The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – The Masters

The moment is finally here. From the moment that the new champion slips on that green jacket up until now we have been dutifully waiting for the PGA Tour to return to Augusta for our favorite event of the year, every year. The Masters really is its own special event from the traditions that take place every year in the week that leads up to the tournament to the perfect curation of the course and even the odd composition of the field and the unique rules regarding who will make the cut. I had the pleasure of attending the tournament two years ago and I have to admit that it is one of the rare events that lives up to the hype in every way you can imagine. The course is like something you would envision in a dream, the volunteers that work the event treat every guest like royalty and the crowd itself is devoid of all of the usual swill who tend to take away some of my enjoyment at other events with their over the top, drunken behavior. It still amazes me that when you put your chair down somewhere during the day, literally anywhere whether it be next to a fairway or right up by the green on 18, nobody will dare to move it all day. While the rowdiness of the Waste Management Open certainly has its place during the season, it is also nice to be at a course where it is set up to challenge players and push them in all aspects of their game, and to have it take place in an environment where the audience looks on with respect and allows these athletes to perform at the peak of their abilities.

I want to get right into things tonight. There are so many things to consider when approaching an event like this that it can get overwhelming if you do not have a plan of attack. This event is so specialized that it requires its own approach compared to other events. It has similar characteristics to a regular PGA event in that there is a cut. It is also similar in that much like a regular PGA event, there is going to be about 20-30% of the field that you can completely ignore as they have very little chance of being at all competitive this week. If Larry Mize somehow gets hot and moves up the leaderboard miraculously on Sunday, that’s fine by me. There is no reason to consider some of the players in the field like that who are here only due to the fact that they won at some point in the past.

We’ve seen Freddie Couples and Berhard Langer make some runs into the weekend over the years, but given that Freddie has played an extremely limited schedule, I find it hard to believe that his body is holding up and although Langer has had a couple of nice finishes in the last five years, he comes into this week a little out of form compared to what we have seen him do on the Champions Tour over the last few years. The amateurs should be ignored as well. Yes, on occasion there will be a player like Bryson DeChambeau who comes through and plays reasonably well, but it is not the norm and there is little value in chasing them, especially if you are only building 20 teams this week.

Another area to limit your choices are with the first time qualifiers to the tournament. This is not due to the fact that we have not had a first timer win since 1979, but more that this is really a course that requires careful study and play over a period of years in order to be fully prepared for it. There is a reason that players like Freddie Couples and Bernhard Langer can stick around and compete here well into their 50’s while first time players like Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Alex Noren were all crushed by the cut in their first effort lat year. The veterans, like Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods know this course down to the way that every green will roll and where an approach shot will need to be hit in order to get the ball to stop near the pin instead of rolling off and into a bunker. While the data heads at other sites babble away about the irrelevance of course history, I can tell you that those who have played here have an edge over those who have not. The setup itself is not extremely demanding in the same way that a US Open course typically is (Erin Hills being an enormous exception), but there are areas that require a certain amount of success for players to succeed.

What type of players are we looking for this week? Of course, as is often the case, we want the most elite ball strikers to be at the top of our list. This is not a first shot course. Off the tee, the fairways at Augusta are wider than normal and the rough is cut short. With the advent of new golf balls and better clubs, the course has been lengthened over the years to reach over 7,400 yards which makes it a fairly lengthy Par 72, with the standard setup of four Par 5 holes and four Par 3 holes. The Par 4 holes are of the longer variety with only one of the ten being shorter than 440 yards, and even that hole plays over par nearly every year. It’s important when discussing ball striking to put the proper emphasis on the pieces that we want to focus on the most. I have listened to certain analysts talk this week about Strokes Gained Off the Tee in discussing a few players that they really like that I have no interest in rostering. The problem with isolating SGOTT s that it really is a close reflection of Total Driving (Distance/Accuracy). A player can hit it on the shorter side, but if they are accurate and keep it in the fairway on a lot of courses, they can build up their numbers in this category which is great when we’re looking at a short Par 70 course, but not so much at Augusta.

Now, I know what you are saying. What about guys like Danny Willet or Zach Johnson? Yes, it can happen. Both of these players did make a fine run to win the tournament in 2007 and 2016, but in recent years they have been the exception and since the lengthening of the course over the years, it has been tougher and tougher for these types of players to contend. Another important factor in regards to these two players is that the course played especially tough in both years. In 2007, ZJ actually won the tournament with a winning score of +1 and Danny won at -5 with second place coming in at just -2. Here are the winning tallies from other recent years:

2017 – Sergio Garica (-9)
2015 – Jordan Spieth (-18)
2014 – Bubba Watson (-8)
2013 – Adam Scott (-9)
2012 – Bubba Watson (-10)
2011 – Charl Schwartzel (-14)
2010 – Phil Mickelson (-16)
2009 – Angel Cabrera (-12)

So if you are thinking that you want to use a bunch of shorter hitters who spend their entire weekend getting up and down for par and hanging out around even for most of the tournament, you better hope that the weather is garbage for the week. I can tell you from being at the tournament two years ago that the winds played a huge factor in the first two rounds, especially those golfers that teed off on Thursday morning. Players like Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler met their demise on Friday afternoon even with a very liberal cut line in play for the week. It took until the 4th round for the leaderboard to really shake out where we finally saw players like DJ, Casey, Lee Westwood and JB Holmes all start to close the gap. When considering your player pool, this knowledge is really important. So what does the weather look like for the week?  https://www.windfinder.com/weatherforecast/augusta_bush_field

The forecast for the tournament is looking pretty good overall. The first two days there really should not be any issues at all with the weather. There is some rain expected tomorrow, but probably not even enough for me to think it will change things for the course on Thursday when it is expected to be sunny all day. The winds look like they will be highest in the morning both days, but being especially light on Thursday afternoon compared to Friday. Of course, since it is The Masters, even the tee times are screwy this week. Being first off on Thursday does not mean that you are last of on Friday. In fact, just to make it confusing, the first group on Thursday and the last group on Thursday are back to back in the middle of the day on Friday. The normal thought of AM/PM or PM/AM waves is out the window this week. You will need to consult the tee times in order to try to build some rosters that avoid the gusty winds each morning. Fortunately, with the way that the tee times are set up this week, it is entirely something that can be done.

There are a handful of groups that currently look like they will have slightly more favorable wind conditions than the others who will at least hit some gusts on either the first or second day. Do not go over the top trying to build all of your teams to focus on just these players. I will probably build 15-20% of my teams with the intention of trying to avoid the worst of the winds (which really do not all that awful to begin with). The weather here can shift a fair amount so it is hardly a bulletproof strategy, but in the event that the forecast lives up to expectations or the winds are even a little gustier in the mornings, we may gain a small edge with a few of our teams built to avoid them. As I tell you every week, but will remind you now as we have many new folks along for the ride this week, do not stretch your player pool to make these weather avoidance wave teams. Build your player pool and work within that pool to put these teams together. Do not gravitate towards a mediocre golfer simply due to the fact that he seems to have an optimal tee time. That’s the biggest mistake that DFS players make when utilizing this approach and it inevitably backfires. The only thing you are doing differently is organizing the players that you already like into an optimal format to succeed. http://www.masters.com/pdf/Masters-GroupingsAndStartingTimes-Rd1.pdf

When Saturday hits, that is when the weather is expected to get interesting. We cannot control for where our guys tee off that day, so it not something that I am going to fixate on at all. In looking at the day, the winds are expected to get really gusty starting around 35 mph in the morning and peaking at around 40 mph in the early afternoon before settling back down to 20 mph later in the day. There is rain in the forecast from late in the morning until the middle of the afternoon so it will be interesting to see if there are any delays on Saturday. By Sunday, the winds should calm down again and by the end of the day, they should play almost no factor in determining the outcome of the tournament. https://www.windfinder.com/forecast/augusta_bush_field

What the reports are telling me is that conditions should be reasonable for scoring this week. It would not be a surprise to see the winning score get into the minus double digits range for the week. If that ends up being the case, we really want to be focused on players who are strong in the length component of ball striking as well as hitting greens. With the rough cut short and not being especially penal and the pine straw not being too awful to hit out of, the players who can cut the length of the course down to give themselves an easier second shot should have an advantage. Also when looking at players who lead in GIR each week, we do want to have players who know how to place their shots on these greens. The bentgrass greens here are going to be the fastest that we see all year and the undulation is really hard to describe unless you see it up close. When you stand next to some of these greens, they actually appear to be almost like rolling hills. Depending on where the pin is placed, your aim point is going to vary greatly each day.

In 2016, we spent a lot of time sitting by the green on the 7th hole as it gave a great viewpoint for the 7th, 3rd, 2nd and 8th holes which meant that there was always something to watch. The 7th was a Par 4 with an elevated green that was protected on the front by a series of bunkers which made coming up short a big problem as getting up and down with a steep shot out of the bunker on a these fast greens is always a challenge. In any case, depending on where the pin was placed, the hole could play much easier or harder each day. When the pin was at the front of the green, scoring proved to be a challenge. with many shots spinning back and sliding off the shaved down edges of the green into the bunker. When the pin was in the middle of the green, however, players simply had to hit the ball on a section of the green that played almost like a bowl where if they were in that radius, the green would feed the ball towards the hole for a birdie opportunity. This makes hitting greens important, but also knowing where to hit the greens is a factor as well.

Putting is something of a bonus this week. If we can find players who will pick up strokes, all the better, but if not, that should not be a disqualifying factor. I saw a tweet this week from Tim Frank showing that over the last ten years, seven of the ten winners at Augusta were ranked below 100 in Strokes Gained Putting. Conventional thinking used to be that with really tough greens you needed to be a really strong putter. It’s a little counterintuitive to think that faster, tougher greens means that you can actually get away with being a worse putter. What ends up happening are that players overall have a much tighter radius than normal for making putts. You are never expecting Adam Scott to drain a ten foot putt and now nobody is making those putts as regularly so those who do not putt as well end up losing less strokes to the field. You still have to knock in those three foot testers all weekend, but it is a much better opportunity for players than having to rely on scoring birdie after birdie the whole tournament.

While putting is not so important in and of itself, I do want to look at the short game component for players this week. With slick greens and bunkers all over the course, combined with some lengthy Par 4’s, players will need to get up and down to save par more often than normal. We are not looking for birdies on these holes, we just want our guys to be able to hold their ground and keep from turning a poor approach shot into a double bogey. Water only comes into play on a handful of holes (Amen Corner, 15 & 16) so the rest of the damage tends to happen when players miss the green and then shoot a wild wedge shot that sends the ball scurrying off the other side of the green.

Finally, with conditions looking good, we need to find players that can take advantage of the Par 5 holes this week. While there are no real scoring opportunities on the other fourteen holes by design, the Par 5’s are not terribly challenging and typically yield scoring opportunities, especially for those who are bigger hitters and who can create a shorter, mid range second shot on approach to get to the green. There is a little bit of risk vs reward to consider on 13 and 15 with water just in front of the greens which makes coming up short on approach a disaster, but if the winds are down, all four of these holes should be attacked to gain any strokes on the field overall.

It’s amazing what you recall once you have been this event. Having followed different groups each day and walking the course over and over, I can picture every hole in my mind better than any other course we will see all year. You cannot truly appreciate the elevation changes that are discussed with Augusta until you see it in person. The players will spend the entire day going up hill and then back down hill over and over, many times on the same hole. Like I have stated previously, I needed to eat a few dozen sandwiches and pour down a lot of $3 beers in order to offset the health benefits I was receiving by doing all of that walking. While I would not normally comment on the fitness level of players, I do think that those who are in better condition are going to be better suited to handling the course over four days.

Finally, we need to discuss some strategy tips for how to attack a week like this. Since the field for The Masters is very small with what I believe will be 86 players, we need to understand how the cut works and what it means in terms of selecting players. At The Masters, the Top-50 players and ties make it through the cut AND any player within ten strokes of the leader. This means that we could see as many as 60-65 players getting through to the weekend. There is no MDF terrorism to worry about this week so if they survive on Friday, you will more than likely get four full rounds as it is rare to see players withdraw.

Given the strength of the field at the top, and how weak it is near the bottom, there really are not more than around 40-50 players that are even worth looking at closely this week. For GPP events, you are going to need 6/6 to cash big and even then, there will be plenty of those that do not make the money at all. Given the smaller field, there is also going to be a lot more overlap in terms of the types of teams that get built. Since we really do not have a lot of depth around the bottom salary tier, the lineups overall tend to be more on the chalky side than what we will see at the other three majors this year. This can be good and bad. It’s good in that you do not have to do quite as much research, but it is bad in that there are probably legitimately 20 players near the top this week that have a very real chance of winning where it would not come as a shock at all.

If you are only building 20 teams this week, you need to make a stand on a few players at the top. For the MM GPP, there are going to be over 200,000 entries. If you think JT is going to win, but you only own him on 25% of your teams, that means that you are down to five teams with any sort of chance to win. Say two of those teams have a player that misses the cut and now you are down to three teams. At that point, your hopes are pretty slim. If JT is owned by 15% of the field, that means that around 30,000 teams have him on the roster and probably at least 10,000 are 6/6 going to the weekend. Is this making sense? You need to be bold here. With just 20 teams, I want you to go big on the 2-3 players near the top and live with yourself for fading the rest. Resist the urge to put Tiger on one team out of twenty just to be in if he pulls of a win. If you want to use him, then do it with a sense of purpose and commitment. Give yourself 7-10 teams fighting down the stretch for a win.

This also relates to the rest of your player pool. For 20 teams, keep it tight. Don’t be the guy using 40 players to make 20 teams and having them scattered all over he board by Thursday afternoon. That’s a losing strategy this week and over time as well. Get your group of 15-18 players and work on developing a tight core group of 5-6 players that you are going to own at a 40-60% clip or even higher if you can stand a little extra risk for one of the middle level value players. The goal is to have that core hit hard and to then work in the other 10-12 players around them again and again like you are picking a lock until it clicks just right.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you are going to be build 100 teams this week for the MM GPP, well now you can open things up a little more. Now, 10% does not mean two teams, it means ten. You are not as worried about going through a lineup build and seeing a player only show up once overall. This allows you to stretch that player pool a little more than before so that you are still working towards building that tight core, but now, you are giving yourself a few extra options of a handful of lower owned players to hopefully help you to crack the lock. Given that there are less golfers in play this week, expect elevated ownership numbers even for some of the lower owned players which means that 10% ownership is going to be above the rest of the field in most cases for certain golfers. This is how you find key players like Lee Westwood two years ago who was essentially overlooked by all but a few percent of the field. For The Masters, you do not have to get too cute with your builds. I still remember the first winning PGA MM lineup from back in 2015: Spieth, Rose, Phil, Henley, Na and Hoffman. There really was nothing too magical about it so don’t think that you necessarily have to go dumpster diving here this week just to find a 1-2% owned player in order to differentiate. If anything, you can achieve the same result by simply leaving more than $300 of salary on the table as so many owners will spend nearly every last penny out of habit. With the pricing as soft as it is this week, you can easily get away with a lineup where you leave $700-800 behind without losing any edge at all.

Key Stats:

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 15%
Proximity: 15%
Par 5 Scoring: 5%
Driving Distance: 5%

 

Now that we are a few thousand words in, we are finally getting to the real meat of the article. This was the point last year where I remember really well that as I put the finishing touches on my article and drifted off to sleep for a few hours, I remember thinking how great I felt about the work and the player pool that I put together. Call it paranoia, call it procrastination, but I wanted to give players every opportunity to deliver any unexpected bad news before I put this column out and had it ruined like a year ago where I was forced to totally reconsider my approach upon losing DJ to a freak back injury.

I am going to say this every time the majors come around even though some of you are probably tired of hearing it. The best way to be profitable around the majors is to SKIP the Millionaire Maker and invest more of your bankroll in cash games this week. Will it always pay off? No, but over time you will have an edge and you will more than likely make a lot more money than you would if you kept chasing down the $1 million 1st place prize. The Millionaire Maker is fun considering that top prize, but the prize pool is so tilted towards the top and the rake is so high that it is very difficult to be profitable there unless you manage to fire a magic bullet at some point and knock down a Top-5 finish out of over 200k entries. Now, of course, most of us do this not just to scrape away a small profit over time, but to also dream big in the hopes of taking down a substantial score. So while I will not try to dissuade you from taking part in the big MM event this week, my advice for serious players looking to maximize their returns is to concentrate on cash games where you should be able to take advantage of the softer pricing as well as the flow of novice players into the mix.

For cash games this week, I really like the approach of starting from the upper middle tier and working down. I think that using three players from the mid to high $8k range up into the low $9k range makes a lot of sense this week. In my initial builds, I found myself gravitating towards something along the lines of Rose/Casey/Garcia to start my team. You can pay up to get someone like Rory, Spieth or DJ to lead your team into battle, but if you do that, you probably only have room for two players near the top instead of three. Given that I do not think that those players are in that much more of a favorable position, I would rather work with an additional name I can trust rather than trying to lock down a more expensive player who we think may have a better shot at winning.

The key to cash this week is getting 6/6 to the finish line. If you have 5/6 and the winner or a couple of Top-5 finishers, you may still be okay, but traditionally, this should be one of the easier weeks to get your entire cash game team or teams through the cut. Be smart this week. Stay away from taking big risks on older players or first timers. Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton destroyed cash game teams last year as people let their enthusiasm get the best of them. Could Xander Schauffele or Tony Finau light it up this week and do damage? Definitely. Could Augusta get the best of them in their first start here and cripple them by Thursday afternoon down in Amen Corner? It’s happened many times before. There is enough value and veteran experience to go off of in the lower $8k and upper $7k range to fill out your cash game teams this week so that you should not have to feel too uncomfortable by dipping down into the upper $6k range to grab up a few players to complete your team.

 

CASH GAME PLAYS

Dustin Johnson	11400
Justin Thomas	10800
Jordan Spieth	10400
Rory McIlroy	9900
Jason Day	9800
Phil Mickelson	9500
Jon Rahm	9300
Justin Rose	9200
Rickie Fowler	9000
Paul Casey	8800
Bubba Watson	8700
Sergio Garcia	8600
Hideki Matsuyama	8400
Adam Scott	8000
Henrik Stenson	7800
Ian Poulter	7600
Matt Kuchar	7600
Daniel Berger	7500
Adam Hadwin	7200
Charley Hoffman	7100
Russell Henley	7100
Brendan Steele	6900
Kevin Chappell	6900
Pat Perez	6900

 

Obviously, this is a longer list than normal. With the soft pricing, we have a lot of extra options available for us this week in cash games. You’ll notice that I skipped the older crowd and all first time participants in favor of those with at least some sort of track record to work with. I am still probably not going to go all the way up to the top to start my teams this week, but all of those guys are certainly playable given the value below. Lets take a look at some of the better value plays for your cash teams this week.

Justin Rose is the consensus pick to win this week based on many of the takes that I have seen throughout the industry. He has been the runner up here twice in the last three years and not missed a cut in the last decade. He’s been tremendous since his second place finish last year notching three wins overseas in the fall and continuing his solid play into 2018 with several more Top-10 finishes. His tee to green game is consistently among the best on tour each year and his short game has been outstanding this year as he is ranked 9th against this field over his last 24 rounds. He’s very affordable and it is where I will start my cash games this week.

Paul Casey finally has the monkey off his back after collecting a win this past month for the first time in many years. He’s been remarkably consistent over the last two years and has not missed a cut on tour since the Sony Open back in January of 2017. He has elite level ball striking skills and has the rare combination of length, accuracy and GIR that is rare as usually one or two of those areas outweigh the rest. His iron play is excellent and his short game has been reasonable this year. He’s finished inside the Top-10 in his last three starts here so I am very comfortable with his price this week.

Sergio Garcia enters the week as the defending champion and has enjoyed an amazing year since winning his first major in dramatic fashion year. He’s now married and has a child and looks much more at ease out on the course as opposed to a few years back when it looked as if he was no longer enjoying himself and the pressure of never winning a major continued to build. Now that the monkey is off of his back, he can enjoy playing more and it has shown with him winning two more times overseas since his win at The Masters. He’s another utlra talented ball striker who has never been great with his putter, but is able to make it work with others struggling around him here at Augusta as well. He’s been in good form coming into the week having finished in the Top-10 of his last two stroke play events and winning his initial group of the match play event two weeks ago. We rarely get a chance to own shares of Sergio at this price which makes him an incredible value for cash games this week.

I cannot ever remember Hideki Matsuyama being priced at $8,400 before. I am guessing that the wrist injury he was dealing with previously helped to drive his odds down, but the fact that he returned at the Arnold Palmer and then went right into the match play event where there was the potential of having to play as many as seven rounds of golf in five days indicates that the injury is probably behind him at this point and we can chalk up the mediocre run at the API due to rust and the match play as an event where he’s never really excelled. However, in Hideki, we again get one of the premier ball strikers in the game at a far lower cost than we normally see him. Although his form is not where we would normally want it to be, it has given us a nice opportunity to own one of the top tee to green players in the world on our cash roster this week. He’s done well at Augusta in recent years as well with three straight finishes of 11th or better.

We are going to use Adam Scott this week in cash games fully knowing that he is going to miss a handful of really short putts that will drive us crazy. We can afford this aggravation in all formats this week as it will probably keep him from winning, but more than likely will not prevent him from a decent finish. He’s another excellent ball striker who is strong with his long iron play and even scrambles reasonably well. His putter continues to be a disappointment, but he is a former winner and finished 9th last year with the same poor putter that he’ll have again this year. He is a cut maker with some upside potential if he can even be only mildly bad on the greens this week.

If Henrik Stenson were priced in the middle $8k range, I might just have the guts to pass him up this week, However, at only $7,800, there is too much compelling value to fade him in cash games this week. He looked good in Houston a week ago, picking up another Top-10 finish and outside of an uncharacteristic missed cut at the Valspar Championship, he’s been very good, entering the week having made the Top-10 in back to back events. As always, Stenson is excellent from tee to green and enters the week leading this group in accuracy and GIR over the last 24 rounds. Dropping down to his three wood does not give him the same advantage as it does on shorter courses with narrower fairways, but he still has plenty of power with his irons so he never loses much ground. Augusta has never been a spot where Stenson has dominated, but outside of a missed cut a year ago when he was uncharacteristically missing cuts all over the place, he’s been fine here for cash game purposes, especially at this price. Before missing the cut last year, he had made five straight cuts and finished in the Top-25 for four straight years. I am not expecting Stenson to contend this week, but the potential is there given his skill set and at the worst, he should be in line to make the cut.

Matt Kuchar returned to form last week in Houston and posted a Top-10 finish to send him on to Augusta with some momentum to build off of at an event where he typically does very well. Kuchar has been known over the years for having a balanced game from tee to green and a player with a very solid short game which helps him to minimize mistakes. It’s been a nice fit for him at Augusta where he has never missed a cut in eight starts and has four Top-10 finishes to his credit. Like I say of Kuch each week, he has a wide range of salaries throughout the season with $7,600 being on the low end all the way up to $11k on the high end in weaker fields. When he is on the low end, he’s automatically going to be on my cash team for the week, no question about it. Kuch personifies what we want this week in avoiding careless mistakes and not getting too flashy.

Ian Poulter was the last player added to the field this week after winning his way in down in Houston on Sunday in dramatic fashion. Poulter’s rise from nearly losing his tour card a year ago based on a miscalculation all the way back into prominence shows you just how fast fortunes can change in the world of professional golf. Poulter was not in the greatest form early this season as he missed the cut in three of his first five starts, but found something at the Arnold Palmer, built on it during a nice run at the match play and then sealed it up with his first win on US soil last week. I am a little nervous about an emotional (and even a physical) letdown this week. He has played three weeks in a row and the emotional win and all the extra time and interviews that went along with it may make things a little tougher this week, but much like last year when he miraculously kept his card, he fed off of the momentum for the rest of the year. He’s been really good at Augusta over the years which is the big reason for using him in cash games this week. Over the last decade, he has not missed a cut in eight starts and has six Top-25 finishes with three of those being in the Top-10 as well. I’m not setting the bar too high this week, but he should make the cut and is at a price where that should work out for us just fine.

Quietly, Daniel Berger goes about his business of making cuts and putting up quality finishes, but on the inside we know he has to be burning as he watches his contemporaries like Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas get all of the accolades with all of the success that they have had in recent years. It was not that long ago that we were comparing JT and Berger as their numbers were not all that different statistically and until the middle of the summer, you could still make a good debate about which one would emerge as a star. Fast forward to now and the Berger backers have gotten quiet, but he’s still playing well. He’s a good ball striker that can putt and is never afraid of the big moment, something I’ve always admired about him. He’s missed just one cut in ten starts this season and has six Top-25 finishes, but has yet to contend. He’s made the cut in both starts at Augusta and finished 10th in 2016. I’m not in love with game overall right now, but the price is really good for a young, experienced player who has handled himself well here.

In terms of looking down the list into the low $7k range or upper $6k range, I am not in love with any of the players here, but am okay with taking them if you must for cash games. Initially, I loved Kevin Chappell down here and he was going to be my ‘go-to’ play of the week in this range. Then I watched him withdraw at the match play event with soreness in his back and of course that made my plans a little murky. Chappell showed last year at Augusta that having a brilliant tee to green game can be enough to offset a poor putter in finishing 7th. His tee to green game is even better this season where he is ranked 8th on the tour and he is particularly good from mid to long range in his approach play. He is scrambling well and is in the Top-20 on tour in both Par 5 Scoring and Birdie or Better Percentage. I’m sure it will be tough to get information out of him this week, but if he’s healthy, he is definitely the play in this range for the week.

Of the other players down here, I like Adam Hadwin to make the cut, but his lack of distance off the tee is worrisome on a course where that is essential which has led to him being awful in Par 5 Scoring this year. He is playing well, but the upside might be limited this week. Charley Hoffman always seems to handle Augusta well, never missing a cut in four starts and always finishing inside the Top-30. He has the length and long iron play to hang around and his putting does not hurt him. He usually blows up over the weekend, but just needs to make the cut for the price. Russell Henley is a Georgia Bulldog alum and has improved his performance with each successive start at Augusta going from a missed cut to 31st, 21st and then 11th last year. His wife just had a baby this week so perhaps he can continue on with the tradition of having a newborn bring a player good fortune. I really like Pat Perez down here for cash games this week. If you are not going to be a long hitter, being in the Top-10 for accuracy and GIR certainly helps to make up some ground. He’s excellent from middle range with his approach play and surprisingly, ranks 6th on the Tour in Par 5 Scoring and 5th in Birdie or Better Percentage. He’s yet to miss a cut in nine starts and has five Top-25 finishes plus a win this season. Finally, Brendan Steele is in play for cash games down in this range as well this week. His tee to green game ranks 15th on tour this season and he’s 7th in Driving Distance and 13th in GIR. He’s 24th in Par 5 Scoring and 8th in Birdie or Better Percentage. He has not missed a cut this season in nine starts and has a win and six Top-25 finishes to his credit. He had a chance to play here a year ago and had a respectable 27th place finish after being away for many years.

 

GPP PLAYER POOL

This is where things get complicated. You really have to make some tough decisions this week and just live with them. This is where careful study of the numbers combined with a certain amount of game theory is usually just enough to drive me mad by the time the players tee off on Thursday. I wanted to do my best to stay away from chasing the field this week at the top and took the opportunity to build some overweighted ownership in a few spots as well as a few strategic fades. At the top, I circled the wagons around Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas. I have a strong feeling that neither will be particularly highly owned this week. I could see in the range pf 12-15% and would not be surprised. With Jordan Spieth waking up last week combined with his history at Augusta as well as the number of novices who know and cheer for Spieth that will come to play, I sense his numbers are on the rise. Is he a better ball striker than either DJ or JT? He’s comparable at this point, but certainly not better. His putter has helped him here over the years, but that is now in tatters. If I can get DJ and JT at a much lower ownership number than Spieth and get the same tee to green game, but with better putters, it seems like a reasonable spot to picot upward.

Other high owned players this week that I will fade include Tiger and Phil. Look, if one of these two wins the tournament, it will be great for golf, even if my wallet suffers. However, this will be the toughest field that Tiger has faced since making his return and on the most challenging course, He’s been very good so far, but if he finishes outside of the Top-10, which seems likely, this is a fade that will not hurt us much and given that I think he ends up being owned by well over 20% of the field, it could give us an edge.

I thought about fading Justin Rose for GPP purposes this week, but he is just playing way too well for the price and has been too good at Augusta over the years. If he had been priced up in the upper $10k range, I may have been able to get away from him. I am not going to go overweight this week and try to gain leverage on the field for a player who could see 25-30% ownership, but I will have shares as it is okay to own some chalk when you are looking at a 25 player pool for the week.

I’m going to be a buyer for Jon Rahm this week. After making his debut here a year ago and playing well, he returns a year later having accumulated multiple wins, but slumping a little bit of late and getting no real attention this week. That could change when if he can keep the green jacket in possession of a Spaniard for another year. Since his win at the CareerBuilder, his momentum has slowed, but that is what helps to make this a buying opportunity. Most of the attention in this range will go to Rose and Mickelson who are both playing well and have a lot of experience here, but Rahm’s talent should not go overlooked and if he shows up in a big way this week, it will not take a lot of shares to be overweight the field.

Finally, the last player I want to make mention of for GPP purposes is Tommy Fleetwood. Augusta took the wind out of his sails last spring before he roared back throughout the summer and fall, but it is a new year now and Tommy really fits the profile of the type of player that we want at this course. He’s brilliant from tee to green and has been hitting 75-80% of greens over on the European Tour over the last year. He hits it over 300 yards off the tee, is very good on Par 5’s and in converting scoring opportunities. His putter is a weak spot, but he is right in the mold of so many other players who have excelled here before. I’ve heard almost everyone get talked up in the middle and upper $8k range, but not Tommy Fleetwood as I think the missed cut a year ago is still steering potential owners away.

 

PLAYER POOL – 100 MM Lineups

CORE

Dustin Johnson	11400	40
Justin Thomas	10800	40
Paul Casey	8800	40
Kevin Chappell	6900	35
Jon Rahm	9300	30
Hideki Matsuyama	8400	30
Matt Kuchar	7600	30

 

SECONDARY

Sergio Garcia	8600	25
Adam Scott	8000	25
Henrik Stenson	7800	25
Daniel Berger	7500	25
Brendan Steele	6900	25
Rory McIlroy	9900	20
Justin Rose	9200	20
Tommy Fleetwood	8500	20
Ian Poulter	7600	20
Brian Harman	7500	20
Bryson Dechambeau	6900	20
Russell Henley	7100	20

 

TERTIARY

Ryan Moore	7000	15
Pat Perez	6900	15
Charley Hoffman	7100	15
Louis Oosthuizen	7900	10
Patrick Cantlay	7600	10
Xander Schauffele	7500	10
Kiradech Aphibarnrat	7100	10