The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview The Memorial

It’s Tuesday night, we have spent the last three nights cranking away at our research, talking to the experts within our industry, studying the prices this week and we are now ready to lay down our thoughts for the week on The Memorial. We have had a few really nice weeks in a row here and want to make sure that the trend continues this week. We have a fantastic field this week which is both exciting and also daunting at the same time. With approximately 120 players, there will be less players cut, but we are going to lose some big names along the way. Do not be too shocked when this happens. It is a natural part of the game for bigger tournaments.

We would advise that you take weeks like this to be a little bit cautious with your bankroll. DraftKings is running a big $250,000 GPP with a $3 entry price tag. Let’s talk a bit about the rationale behind what DraftKings is doing here. This is a contest aimed at growing interest in the sport. With a $3 entry fee, this contest fits nicely into almost any type of bankroll. Even those with only a cursory knowledge of daily fantasy golf could jump into a contest of this size. We will even admit to throwing an entry into the big baseball GPP the other night for just this reason. This is the equivalent to a when you are wandering through the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon and you pass by the nice old lady who has cheddar bratwurst cooking away on her skillet. You have been killing your diet for weeks now, but it’s cheddar bratwurst so you decide that one little nibble won’t hurt. Somehow, you end up picking up a package of the cheddar bratwurst and another package of the bacon cheddar bratwurst in your cart as you walk away. While we did double up on our $3 buy in for baseball, we are so laser focused here on golf that we do not want to become distracted so sadly, we will not be exploring that space any further in the near future.

So DraftKings is looking to help build up some interest in Daily Fantasy Golf during the lead up to the US Open in a couple of weeks. We were a little disappointed that the prices did not post yet for the US Open, but perhaps DraftKings learned a lesson from the last time around when several notable players got hot after prices came out and ownership levels ended up being a bit skewed as a result. The great part about this week is that it gives us the chance to get back into the swing of things in terms of building many more lineups than normal. In our case, we are going to build the maximum allowable of 200. We know that with 95,000 entries, we are going to need to hit the perfect lineup to win the $100,000 first prize so we are going to give ourselves the maximum number of opportunities.

We have discussed this before, but we wanted to revisit an important question here tonight as I was speaking to one of our subscribers, John Grady, just before kicking off the column. He was asking for tips on how to build multiple lineups. It is a question that we get just about every week and for contests like this one, it is worth a moment of discussion. The first thing that you are going to want to do in building 10, 50 or 200 lineups is to build some core groups of 3-4 players that you have a strong conviction about. Since you believe that those players are going to perform well, you are going to want to give them as many chances as possible to excel. Around that core group, you will have another 6-8 players that you can use to build several lineups that start with your core and work outward. You should be able to build many variations using this method. By making small, subtle changes, if one of your peripheral players misses the cut, you will still have many variations of the same type of lineup in play.

This is the strategy that winning professionals are executing on a massive scale right now. When you see the name Maxdalury entered into a contest with hundreds of entries, he is not choosing his rosters at random and punching them in as fast as he can. He has a very real plan that he executes each week, most likely through an Excel model with strict parameters regarding ownership weightings. The part that he is inputting for himself, however, is more than likely the player weightings for his model to build x number of lineups around. This is what most of us are doing on a much smaller scale each week with our own lineups.

So how did we do with our selections for last week? Overall, we had a really successful week. We could not have picked a better time to put a cash game specific lineup together to share with you as our team managed to get all six players through the cut and put up a very solid point total of 484 points, which was easily enough to win any cash game for the week. The players that we selected performed just about the way we would have expected. Hunter Mahan made an early charge before fading the last two days. Jason Dufner continued his strong historical play at The Four Seasons. Matt Kuchar made the cut the way he has all year, although he finished with an uninspiring result. Keegan Bradley and Russell Henley both played well with T22 finishes. Jimmy Walker stepped up for the crew and tied for 2nd place over the weekend and could have done more had he not missed several short putts on the back nine holes on Sunday.

That is about as nicely as you can write it up for a cash game team. We found six very dependable players to get through the cut and never had much to worry about the rest of the weekend. Will it be that easy every week? Absolutely not. However, if you use this philosophy when evaluating your selections, it will keep you out of trouble. We had more than one person show us lineups for cash games last week with Brendan Steele in them. He entered the event having missed the cut there twice. While his skill set for the course seemed ideal and his play this year very solid, we always found ourselves asking, why take the risk? Hopefully, you can see now, that prudent lineup selection is the key to winning at cash games and that we are willing to sacrifice some potential upside if we can also reduce much of the risk that is out there of missing the cut.

Our other plays for the week went off pretty well as only three of our recommendations missed the cut. Morgan Hoffmann was frustrating in that he had finished in the Top 15 in both of his previous starts and has played rather well this year. Many owners were hurt by his performance. And yes, we did give Brendan Steele a shot in some of our GPP lineups and watched with bitter disappointment as he just could not overcome a mediocre first round and missed the cut by two strokes. Scott Piercy threw in the towel on Friday at 5 shots over par with just seven holes remaining and was never really competitive on the second day.

Outside of that group, there was much to be pleased about. Charley Hoffman tied for 2nd place in another very solid outing and uncharacteristically played very well down the stretch on Sunday which was encouraging for owners who were used to seeing him crumble on Sundays. Ryan Palmer and Daniel Berger each had a great bounce back week in tying for 10th place. Both were owned by less than 10% of the field giving you an huge edge in GPP play if you were fortunate enough to roster them. Brooks Koepka continued to outperform his salary with a T16 finish and over 90 points in the DraftKings scoring format. Also, sleeper Will Wilcox surprised owners with a nice T22 finish. Hopefully, with the players that we mentioned for the week, you were able to construct enough lineups to be successful last week. It certainly will not always be that easy, but if you practice the same approach week in and week out, we are confident that you will be able to steadily build your bankroll over the long haul.

This week, the tour stops in Dublin, Ohio for The Memorial. It’s a Jack Nicklaus designed course which means it was built with the idea in mind that no single skill could dominate the course. It’s a Par 72 and measures out at 7392 yards. It has good mix of four Par 3’s and 4 Par 5’s. The Par 5’s are all very reachable for the bigger hitters in two shots so we certainly will take Par 5 scoring into account this week. However, this has not been a course where only bombers have dominated. If we take a quick look at those players who have done well consistently, no real pattern emerges. Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Charl Schwartzel, Stewart Cink and Ryan Moore among others have all fared well here over the years. What this means is that we want to be looking at players with a well rounded game.

We’re going to again focus on ball strikers this week as we want to find players that have the right combination of length, accuracy and GIR to work through the course. Par 4 scoring seems to be a strong indicator for success so that will work its way into our equation this week as well. Also, with four Par 3 holes measuring in between 175-200 yards, we will incorporate Approach 175-200 Yards (Relative To Par). Finally, we will look at players that scramble well. Nicklaus did not create too many wide open holes so players will have their work cut out for them in getting around the many bunkers that are in play this week. If a player is not a strong at hitting GIR, they need to be able to make up for it by being able to get out of trouble. Finally, as always, strokes gained tee to green is a great indicator for success at a course like Muirfield. The course is somewhat lengthy and complex enough so that it does require some type of game plan in order to achieve the most efficient result.

And with that, we are on to the recommendations portion of the column. As always, please let us know each week how you are doing with your lineups and if we can be of any help to you in lineup construction or contest selection. We answer all questions received via email or Twitter so speak up if you are struggling and we will make it a personal mission to get you back on track. We’ve heard so many great compliments from readers that we want to go out of our way to ensure that everyone that is taking our advice finds a way to make this as profitable of a hobby as possible.

Before we dive in too deep on our recommendations, let’s just take a moment to pat ourselves on the back for avoiding Jordan Spieth last week after explaining his rather challenging value proposition. Were you able to avoid temptation as well or did you succumb to the star talent of the young phenom? A lot of folks seemed to think he was an easy pick last week with the rationale that there were so many players available in the 7000 range that it made him easier to roster than normal. Most of those lineups included either Morgan Hoffmann or Brendan Steele. This again illustrates the difficulty in selecting a high priced player for your roster. It forces you to then dig down into the low value/sleeper range in order to fill out the rest of your roster. While there are always a few names down in that range that will seduce you each week, they are never going to be as dependable as they appear to make the cut. Thus, if you chose Spieth last week, you were probably burned at least twice. The first came when Spieth failed to finish anywhere near the top and delivered nothing close to value. The second came when you missed on either Steele, Hoffmann, or both in filling out your roster.

This should show pretty clearly that the stars and scrubs type of roster is truly a very low percentage play. Not only do your stars all have to play out of their minds to make value on their high prices, but the two or three scrubs need to all make the cut. Typically, even if all goes well and you get all six miraculously through the cut, your stars will still not have performed at a high enough level to put your team in a position to win a GPP event. If you are able to enter a lot of lineups into a GPP each week, go ahead and throw in the occasional prayer lineup. However, since most of you are just entering a handful of teams each week, make each lineup as value driven as possible.

For this week, with a 95,000 entry GPP, we really need to narrow the goalposts a bit if we hope to win it all. Although The Memorial is not a particularly big scoring event, our guess is that it is going to take over 600 points to win. What this means for roster construction is that if we use the rules we set up of chopping the last two zeroes off of our $50,000 salary cap, we need to spend $500 to score 600 points, or $0.83 per point. That means a guy like Spieth would need to score 150 points to carry his salary, or that the rest of your team picks up however much he comes up short. At The Masters, Spieth was a part of the perfect roster due to a record performance. However, what was truly key for that lineup and so many others was that Kevin Na and Charley Hoffman were both priced at $6000 for the week and each outperformed their priced by a huge amount. We are not convinced that you will find anything close to the same value at that low of a range this week so beware of going all in on Spieth or Dustin Johnson as it is going to put a tremendous amount of pressure on the rest of your lineup.

The middle part of the pricing range this week is full of really strong plays and is the area that we chose to focus most of our attention on for the week. Most players in that range have at least a reasonable chance of exceeding their value, which is important this week. When you build your lineups this week, you want to do so knowing that there is a high level of variance in them. If you look at a GPP lineup and cannot fathom it scoring 600 points under any circumstance, go back and revise it. If you pay over $10,000 for a player, he needs to have strong Top 10 potential. We were not terribly excited with the top of the field this week as we felt for the most part, we would not receive a reasonable return for what it would have required us to invest.

Our opinion of the pricing this week is that there is substantial value in starting most of your GPP lineups at around the $9200 range and working your way down. There are many players in that range with a good chance to win the event and many more that can outperform their price. Most of our lineups came from hammering away at this upper middle tier of players. There is some value in the high $6000 range of players, but it is not nearly as attractive as The Masters so we were not comfortable with a stars and scrubs approach if winning the event is ultimately your goal.

One thing to note for this contest is that ownership percentages are not really as important to note when it comes to trying to win this particular GPP. In an event where there are 370 entries, exploiting ownership patterns is a huge key to success. Even in a GPP with several thousand entries, ownership levels can be exploited over time to generate strong results. However, with 95,000 entries, it is going to take a perfect or near perfect lineup in order to win. With that in mind, we are looking to build two distinct types of lineups this week. The first half of our lineups are simply going to be focused on the players that we think have the best chance to score the maximum number of points based on a deep analysis of the statistics, tournament history and recent form. The remainder of our lineups will look to capitalize on a week where several highly owned players end up faltering and either miss the cut or substantially underperform their price. If players like Justin Thomas, Russell Henley, Daniel Berger, and Brooks Koepka among others have a difficult time, we want to have lineups in place to take advantage of the situation. We are not sure of the exact composition of the winning lineup for the big GPP this week, but we think having some obvious lineups mixed with a few contrarian style lineups is the best approach for attacking an event of this size.

BLUE CHIPS

Justin Rose ($11,600) – Rose fits our requirement this week of being a boom or bust type of play. We feel like Rose will either be in one of the last couple of pairings on Sunday or he could miss the cut entirely. If we are going to spend up for a player this week, we want him to be a legitimate threat to win the event. In his last seven starts, he has missed the cut three times, won the event, taken second and 8th twice. He ranks 33rd in Ball Striking, 11th in Par 5 scoring and 38th in Approach 175-200 Yards (RTP). His form had been improving with a 2nd place finish at The Masters and a win at Zurich before missing the cut at The Players, which is forgivable. We think Rose could be overlooked on the high end of the pricing scale this week so we think he is the best play from a potential value and low exposure perspective.

Hideki Matsuyama ($11,500) – Defending champion Hideki Matsuyama, has a well rounded game that really fits the course well. Outside of a suspect putter, Matsuyama hits every every area we looked at this week. Matsuyama is 3rd in Ball Striking, 2nd in strokes gained tee to green, 10th in scrambling, 3rd in Par 4 scoring and 11th Par 5 scoring. While it is never easy to repeat, if there is a player that is capable of doing it, Matsuyama fits the bill. He has missed just one cut in 15 starts this year and has six Top 10 finishes. He will have a little more attention from owners due to his win last year, but also has more potential than most of the players in his price range to put up a big score.

VALUE PICKS

Bill Haas ($9200) – We started a lot of our lineups with Bill Haas. Starting at his price point and working down opens up a lot of exciting options for building strong teams this week. With two consecutive Top 10 finishes here, Haas has all the upside of higher priced players without the cost. He has slipped a bit in Ball Striking (64th), but ranks 25th in scrambling, 46th in Par 4 scoring and 22nd in Par 5 scoring. Haas has missed just two cuts this year and has a victory from earlier in the year at The Humana.

Kevin Na ($9000) – Not many players are playing as well as Kevin Na right now. He has finished in the Top 10 in five of his last seven events and in the Top 20 in the other two starts. If Na came to play on Sundays he may have a couple of wins at this point in the season. Na has also enjoyed success at Muirfield where he lost in a playoff last year to Matsuyama. He is not a great ball striker, but has made up for that with solid iron play and approach work that has led him to be ranked 21st in strokes gained tee to green. He ranks 20th in scrambling, including 5th in sand save percentage. He is also ranked 17th in Par 4 scoring and 4th in our key approach distance metric. Na’s popularity will be a little on the higher side this week, but it is not without merit.

Billy Horschel ($8800) – Following up last season’s incredible run has not been easy for Billy Horschel. After winning the FedEx Cup title last year, he has not had the sort of results that many expected of him. Horschel strikes us as the type who’s confidence rises and falls throughout the year. When he is feeling good, he tends to play well for many events on end. When things are a little off in his game, he can go months without a solid finish. We think he is turning a corner at this stage and want to jump on it before the rest of the crowd arrives. Horshel ranks 8th in Ball Striking, and while he is not very strong in other key metrics, he has two respectable finishes in his two starts here. Look for him to be underowned given his price. He is worth a spot or two in your GPP lineups this week.

Patrick Reed ($8700) – He has not played up to his own high standards this year, but Patrick Reed should have reason to believe that he can succeed this weekend. He has missed just one cut this season and four Top 10 finishes. He has yet to play Muirfield, but does a few things well that should translate to a successful debut. Not a gifted ball striker, Reed is a strong iron and wedge player, ranking 26th in strokes gained tee to green. He ranks 8th in scrambling, 24th in Par 4 scoring and 16th in Par 5 scoring. As a bonus, Reed is a strong putter, currently ranked 31st in strokes gained putting. Last season, Hideki Matsuyama won this event in his debut and this year, Reed has that potential within his range.

Ryan Moore ($8100) – Ryan Moore has a well rounded game for a well rounded course. He is not dominant in any one area, nor is he terribly deficient in any area. He ranks 84th in Ball Striking, 43rd in strokes gained tee to green, 45th in scrambling, 65th in Par 4 scoring and 62nd in Par 5 scoring. In nine starts here, Moore has three Top 10’s and several other strong finishes. He has missed just three cuts this year and represents a reasonable value for his price this week.

Brooks Koepka ($8000) – One of the more underpriced players in the field, Brooks Koepka again provides us with a lower priced option with the potential to generate superior results. Brooks ranks 23rd in Ball Striking, 29th in strokes gained tee to green, 24th in Par 4 scoring, 7th in Par 5 scoring and 1st in Approach 175-200 Yards (RTP). Koepka continues to be a major scoring threat where he ranks 17th in birdie average and 1st in eagles per hole. With his rib injury now a distant memory, we expect Koepka to return to being the dominant player that he was at the start of the year. He will certainly be highly owned for his price, but given his potential and has statistics, he is difficult to keep off of rosters this week.

Ben Martin ($8000) – If you are looking for a pivot option from Koepka to avoid the crowd, Martin provides a great option for owners. He ranks 17th in Ball Striking, 32nd in strokes gained tee to green, 24th in Par 4 scoring and 62nd in Par 5 scoring. He also ranks 50th in our key distance metric. In his lone appearance at Muirfield last year, Martin made the cut and finished 49th. Over his last six events, Martin has three Top 10 finishes so he has been heating up as of late. We think Martin will be largely overlooked this week, but provides a great option for his price.

Russell Henley ($7400) – How a player with Henley’s skills remains at such a low price in comparison to the players around the same price is a bit of a mystery. In two starts, Henley missed the cut once and placed 6th in his other start. Henley has missed just one cut this season and has three Top 10 finishes. He ranks 36th in Ball Striking, and although he ranks just 74th in strokes gained tee to green, his putting (10th) elevates him to 33rd overall in total strokes gained. Henley ranks 37th in Par 4 scoring and 54th in Par 5 scoring and 54th in our approach metric. Henley will be very widely owned this week probably in the 20% range.

Justin Thomas ($7200) and Daniel Berger ($7000) – Both of these players make for a strong play this week. Thomas actually placed 37th in his first start here last year and makes for the more consistent play. Both play solidly off the tee and score well on Par 5’s. Each ranks well in strokes gained tee to green and both fit our approach metric well. The reason we are grouping these two together is that they are going to be the highest owned players in the $7000 price range. While most owners glossed over Berger last week after a missed cut, you can count on them to return after a T10 last week. We anticipate roughly 20-25% ownership levels for each player this week with Thomas being slightly higher due to his consistency in making cuts.

SLEEPERS

Rory Sabbatini ($7200) – After playing well in three of his last four starts, Sabbatini looks to be in good form. With a second place finish here three years ago and a 12th place finish five years ago, Rory does have a decent history at Muirfield. He ranks 63rd in Ball Striking, 51st in strokes gained tee to green and 15th in scrambling. He is 17th in Par 4 scoring and 39th on Par 5’s. He also ranks 25th in our approach score metric so his whole game fits well into what we are looking for this week. We think he will be owned at a much lower level than other players in his price range making him an attractive option this week.

David Hearn ($7200) – We would hope that Hearn could go unnoticed this week, but with three straight finishes between 21st and 28th, it will be difficult for him to stay under the radar. Nothing in Hearn’s game really thrills us and his form is really just average at best. We are simply hoping that Hearn can continue to play well at Muirfield despite his statistical shortcomings this year.

Shawn Stefani ($6800) – Maybe the best value in the field, Shawn Stefani has been very consistent this season and seems to find himself in the Top 30 almost every time out. Although this marks his debut at Muirfield, we have every reason to believe he will be successful this year. He ranks 13th in Ball Striking and 58th in strokes gained tee to green. He is 24th in Par 4 scoring and 16th in Par 5 scoring. He is 21st in our weekly approach metric and his price is far below where the Vegas odds have him this week. He will be one of the higher owned players this week, but at his price, so long as he does not blow the cut, he will deliver huge value to owners.

Brendon de Jonge ($6800) – Our cut maker play for the week is Brendon de Jonge. De Jonge has been playing some of the most consistent golf of his career this season and has missed only four cuts in nineteen starts this year. In 5 starts at Muirfield, he has only missed the cut one time. We think owners still have a bit of a bad taste in their mouths after de Jonge disappointed so many of them at Quail Hollow. However, he did bounce back well last week with a T22 finish. His stats for the year work well for the course. He ranks 34th in Ball Striking and 54th in strokes gained tee to green. He is 37th in Par 4 scoring although just 87th on Par 5’s. With several flashier names around him, we think de Jonge will not get the attention that he might deserve given his price this week which makes him a bit more attractive than normal.

As always, we wish you all the best of luck this week. We are here to help each of you as much as possible in making sure that you are successful in your lineup building endeavors. We have already had one subscriber win $100k in a contest this year and multiple $20,000 winners so we are ready to add to our success this week. While contests like the one this week require a bit of patience and a bit of time in order to build a lot of lineups, think of it as good practice for the Millionaire Maker in two weeks! Keep your eyes on the prize!

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