300 GPP, but his upside potential here makes him worth a bit of risk. Hoffman is just 5 of 8 in making the cut here, but three of those were Top 10 finishes. Considering his recent form, we think the odds are reasonable that he gets number four this week. He has played well in Texas this year with a 10th place finish last weekend and two 11th place finishes in the other two previous events. Charley is another player who drives the ball long and hits greens even if he is not terribly accurate. He ranks 39th in strokes gained tee to green, but has struggled putting this season. He ranks 35th in Par 4 scoring and 47th in Par 5 scoring so he has the attributes that he needs to succeed here. We will continue to track other media sources to see how heavily he is being recommended this week. As of now, we would advise keeping exposure to Hoffman relatively limited.

Daniel Berger ($8100) – Remember two weeks ago when we recommended Thomas over Berger due to the hype around Berger and the fact that we could get virtually the same player in Thomas for a small discount? Well, the roles are reversed this week and now you actually will get a nice discount on Berger. We like them both this week and will probably pair them together in a few lineups. Berger hits it long off the tee and hits greens (sound familiar?) and is ranked 11th in ball striking. He ranks 25th in strokes gained tee to green, but has slipped in his putting (109th). He is a good scrambler (39th) and steady on both Par 4 and 5 holes (22nd and 19th respectively). Berger has alternated good and bad starts over his last 10 starts. Guess which one he is due for this week.

Brooks Koepka ($7700) – Koepka is the ultimate GPP play. He has so much talent and can score at will. He is also capable of the worst meltdowns imaginable as he showed with back to back quadruple bogeys at The Players Championship. He made a miraculous comeback over the rest of the round and throughout the following round, but ended up just missing the cut. However, his two days point total of 50.5 was still quite remarkable and speaks to what Koepka is capable of in any given round. This week, he will look to improve on his missed cut here last season and should have the tools to accomplish that. He struggled with a rib injury before and during The Masters, but appears to be fully recovered now and ready for the big events this summer. He is another young player that hits the ball long and finds a lot of greens. His tee to green game is very good (37th) and his putting has been terrific (11th). He hits a lot of birdies and eagles so he can score points in bunches. He is 41st on Par 4 holes and 7th on Par 5’s. We think ownership will be about average for Koepka this week so there should not be too big of a threat for him to be owned too heavily by others this week.

UPDATE: GEORGE MCNEILL WITHDREW FROM THIS EVENT EARLIER IN THE DAY
George McNeill ($7100) – George McNeill continued his great run of golf this season with a 5th place finish last week. The result, a $600 drop in his salary. Him and Mike Weir have the same price this week. Thank you for challenging us with that DraftKings. What we like about George McNeill is that he is named George McNeill. It could not be much less memorable. He has gone about his business this season without anyone so much as lifting an eyebrow. He has made seven straight cuts with five of those finishes being in the Top 30. Yet, his price fell this week and he is again priced well below where Vegas odds have him for the week. He has a spotty record here with just three cuts made in six attempts. However, we think his current form trumps course history. He is not a gifted ball striker, but does putt well (32nd), scrambles well (47th), and plays well on Par 4 and 5 holes (41st and 53rd). None of these stats alone make McNeill stand out, but together paint a picture of a well rounded player that has come into form this year.

Morgan Hoffmann ($7000) – In the headscratcher of the week category, Morgan Hoffmann stand out in a big way. With two Top 15 finishes in two starts, we were almost as surprised as Vegas to see him this cheap. What is frustrating is that DraftKings has made this pricing so painfully obvious that everyone will now be a Hoffmanm owner. We will not totally fade Morgan, but we will try to put him into lineups where we have other players with lower ownership levels in order to combat the crowd that will own him substantially. Hoffmann is a big hitter who does not always find the green so easily in contrast to the other young players that we have profiled. He does, however, possess a nice putting stroke (24th) and is 11th in Par 5 scoring. His tournament history here combined with his price will make him a big draw for the week. Just be wary of his high levels of ownership.

Brendan Steele ($7000) – An interesting play at his price, Steele appears to have all the tools to do well in Irving and yet has struggled in missing the cut in his first two tries. We think he will get it right the third time around. He fits the template of others profiled previously in that he hits the ball long and also hits a lot of greens leading to him being ranked 19th in ball striking. He ranks 9th in Par 4 scoring and 19th on Par 5 scoring. He struggled recently in missing a couple of cuts, but those are the long blemishes on what has otherwise been a great season for Steele. At his price, Steele needs to just shoot his average to provide value to his owners.

SLEEPERS

The sleeper category is a little limited this week due in part to the pricing floor of $6100, which seemed a little weird to us. Fortunately, there are enough good values just above so we did not have to dig too deep this week.

Will Wilcox ($7000) – When last we met, Wilcox was melting down on his final hole on a Friday afternoon to miss the cut at the Zurich Classic. He can gain a fair amount of forgiveness in making the cut this week. I put him into the sleeper category just due in part to the fact that he is still a bit of an unknown to most owners so we think you can own him this week without drawing too much attention. Wilcox hits the ball 290 off the tee, is accurate (27th) and is one of the top ranked players on tour in GIR (5th). He scrambles well (33rd) and scores well on Par 4 holes (22nd). He is a bit weak in putting (89th) and Par 5 scoring (162nd). We think he gets through the cut this week like he did a year ago.

Scott Piercy ($6600) – The easiest bargain to spot in the sleeper category is Scott Piercy. With his recent strong history here and a style of play that fits the course, we anticipate that Piercy will be the highest owned of the sleepers this week. He gets good distance off the tee, but is unspectacular in accuracy and GIR. His approach game is solid which should help to carry him through another cut. He recently went through a bit of a tough stretch, but broke a streak of three straight missed cuts last week. Piercy does have three Top 10 finishes on the year so when his putter warms up, he is capable of strong performances.

Carlos Ortiz ($6400) – The young Mexican finds himself in a very favorable pricing situation this week. Ortiz is another great GPP play as he has the potential for big finishes when he is on his game. He has missed the cut a few times this season, but makes up for it with an ability to generate Top 20 finishes. Ortiz drives the ball well and has a decent putting game. He ranks 19th in Par 5 scoring. We think a few owners will have him, but definitely below no more than about 5-7%. For a cut maker with a bit of upside potential, we like Ortiz at this price.

Sorry if the column ran a bit long today. We had a lot on our mind that we wanted to share so hopefully, it was worth the time to read. Best of luck this week and be sure to hit me up with any lineup questions today!

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