The Daily Spin – DraftKings Preview – RSM Classic

*Note – On Slack chat, be sure to join each of the channels. When you join, it starts you in the #general. Be sure to join #current-pga-event, #support, #feature-request, #euro-tour, #pga-championship, #nfl, #mma

Also, be sure to download the Slack App so you can be mobile and chat with us from anywhere!

Most of the talk takes place in the #current-pga-event room during the week so if you’ve only been in the general room and wondering where everyone is at, click on ‘Channels’ on the left side of the screen and that should bring up the list of available channels to join. Stat Boy has been on fire all year with his MMA picks so be sure to stop by each Saturday to check out his work. It’s just one more free perk that we offer to add value to your subscription throughout the year.

Also, our NFL website (Football Insider Edge) is up and running again for the 2020 season and all FGI subscribers are eligible for a discount!! Whether you are looking for DFS advice for GPP contests, cash games, showdown slates or even just make a few bets, we have it all over there and at a far better price than our competitors and you are going to get a fantastic product. All you need to do to take advantage of our offer is to send me an e-mail today at: zach@fantasygolfinsider.com

Also, if you guy enjoy the podcast each week, please help us out with a review. It would mean so much if you could take a few minutes to write us a positive review and share the show with others. In such a crowded industry, every little bit helps so a bunch of 5 star ratings and a few reviews would be great to see to end our week. Just take one second before you dig into the column for the week and once your review posts, e-mail me the name you left your review under, and I’ll give away some cool merchandise just for helping us out.

FGI Podcast link – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-golf-insider/id1055153112

Click the Listen on Apple Podcasts button up top and then click on the reviews tab and ‘write a review’. Or just scroll to through the episodes on the app down to the bottom where there is a spot to click to write a review.

 

RECAP

The Masters certainly felt different this year in November, but it was a lot of fun to have it happening during the football season. I loved waking up to coverage on Saturday and Sunday morning and then rolling into games the rest of the afternoon. The roars of Augusta were missed as well, but there is something to be said for not having fans at the courses for the tournaments. There are no longer any ugly stands around the holes, the grass is not tamped down along the fairways and near the holes, the natural beauty of the courses stand out and the obnoxious, drunk fans are nowhere to be heard. Augusta tends to be a very well behaved crowd, but even still, the course looked amazing and we saw a lot of great golf for the week.

I was happy to see DJ pull off such a triumphant win on Sunday. I was nervous for him as he entered the back nine holes. Cam Smith had a scrappy performance all weekend and just managed to keep hanging around in second place. Over the last three holes on Saturday, it looked like he would lose ground, but miraculously each time, he fought to scramble back to par and then started out strong on Sunday. He was really the only golfer late in the final round that I thought had a chance to possibly catch DJ. Once DJ made it through holes 10-12 without a blemish, it really was only a matter of playing out the final six holes. He played calmly and as always with DJ, looked fairly relaxed all the way to the finish. He put drilled a few more birdies down the stretch that gave him some room for error to finish up, but he did not need it.

I was touched to see the emotion from DJ after his win. It is a side of him that comes out so rarely. He’s been through so many highs and lows in his career, but always seemed to be able to let it all go without showing much of a response. It’s only been in the last couple of months where we have really heard a lot from his team about how hard he works on his game, what a perfectionist he is and how detail oriented he is in so much of his life. He’s been so close in so many majors and come up short for one reason or another. I think he really had a fire lit under him this summer at the PGA Championship when Brooks made light of the other contenders only having one major championship among them. From that point forward, DJ has been a machine, dominating the FedEx Cup playoffs and being in contention every single week. He’s the best player in the world right now and when his game is on, he’s untouchable. I hope that this dominant run continues and he remains locked in during the years ahead. His in the prime of his career so I am excited to see if he can put together a historic year in 2021.

As far as results, things worked out well as I won my cash games again, continuing a great run over the last couple of months. The goal with The Masters each year is to keep things simple. Augusta is a course where we need to place extra emphasis on course experience, particularly for cash games. Every year there is a crop of rookies making their first start there and some are going to do well, but others are going to be overwhelmed and miss the cut. Augusta is notorious for being tough on first timers so while I am always tempted to chase the golfers who are cheap and in great form, I generally avoid them in my cash line in favor of keeping it simple. You’re not trying to win your cash games with your value plays, you just do not want to blow it by having one of them miss the cut.

Up top, the choice was easy. DJ was priced so poorly that for DFS purposes, everything was skewed. He was over 70% owned in some cash games so your fate was settled pretty quickly based on whether or not you had DJ. He was such an obvious cash game play. We just don’t see weeks where the #1 player in the world and defending FedEx Cup champ is the 5th highest priced golfer. Combine that with his form coming in and you had a very easy starting point for your build. The other golfers that I was able to pay up for were Hideki Matsuyama and Tony Finau. Hideki did his part for us with a 13th place finish. As usual, he was in contention, but could not sink enough putts to hang around deep into the weekend. Finau, on the other hand, finished a disappointing 38th. I was really frustrated with him on Saturday morning when he shot a 75, but his poor play ended up keeping the cut at Even for the week, which as we will see shortly, helped me out a great deal.

My mid level value play was Oosty once again. What a great price for him at $7900. It looked like he might contend early on, but fell back in the 3rd round and ended up finishing 23rd, which is about what I expected going in. He’s a great golfer to have on your cash teams for major tournaments as he knows how handle tough courses and plays a well rounded game. Now that he seems healthy, he offers a lot of value for the price.

I landed on Matthew Fitzpatrick and Ian Poulter for my lower tier golfers. I had an average of 7300 per golfer left and considered Cam Smith and Poulter or Smith and Westwood. I got a little spooked at some of the reports that came out that said Smith had been around Niemann before he had been diagnosed with COVID so to be cautious, I steered away from him in cash games. Fortunately, I got lucky enough so that it did not come back to bite me. Poulter over Kokrak was not a tough call for me to make. Poulter has been so consistent year after year at Augusta and had only missed one cut in 14 career starts there. In addition to that, he’s been great all season at getting to the weekend. Kokrak came in playing well and with great stats, but was making his first start at The Masters. I knew Poulter would not contend, but he gave me a 25th place finish, getting a little bit better as the weekend went on. He did not win me the tournament, but he definitely made sure I did not lose it.

Fitz nearly lost it for me. He made some foolish mistakes early and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but on the course through much of the weekend. The body language just looked negative the entire tournament. He had chances to avoid finishing at Even through two rounds, but could not convert. It seemed like he was going to go home early after having made the cut here the previous four years. Fortunately, enough players crumbled on Saturday morning so that the cut held at Even and I ended up getting 6/6 through which made it a sweat free weekend as my team slowly gained ground to get into the middle of the green by the end of the tournament.

When we look back at this tournament, I want you to think about how you can keep things simple when it comes to cash games at Augusta. In under five months, we will be right back there again for the 2021 Masters so these lessons should still be fresh in our minds. Though close to two thirds of the field make the cut some years, we still need to avoid making mistakes by being too aggressive with our cash lines.

Sign up for an FGI account today to see the rest of this post.