The Daily Spin – Genesis Invitational

The Daily Spin – Genesis Invitational

RECAP

The WM Phoenix Open illustrated how DFS can be an absolutely maddening endeavor if you have any sort of expectations that this should be a journey of easily predictable results based upon a rational process. Even if it is not a signature tournament, its placement on the schedule, the energy around the event and the setup of the course always make it one where I am tempted to loosen the purse strings to allow myself extra exposure as I know I will be watching intently all day on Sunday. Fortunately, a decade of experience at this game helps to reel me back in and keeps me tethered to the process that includes effective bankroll management. This discipline helped to again curb my losses in what was a really dreadful week for many of my value plays which ultimately sunk my main lineup.

Main Lineup – 320.5

• Scottie Scheffler – T25 – 89.5
• Akshay Bhatia – T32 – 77
• Billy Horschel – MC – 30
• Sam Stevens – T44 – 70
• Lucas Glover – MC – 32
• Charley Fucking Hoffman – MC – 22

In looking back, I do not have a lot of problems with the way I built my team. Scottie was 70%+ owned in most cash game contests which I think made him the right play. JT and Scottie went opposite directions on the leaderboard over the last nine holes on Sunday which gave JT the edge in fantasy points, but I am never going to make a JT over Scottie bet in a double up. The reward for being right is not enough of a payoff. You would never make an even money bet on JT to beat Scottie at the WMPO at this point in their careers so why do it in a double up? It makes sense in a GPP because when you are right, the payoff is substantial, but you do not get paid for taking risks in cash games so Scottie was the right play, even if the last few holes dragged his fantasy numbers down.

Akshay played okay for me. He started out on Thursday with a 66 and looked like he might be a contender, but then dribbled it away over the final three rounds, never really getting it going again and finished 32nd. It was not bad for his price as I will always take a made cut for $8200, but it was a little disappointing for me as I really do believe he will be one of the top talents on tour in the years ahead, but he has not been able to get it going quite yet in 2025.

Once Scottie was locked in at the top, the rest of my lineup was dictated by the need to save salary the rest of the way. I thought that the $7k range had a lot of attractive options for filling out my team so that did not look like a big hurdle. Sadly, most of the names I gravitated towards ended up being landmines.

Billy Horschel is not a golfer that I play all that often. He plays well and enjoyed a nice resurgence last over the last 12-18 months or so. I always seem to land on him after he has built up a little momentum, is in great form and then is on a course that suits his game well. And then disaster strikes. In his career, he has been really consistent in making the cut at the WMPO. I did not look back past the last ten years, but in the last decade, he played there every year and had not missed a cut. He was coming into the week with back to back Top-25 finishes. It seemed too easy. Naturally, he imploded on Friday, losing over 4.5 strokes from tee to green and was never close to sniffing the cut line. He is the 20th ranked player in the world and was in an event where there probably were no more than 10 golfers in the world ranked in front of him and we got him for $7600. There was not scenario where I was not going to have him in my cash lineup last week so I do not feel awful about the pick.

I should probably kick myself about Charley Hoffman. The guy is has caused me great pains over the years and at times, it almost feels like he is mocking me. As you all know, I despise him from a fantasy perspective. His game is volatile and difficult to time up for betting purposes. He has mostly cooled off entirely in recent seasons so it is rare that he is even on my radar. Last week was one of the few times I had considered him an option over the last several seasons and it was a good reminder as to why he should be avoided! The WMPO is an event where Charley has been better than average throughout his career. There are a couple of courses where he has consistently played better than average compared to the field. WM is also one of his long time sponsors so perhaps that is also a motivating factor. He finished 2nd there in 2024 and 14th the previous year. That is not something that usually moves me enough to play Charley, but he also entered the week in good form coming in with back to back Top-25 finishes so it was not the worst spot to give him an extra look. I got what I deserved here. Charley was not great in 2024 and was carried by a couple of big finishes early in the season. I needed cheap golfers to fill out my roster so he was not the worst play given some of the metrics that were favorable, but I really need to avoid Charley in the future.

The last two golfers were Sam Stevens and Lucas Glover. Glover dug himself a big hole on Thursday and could not climb out on Friday, despite playing much better in Round 2. His putter went back to being poor, but what killed him was that his iron play was below average which presents a huge problem for him as that is normally the strongest part of his game and where he has been better than almost everyone else on tour this year. Stevens also started slowly on Thursday, but then rallied back to make the cut on the number on Friday and then played okay over the weekend. I am a long term buyer with Stevens as he has shown flashes of talent for the last 9 months. He is in a groove of making the cut each week and his salary has not risen all that much yet. He will likely be a cash game staple for 2025.

Course

• Torrey Pines (South)
• Par 72
• 7,765 Yards
• Poa Annua Greens

I am not going to change a lot for my course summary other than to mention that this tournament will take place entirely on the South Course so scoring should be challenging. The real mystery to me is how the course will be set up. I cannot imagine that the tournament director would want the course to play any tougher than it did a couple of weeks ago so I am not envisioning many changes. Back in 2020, we had the experience of the tour playing back to back weeks at Muirfield and they did change the course up quite a bit between tournaments to give it a much different feel. Given that this is a signature event, I think the fact that it is a tough course that hosts the US Open gives players and fans a great experience without having to make many tweaks just for the sake of mixing things up.

One note to consider this week is that there IS A CUT in place. Rule to remember the Signature Events with a cut: Tiger (Genesis), Arnold (API) and Jack (Memorial)  I have no idea why we need a cut for a 70 man field, but here we are. They also adopted the ridiculous 10 stroke rule so anyone within 10 shots of the leader after the second round makes it to the weekend. While my strategy will remain aggressive, good players do in fact blow these cuts regularly.

For the South Course, driver comes out of the bag whether players can handle it or not. The fairways are very narrow here and difficult to hit. This week may see some relief with very low winds, but players that do struggle to keep it on the fairway will be playing from very thick and sticky kikuya rough which makes those lengthy approach shots into smaller, poa greens that much more difficult. I am looking for more of the bigger hitters this week for my player pool. I will have exposure to a handful of veterans that play in this event routinely as I think course experience is a bigger deal here than at other stops, but overall, we need to focus on golfers that can chop the South Course down into smaller bites rather than fighting approach shots from the rough from over 175 yards. A quick look at some recent winners will show you that the leaders off the tee and on approach have dominated this tournament for some time.

If we do anticipate that another stud wins this week, then we need to focus our attention around the top players. I want to have heavy shares of the golfers that I most favor near the top of the salary chart and take my stand on those players so that I do not end up underweight relative to the rest of the field. I want to build a heavily concentrated core at the top, but then give myself more sprinkle plays at the bottom. This is never an event where it feels at all clear which players are going to jump up from the lower range to have a big week. What I want to do is to give myself a few extra shots in the lower range so that if I really hit it hard with my stars, maybe I can find that somewhat random player that squeezes out an unexpected Top-10 finish. Build in your shares of the best players first and then go back and work on the secondary and tertiary plays making small changes and adding in a few really cheap golfers so that you are not watering down your shares up top.

Course Comps

• Riviera
• Silverado
• Quail Hollow
• Innisbrook
• Los Angeles Country Club
• Olympia Fields

Field

Weather

• Torrey Pines Forecast – Wind, waves & weather Superforecast Torrey Pines Glider Port – Windfinder

The weather is deteriorating at Torrey Pines this week. It will be rainy and windy on Wednesday which means that the greens should be soft by the time the tournament starts on Thursday morning. It looks like it will be raining for much of the day on Thursday with gusts in the 20-24 mph range throughout the round. On Friday, the gusts drop down to 12-15 mph but there could still be some rain during the round. With the smaller field, there are no waves this week. Even if there were, I do not see a time period that looks more favorable. The winds do look like they will die down on Saturday and Sunday though the temperatures still look to be on the cooler side with the highs only reaching about 60 degrees.

Local Connections

• Max Homa
• Collin Morikawa
• Sahith Theegala
• JJ Spaun
• Patrick Cantlay
• Eric Cole
• Michael Kim

Key Stats

• Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
• Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
• Birdie or Better Percentage: 15%
• Par 5 Scoring: 20%
• Scrambling: 10%
• Proximity: 5%

 

Cash Game Plays

Top Tier

Rory McIlroy – Scottie is in the field this week so there is always some risk in fading him, but I genuinely think Rory might have a little edge this week. One of the things that I admire about Rory over some of the American players is that there is not much of an offseason for him. A lot of the American players disappear each year after the Ryder/Presidents Cup and we do not see them in a real event before the new year outside of the small field, Hero World Challenge. To his credit, Rory shifts his attention overseas and fills out his fall with a number of DPWT events, which culminated in him winning the DP World Tour Championship in November. He kicked off 2025 with a 4th place finish in Dubai and then won at Pebble Beach two weeks ago so his form looks sharp this year. He has been very good at Torrey Pines over the years. He made stops there in the leadup to the US Open in 2021 and had a couple of Top-10s before finishing 7th at the US Open itself that summer. He is on top of his game, playing as well or better than Scottie and we get him for a significant discount.

Collin Morikawa – Morikawa had way too many close calls last season and somehow managed to walk away from 2024 without a win. It took a lot of poor final rounds to keep him out of the winner’s circle, but that is about to change in 2025. This is the type of course where the strengths of his game really come out. He finished 3rd here in 2023 and 4th at the US Open in 2021. He is good at finding the fairway off the tee, ranking 8th in Driving Accuracy last year and has traditionally been one of the better long iron players on tour. He was born in LA, played in college at Cal and is very familiar and comfortable on this type of course.

Taylor Pendrith – Pendrith is my favorite play in the $9k range this week. This guy just shows up every week and posts big finishes. He won in 2024, but was even more impressive was his fifteen Top-25 finishes and seven Top-10s. He already has thre Top-15s this season in four starts, including one at Torrey Pines just a few weeks back. He plays well at this venue and has three Top-16 finishes in four starts including back to back Top-10s. He ranks 1st among the field over the last 24 rounds in SGOTT and has been one of the top players in total driving to start off in 2025. On a course of this length, the ability to cut it down to size while also staying out of trouble is maybe the most important part to finding success.

 

Middle Tier

Jason Day – I do not love the $8k range this week near the top. There are some good players here, I am just not feeling amazing about how they will either fit with the course or how they are currently playing. I like what I have seen from Day so far this year. If there is ever a good time to be on Day, it is early in the season. He is usually at his healthiest and most rested and he tends to play well during the west coast swing of events as he is a former two time champion here. He finished 32nd here three weeks ago, rallying back after a slow start and was 3rd at the AMEX and 13th at Pebble Beach two weeks ago.

Thomas Detry – I owned him in my main lineup at PB and he finished outside of the Top-40. I had him as a secondary play last week and naturally he won. So the two times he has been a core play for me this year, he’s finished 53rd and 48th. When he was outside of that ranking, 5th, 15th and 1st. There is always some risk in using a player the week after their first win, but Detry is very comfortable with Torrey Pines and has finishes of 37th, 20th and 15th in his last three starts. I tend to lean on course experience this week for golfers in the value range as this course offers some very distinct challenges from what we see anywhere else.

Sepp Straka – Straka is known for being a player that runs hot or cold, but that did seem to change in 2024 as he has missed only three cuts going back to March of last year. He has fifteen Top-25s and a win since that start of 2024 and has been really good so far in 2025 with four Top-15 finishes in five starts. He ranks 13th in SGTG and 9th in SGTOT over the last 24 rounds. He is killing it with his long iron play to start the year, ranking 3rd from 175-200 yards and 20th outside of 200 yards. He has played Torrey Pines five times in his career and does have a couple of Top-20 finishes as well.

 

Lower Tier

Keegan Bradley – I am going to keep my eye on Keegan in the Ryder Cup standings this year. I doubt that he can play his way into the Top-6, but I know he wants to get into the Top-12 so that he can pick himself to be on the team without any controversy. However, he needs to play really well in 2025 if that is going to be something that he can even reasonably consider. He is playing well so far this year with three Top-15 finishes in four starts including a 15th place finish at Torrey in January. He has made the cut at Torrey in his last eight starts including five Top-15 finishes. As always, he will go as far as his putter can carry him, but it has not been bad of late so Keegan is one to keep an eye on early this year.

Sam Stevens – Stevens will stay in my column as long as he remains cheap and keeps making cuts. He finishes 2nd here in January and followed that up with a 17th place finish at Pebble Beach the following week. He is 3/3 making the cut at Torrey Pines and also managed a 13th place finish back in 2023. He’s missed just one cut going all the way back to May of last year. His ownership numbers are starting to climb and his salary likely will as well. It is something to think about as we get into bigger fields with a cut that takes away a larger swath of the field. For now, I am happy to take advantage of his recent form and also his success at dealing with the challenges of Torrey Pines.

Adam Scott – I am surprised at the price of Scott this week. Sure, he does not play in a lot of events, but he does have three starts in 2025 with respectable finishes in each outing. He ended last season with a flourish with an 18th place finish at the FedEx St Jude, 2nd at the BMW and 5th at the Tour Championship. In the fall, he finished 3rd at the DP World Tour Championship. He still looks like a guy that is very much on his game. In recent starts at Torrey he finished 2nd and 10th (35th at the US Open in 2021). He ranks 15th in SGTG and 9th in SGTOT over the last 16 rounds among the field and he ranks 9th in my comp course model. It feels like we are getting a real bargain at this price.

Akshay Bhatia – Akshay’s price seemed low this week and according to our Odds vs Pricing model, that is the case. He has yet to breakout in 2025, but made plenty of noise in 2024 with twelve Top-25 finishes, a win and a runner-up finish. He finished 13th at Torrey in 2024. He is a rising star with wins under belt and he is only going to get better as he just recently turned 23 years-old.

Gary Woodland – I wrote Gary up before the FIO a few weeks back and then he WD after lineup lock. Yuck. I am still a long term believer in Gary after reading about him this offseason and in listening to some interviews about how he has finally been able to get his brain to settle down after going through hell several years ago. Whatever it is he is doing appears to be working as he has three Top-25 finishes in three starts in 2025. Historically, he had been very good at Torrey Pines before his health issues so if his game is truly back on track, this salary represents a significant discount relative to his skillset.

 

GPP Player Pool

Core

Rory McIlroy	10900
Collin Morikawa	10000
Taylor Pendrith	9000
Jason Day	8700
Rasmus Hojgaard	8300
Thomas Detry	8000
Sepp Straka	8000
Keegan Bradley	7700
Sam Stevens	7600
Adam Scott	7500
Akshay Bhatia	7100
Gary Woodland	6600

 

Secondary

Patrick Cantlay	9400
Sungjae Im	9200
Russell Henley	8600
Tony Finau	8200
Robert Macintyre	8100
Viktor Hovland	7900
Min Woo Lee	7800
Wyndham Clark	7300

 

Tertiary

Will Zalatoris	7900
Harris English	7600
Andrew Novak	6900
Daniel Berger	6900