The Daily Spin – The Masters

After many weeks of anticipation, The Masters has arrived. We have been zeroing in on this since the beginning of the year and have poured in countless of hours of research to prepare to write this column today. As a special bonus, we here at The Daily Spin are pleased to announce that ESPN picked us up to cover fantasy golf for The Masters. If you are an ESPN Insider, please go and check out the Tip Sheet that is now up on its fantasy sports page. It has the same great insight on a broad group of players so if you are looking for a few extra players to look at, we have you covered so please go take a look.

A quick recap of last week shows that we really nailed it with our picks. 11 of 15 players made the cut and we were really excited to have picked another winner in JB Holmes. As if that was not enough, Russell Henley and Brandon de Jonge both finished in the Top 5, Patrick Reed finished 17th, and Brandon Steele, Daniel Berger, Hunter Mahan and Shawn Stefani all finished tied at 25th. The only real disappointing aspect of our top finishers was that it seemed like most of them lost a couple of strokes near the end of the final round or we could have had a truly amazing week. The major miss of the week was Lee Westwood. He cost us several thousand dollars in GPPs with his inexplicable missed cut. He had a great track record in Houston and came into the event having not missed a cut this season…and not finished outside of the Top 25 on the PGA Tour. At one point Friday, we had 4 teams in the Top 20 of the Draft Kings $300 GPP. We still had a couple of nice cashes and swept our cash games so we made a nice tidy profit for the week. We hope you all enjoyed similar results and we loved hearing all the great feedback from you.

Our goal here for this week’s column is to do a couple of things. First, we want to look at a slightly larger group than normal. The reason for this is that with 125,000 entries (and trust me, the Millionaire Maker will fill up) you are going to need to have a nearly perfect lineup to win. The margin is going to be razor thin between winning and placing in the top 1000 so more than likely, you are going to need to identify 6 players in the Top 10 to win or at worst, the Top 15. In order to do this, more than likely, you are going to need to create many lineups. What our goal is for the week is to identify around 10 core players to stack with each other again and again. We will start by creating clusters of players to build around, groups of 3 or four players that we choose with deep conviction. Once we have these groups selected, you will need to sprinkle in players from a group of about 30 other players that you could reasonably argue have at least an outside shot at making the Top 10. I will try to demonstrate this after we have gone over our list of players for the week. It is relatively simple and will help you to get into a groove if you are truly serious about entering enough lineups to be competitive this week.

In full disclosure, your authors will be entering 250 lineups into the field this week. We are not entering this tournament to make a bunch of small cashes. We are not there trying to buy a bunch of lottery tickets to take a shot at the big prize. we are entering this tournament to win. That means that we will be focused on the top players in the field and finding players that we believe have a chance to make the Top 10. Therefore, we are going to change things up a little bit this week and instead of giving you the number of times a player will appear, we will give you the approximate percentages that they will appear throughout our lineups. Obviously, there are still going to be a few minor tweaks before Thursday morning, but this will give you a very good idea of where we stand for the week. We believe in transparency here at The Daily Spin, so if you see a name written up as a recommendation, that is a guarantee that you will see him on our roster for the week.

What is different this week than most is that with all of these rosters, our list of non-core players must rise in order to fill in the gaps with each lineup. You are going to have to force yourself to incorporate some names that you are a little unsure about. The European players who have made a name on the European PGA Tour are the trickiest bunch to deal with. There are a couple that are good values this week, but for the most part, these guys are wildcards. We know that one or two are going to jump up and make it into the Top 10, but in all honesty, it is going to be a bit of guesswork since most lack much course experience and their track records on the PGA Tour are often times spotty at best. For these players, what we did here at the Daily Spin was to list all of these players into a group and selectively weight each one for lineups. After building our clusters of core players, we then peppered in either regulars on the PGA Tour with good, but not great chances of winning, and then one of the European PGA players.

It is an inexact science to say the least, but what we are looking to do is to isolate our best players and then to try to give them the best possible chance to succeed with multiple opportunities. That is why when you see the top players of the fantasy world win, you will usually see them with many cashes near the top in a given week. They follow their convictions on 3-4 players and then sprinkle in those players that they have a bit less belief in over and over hoping that a handful hit and propel their core lineup to the top. There are no easy ways to do this unless you have a computer programming background so get out your Excel spreadsheet and start layering groups of players and color coding if you are OCD. Start by setting target weightings for about 10-15 players. Personally, your author did all of his lineups in one 6 hour sitting at random, thinking about how certain players were being added into lineups and working in my head to adjust the weightings. Once finished, all lineups were copied and pasted into Excel and a word count was performed on every player’s name. Once the initial weightings were counted, it was easy to go back and adjust to the target weightings that had been set for about 10-15 players. It is a little tedious, but we had a blast building lineups.

What you need to know about the pricing this week is that it is really soft. Draft Kings wanted to attract a lot of attention for the first ever Millionaire Maker and they have succeeded. It is really easy to put together a team of all-stars so we expect a lot of overlap this weekend. It would not be a surprise to us if 10 people ended up splitting the top prize. This should motivate you to take a few more chances with your lineups. If you can find one or two players that are owned by under 5% of the field, you are going to have a better chance of having a unique lineup.

A quick look at Augusta shows us that this truly is the cathedral of golf. As my colleague, Jeff Bergerson described in his preview column, it is breathtaking from the first to the last hole. It tends to play as one of the more challenging courses and on these greens, there are few if any ‘gimme’ putts. The course is 7435 yards and plays as a Par 72, which sounds eerily similar to last week. What is interesting about Augusta is that it has been lengthened several times over the years. Where it was a much more wide open affair in years past, it has become much more important to be able to get a lot of distance off the tee. Distance is big, but so is iron play and being able to get to hit a high percentage of Greens In Regulation. Thus, we will look at Total Driving and GIR to open our research for the week. The next stat that we looked at was Par 4 scoring. Yes, Par 5 scoring is important too, but what we noticed over the last 6-7 years was that Par 4 scoring correlated with more Top 10 finishes than Par 5 scoring. At Augusta, the focus must be on mitigating mistakes. The Par 3 holes are difficult and yield very few birdies while the Par 5 holes are the easiest on the course and tend to play well for the long ball hitters that we will target. The Par 4 holes are where players have a chance to separate themselves. Let’s take a quick look at the historical numbers to show you what we mean:

In 2014, of the Top 10 in Par 4 scoring, 6 finished in the Top 10 overall while only 3 of the Top 10 in Par 5 scoring finished in the Top 10. In 2013, 6 of the Top 10 in Par 4 scoring finished in the Top 10 versus 4 of the Top 10 in Par 5 scoring. In 2012, 7 of the Top 10 in Par 4 scoring finished in the Top 10 versus 3 of the Top 10 in Par 5 scoring. In 2011 and 2010, it was relatively even in the two categories.

Finally, as always, we will take into consideration, strokes gained tee to green. On longer courses like this, being able to cut down the distance in the most efficient manner possible is a key to saving a stroke or two each round. Iron play is huge at Augusta and with the various hazards on the course, the ability to scramble and save par is key as well. We will not obsess over putting other than to say that we will only avoid a player based on putting if he is just putting particularly poorly. That said, a player that underperforms in the four statistical categories we are looking most closely at will have to be an exceptional putter in order to gain consideration this week.

With that said, let’s get to the part of the column that you have all been waiting for this week. If you still have not subscribed, I hope that this has piqued your interest enough to go get yourself set up right now.

The first thing we want to get across to you is that you will need to start off with one of the Top 7 priced players in the field in order to have a chance at winning the Millionaire Maker this week. Two or three of these players are going to finish in the Top 10. The best players always rise to the top in the majors and this year will be no different. If any of you believe that there will not be at least two of these players in the Top 10, shoot me and e-mail so that we can make a wager. To make it easy on you, these players are priced in a manner that makes them much easier to roster than normal. As a bonus, each pricing section contains players that could potentially win the tournament so there is value to be found in a lot of areas.

To make this a little easier on yourself, let’s start with the players we will not roster. Just cut off anyone below Vijay Singh at $5400 to start with. Immediately, that knocks off 15 players. Also, please be sure to eliminate those players that are listed, but not in the tournament: Harris English, Andy Sullivan, Tim Clark, Marc Warren and Alexander Levy. I am also going to eliminate Marc Leishman. His wife has been put into a medically induced coma. While that does not necessarily mean that he will not play, he certainly has more on his mind than golf this week. UPDATE: Marc Leishman has officially withdrawn from The Masters.

Let’s also address the elephant in the room, one Tiger Woods. We really do not know where Tiger’s game will be at for The Masters this weekend. In a couple of appearances earlier this season, his game was horrific. After being away, it is hard to see him being greatly improved even with a great course history here. If you remember, he had an amazing history at Torrey Pines, but withdrew there after struggling early. If you only enter one lineup, leave Tiger out of it. If you enter 10 lineups, leave Tiger out of them. If you are entering 100 lineups or more, you wouldn’t be wrong to leave him off your teams. We own him on two of our lineups. If the unexpected happens and he makes a charge, we have surrounded him in two lineups with core players knowing that his ownership levels will probably be in the 5% range and giving us a chance of having a couple of unique lineups. It is the equivalent of a hope and a prayer for Tiger this week. If his price were more reasonable, we would face a much more interesting decision on Tiger. However, no matter how he plays, his price seems to remain high due to his extreme popularity (or notoriety). We are happy to see him playing as he brings a lot of attention to the game and while some may feel like golf suffers without him, we see the huge number of young rising stars and could not be more excited for the future of golf. Hopefully, those folks that tune in just for the drama around Tiger will see just how amazing and competitive the game has become in his absence and stick with it through the rest of the season.

We did not build a Hate list this week. With as many lineups as we have built, even those players that we do not like (Tiger) have small weightings. We are never going to tell you to fade a player and then throw him into a lineup as we have seen some do, so what we are going to do is to let you know who is being left off of rosters or underweighted this week.

We cannot get behind Martin Kaymer this week. We keep waiting for him to have a breakout performance this year, but are more and more disappointed by the week. It looked like he was on his way to turning things around last week after a nice first round, but then faded quietly on Friday and missed the cut. So his form coming in has been poor, and his value has been worse as you’ve had to pay a premium for his subpar performances. At the Masters, Kaymer missed the cut in his first four appearances and although he has made the cut in his last three starts, his best finish was 31st place at last year’s tournament. He will break out eventually, but we can not make a case for it happening this week.

The next victim is Justin Rose. Rose has battled injury this year and has struggled in his few appearances this year. Again, it looked like he was going to break out last week after a nice start, but he faded and finished in 37th place, not nearly high enough to justify his price. With Rose, we have a player with very strong tournament history which makes him a tougher decision than Kaymer. We have him in 5% of our lineups as the combination of tournament history and the potential turnaround in his game make him worth a small risk.

Rickie Fowler was the ‘must start’ player of 2014. He seemed to be in the Top 10 every week and finished in the Top 5 of all four majors last year. This season, he cannot get on track at all in any area. His tee to green game is off and he is not putting well. This is not a recipe for success at Augusta. Can he make a sudden turnaround this weekend? It seems doubtful. He was a mid tier player here for his first three starts before putting really well last year enroute to a 5th place finish. A return to the mean puts him somewhere in the middle of the pack. For his price, he just is not worth much exposure. We own him in 3-5% of lineups for the week. We know that he has Top 10 potential so we will not ignore him, we just do not think it is very likely this year.

Matt Kuchar is in a bit of a slump by his standards this year. He boasts a great record in recent years at Augusta, but tends to be playing really well in the tournaments leading up to The Masters. This season started off well enough with a 3rd place finish at The Sony Open and a 2nd place finish at The Humana Challenge. However, he has been out of the Top 10 in his last five tournaments and only one finish in the Top 20. Last weekend, he finished particularly poorly, finishing in 70th place after shooting a 78 (+6) in the final round. We own Kuchar in 9% of our lineups as the potential is certainly there for a solid finish. If Kuchar were on his game, we would probably have his weighting above 20%.

Charl Schwartzel is a player that we were excited about when he returned from the European Tour earlier this season. That enthusiasm quickly evaporated when he arrived stateside. In four tournaments this season, his best finish is 41st and he has also missed one cut. His main draw is that he won here in 2011. However, if you take out that win, his other four starts are not terribly impressive. He missed the cut last year and placed 25th in 2013, 50th in 2012 and 30th in 2010. Given the fact that he has been terrible putting the ball this season, we are staying away from Schwartzel. We do not own him this week.

Luke Donald strikes us as being wildly overpriced this week. It looked like maybe things were going to turn around after The Honda Classic where he had his lone good finish this season (7th). He went into Doral looking strong, but was ineffective. At The Valspar Championship, he has enjoyed great success over the years, but not so much this year as he finished a disappointing 53rd. He does have one Top 10 at The Masters over the last seven years, but given how he has looked this year, a Top 10 seems incredibly unlikely and we do not own him this week.

Graeme McDowell – Have you watched him play this year? His game is an absolute mess right now and to top things off, he has struggled mightily at Augusta. We do not own him in any lineups this week.

Those are the main players that we will not own or be underweighting this week. There are other players that we will not own, but we wanted to mention the most prominent names here. The next area that we want to examine are a few players that are dealing with injuries headed into the week.

Brooks Koepka was one of our favorite players as we looked out to The Masters two months ago. Unfortunately, he dislocated a rib a few weeks back and could not finish the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Rib injuries are tricky to deal with and can be slow to heal. With the twisting motion that comes from swinging a club, this can be a particularly tricky injury to deal with. However, from digging around, I have heard from a good source that the injury has healed up and will not be a factor this week. Of course, this could just be talk from Koepka’s camp, but this source tends to be reliable so we will own Koepka in around 10-15% of our lineups. Had Koepka come into the tournament without any health concerns, his weighting would have been in the 20-25% range, but we are going to be a little cautious this week.

Steve Stricker is coming off of back surgery and has played in only one event since August. He is a solid player at The Masters and has a good year in 2014 playing a limited schedule. However, the back is a big unknown and we do not like the fact that he chose not to at least test it out in at least one event before jumping into The Masters. We own him in one lineup this week.

Kevin Stadler is going to tee it up this week as far as we know, but has suffered from a wrist injury going back to the beginning of the year. Stadler finished 8th at Augusta last year in his first appearance, but his lack of recent play has led us to keep him off of our rosters this week.

Lastly, I want to discuss a few of the older players that will be in the field this week. Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer and Miguel Angel Jimenez all finished in the Top 20 last year. They will be owned based on those performances. Is it something that they can replicate this year? It seems unlikely. As Jimenez transitions to the European Tour and Champions Tour, he will slowly start to lose ground. We just do not see back to back Top 10 finishes as being very likely for him although he will be a lot of fun to watch. Couples played great last year and finished in 20th place. At his best, we feel that this is the best he will be able to finish moving forward. If that is the ceiling for Couples, we are not going to own him as we need to be able to make the argument that a player has Top 10 potential. If you are looking to cash, Couples is a solid play for an okay price. If you are building a lineup to try to win, you cannot roster Couples. As for Langer, we know that he finished in 8th last year and 25th in 2013. Previous to that, he missed the cut in four straight starts. Last year was great for him, but we are not going to get fixated on one great improbable result.

So those are the players that we are a little bit cautious about. Other than Koepka, we have lower ownership levels than what we expect for the rest of the field. We anticipate being in line with ownership levels on Koepka. When you build your lineups this week, it is important to come up with estimates on how ownership levels for players. For the players you believe in strongly, you want to own them at a higher percentage than the rest of the field. The reverse is true as well for the players that you think will underperform. You are unlikely to succeed in GPP formats if your teams tend to mirror those of the rest of the field.

And so after nearly 4000 words, you must be asking, who is it that we like this week? Let’s end the suspense.

BLUE CHIPS

Jason Day – My pick to win The Masters outright this year is Jason Day. The 27 year-old has had two close calls at Augusta with a 2nd and 3rd place finish. He hits the ball long and although he is not always accurate, he scrambles well and is near the top in GIR this season. Day has made the cut in all seven starts this season with four Top 10 finishes and a win at the Farmer’s Insurance Open. Day ranks 3rd in GIR, 57th in Total Driving, 1st in Par 4 scoring, 21st in strokes gained tee to green and 16th in total strokes gained. We like him a lot as he seems to be the forgotten man this week in the conversations about who will win the tournament. We think he will be owned by 20-25% of the field, thus we will adjust our weighting to own him at a 30-35% level in our lineups.

Adam Scott – Up until last week, we were ready to underweight Adam Scott. After starting out at Doral looking pretty good with the new putter, he struggled near the end of the weekend and has been a mess since then. Coming into The Masters, his putting was so inconsistent that we were looking to limit our exposure to Scott. However, with the announcement last week that he was returning to his old anchor putter for The Masters, we regained some of our lost enthusiasm for Scott. Scott won here two years ago and has four Top 10 finishes in his career at Augusta. In recent starts he finished 4th at Doral before missing the cut at the Valspar Championship and 35th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. We will not factor these finishes in as much as normal due to the use of the new putter. Although data is limited for 2015, Scott’s tee to green game is undeniably one of the best on tour. In 2014, he ranked 3rd in Par 4 scoring, 10th in GIR, 10th in Total Driving and 5th in strokes gained tee to green. His game is well suited for Augusta so if he feels more comfortable with his old putter and can gain back the .8 strokes per round that he lost with the new putter, Scott should be in contention on Sunday. We will own Scott on 20-25% of our rosters this week. We think that will generally be in line with the field. Had Scott come into the tournament having used the anchor putter all season, we would probably have overweighted him slightly.

Jordan Spieth – Spieth comes into The Masters as the hottest player on tour having finished 2nd, 1st and 2nd in his last three starts. Had Draft Kings delayed releasing its prices for another week or two, Spieth certainly would have been more expensive. We think that at his price, he will be highly owned by the field considering his recent history and his 2nd place finish at Augusta last year. The 21 year-old will challenge Rory McIlroy for years to come for the crown of top player of the generation. Spieth is 41st in Total Driving, 103rd in GIR, 3rd in Par 4 scoring, 4th in strokes gained tee to green and 2nd in strokes gained total. His iron game and short game are superb and he does scramble well (30th). We think Spieth will be owned by 25-30% of the field and our weighting will be close to 20%. While there is some danger that he could outperforn his price, we are not going to chase the field on this one as we feel that Day’s overall game is slightly better suited for the course.

Bubba Watson – The defending champion comes into The Masters playing some of the best golf of his career. He has made the cut in all six starts this year and has finished no lower than 14th this season. He has not played in about a month due to the death of a close friend a few weeks back, but we do not anticipate that this will be a factor this week. Bubba is always ranked near the top in driving distance (2nd this year), and ranks 30th in total driving this year. Although he is not terribly accurate, he ranks 2nd this year in scrambling, which offsets him being ranked 130th in GIR. Bubba also ranks 23rd in Par 4 scoring and 1st in Par 5 scoring. He ranks 5th in strokes gained tee to green and 3rd in total strokes gained. Bubba’s two wins at Augusta will make him highly owned, possibly in the 25-30% range. We are going to own him at around a 20% weighting and not chase the field on Bubba knowing how difficult it will be to repeat here.

So what do we think of Rory McIlroy? We think he is the best player in the world. However, we are not thrilled with his price. Considering that he is $2700 more than Bubba, who has two wins at Augusta, we think there is just more value in the lower level stars this week. Rory has also been a little shaky since coming over from Europe, missing the cut at the Honda Classic before a 9th and 11th place finish to follow up. Those are good finishes if your price is not so far above the rest of the field, but at his price, he basically needs to win the tournament to achieve full value. The difficulty in rostering Rory is that you then must field five other players at an average salary of $7020. It is going to be quite a challenge to find 5 players near the Top 10 with that low of an average price. We think the field will have 15% ownership of Rory. We will underweight Rory and own him at an 8-10% weighting. If he wins, we want some exposure, we just do not think his chances are quite as high as his odds currently dictate.

VALUE PICKS

There are so many players this week in the value range that we are going to talk about a few more than normal. Draft Kings took a risk with pricing players out a few weeks back and most of the deep value players can be found in the middle pricing tier this week. Typically, Draft Kings is really good with pricing and is fairly close to being in line with the Vegas odds. This week, we have a great opportunity to take advantage of some larger than normal discrepancies.

Jimmy Walker – Vegas lists Walker as the 8th most likely player to win this week. Draft Kings has him priced out as the 16th highest player overall. This rarely happens for players this highly ranked in the field. Typically, the deeper values are found near the middle of the field and occasionally near the bottom. Walker crushed the field in San Antonio just two weeks ago and further solidified his 1st place status in the FedEx Cup rankings. It was his second win of the season his 5th Top 10 finish. Walker hits over 300 yards off the tee, but only 78th in total driving. He ranks 27th in GIR and 12th in Par 4 scoring. His iron play is very good and he ranks 16th in strokes gained tee to green. His putting is truly what makes him a special player. He ranks 3rd this season gaining almost a full stroke per round to offset any inaccuracies off the tee and leads the tour in birdie average, a key stat for scoring on Draft Kings. Walker placed 8th in his first start at Augusta last year and is primed to finish even higher this year. Walker will be heavily owned this week, probably in the 30-35% range. For his price, we think that seems appropriate and will weight him close to 35% for the week. If you are playing cash games, he is a great player to start your lineups with.

Lee Westwood – Westwood is coming off of a disappointing finish last weekend in Houston so we think that may slightly diminish his ownership levels for the week. However, the rest of this season has been great for Westwood as he has a win on the European PGA Tour and a number of other high finishes. In fact, on the PGA Tour this year, up until last week he had finished no lower than 25th in 6 events. Westwood has finished in the Top 10 in four of the last five years at Augusta. Fantasy owners will recognize this and he will be rostered by at least 20% of owners this week. He’s 55th in total driving, 116th in GIR, but does rank 6th in Par 4 scoring and 23rd in strokes gained tee to green. His putting has also improved this year helping him to a rank of 12th overall in total strokes gained. Westwood seems primed to make one last charge at the majors this year and while he probably will not win one outright, expect him to be a threat. We will own him in 20% of our lineups this week. Westwood also has great cash game value this week as well.

Hideki Matsuyama – In GPPs, sometimes you need to be bold in your selections. We think we are doing that with Matsuyama this week. The 23 year-old has played at Augusta a few times in the last few years, finishing in 27th at age 19, 54th in 2012 and missing the cut last year. We think this is the year for Hideki to break through and finally make some noise. If he can get past the first day, where he ranks 68th in scoring, and position himself on Friday to make a move rather than to fight to make the cut, he should be in contention on Sunday as his game tends to improve with each successive round. Hideki nails all of the statistical categories that we are focused on this week. He ranks 3rd in Par 4 scoring, 1st in total driving, 11th in GIR and 3rd in strokes gained tee to green. He even scrambles well and is ranked 19th this season. We believe Matsuyama is a dark horse to win the tournament outright. The key is going to be his putting. Can he make key putts under pressure this weekend? We think the potential reward is worth the risk this week. We think he will be owned by 15-20% of the field, but we are overweight Matsuyama and will own him at a 30% clip.

Patrick Reed – Reed is a really trendy pick this week. He went to school at Augusta State after getting booted from Georgia so he is eager to make his mark at The Masters. He missed the cut in his first shot here, but we expect bigger things this year. He has a win this year and four Top 10 finishes this season. We love Reed because he is a player that seems to thrive under pressure and likes to be in the spotlight. He is a guy that you feel good about owning when Sunday hits and you need points down the stretch. Reed is not great in total driving, coming in at a paltry 180th, but is great with his irons and 3rd in scrambling which has helped him to being ranked 15th in strokes gained tee to green. His putting is solid boosting him to 9th in total strokes gained. We think Reed will be owned by 20-25% of the field and we will be in at a 20% weighting for the week. He is a little unproven here and did tweak his knee last week so we do not feel the need to overweight Reed this week.

Ian Poulter – Like Westwood, we do not think that Poulter has what it takes to perform under pressure in order to come away with a victory on Sunday. However, he does have what it takes to contend for a Top 10 finish, which he has done twice in the last five years. Poulter is six of seven making the cut this season and really should have won the Honda Classic had it not been for a miserable late meltdown. Needless to say, he has two straight Top 25 finishes so his head seems to be in the right place. He does not dominate in any of the statistical categories we are looking at this week except for Par 4 scoring where he is ranked 12th this year. He ranks 106th in total driving, 48th in GIR and 40th in strokes gained tee to green. His putting has been reasonable and has led him to be ranked 28th in total strokes gained. Given his price, we think that Poulter will have a 15-20% ownership level this week. We are right in line with that as we think he has a shot at the Top 10, but probably not much higher than that.

Paul Casey – When looking for players that are rounding into form, Casey’s name is a great one to consider. With three Top 10 finishes in his last five events, Casey looks like he has a chance to make a move this week. He has not played at Augusta in a few years, but does have two Top 10 finishes here. He is ranked 29th in total driving, 24th in GIR, 23rd in Par 4 scoring (and 5th in Par 5), and 17th in strokes gained tee to green. He putts well enough to be ranked 10th in total strokes gained. Casey is also priced at a bargain in comparison to his Vegas odds. Casey has all the makings of a player that should be in position on Sunday to compete for a title. We think that given his strong performance last weekend, his ownership levels will be a little higher than normal probably in the 20-25% range. We are going to overweight that and be in the 25-30% range as we feel very strongly that Casey will outperform his price this week and has the potential to win the tournament outright if things fall into place for him.

Victor Dubuisson – We think Victor will get overlooked this week. He missed that cut in his lone appearance at Augusta and this season he missed the cut at The Honda Classic and played mediocre at Doral. Fortunately, he did close strong last Sunday at Houston which should help him to get the momentum moving in the right direction for him this week as success on the last Sunday before The Masters. Victor has played mostly on the European PGA Tour and 2014 proved to be a pretty successful season. He had three Top 5 finishes in the fall and will look to build on that success this season in the US. He is one of those mid tier names that could be overlooked this week as he lacks much tournament history at Augusta and has not has eye popping success this year in limited events in the US. We think that Victor will be owned by 10-15% of the field. We will own him at just above 15% this week as we think he is one of the European players that we think could breakthrough and have a Top 10 finish this year.

JB Holmes – We loved him last week and at Doral and he helped us on to winning weeks both times. Both of thoese tournaments are strong precursors to performance at The Masters. He hurt us with a brutal 3 putt at the Arnold Palmer Invitational a few weeks back, but has been really good overall this season with four Top 10 finishes including his stunning come from behind victory last weekend. Holmes is another player that was priced too low in comparison with current Vegas odds. His victory last week combined with his low price will lead to huge levels of ownership, more than likely in excess of 30%. Holmes is a bomber off the tee, but only ranks 57th in total driving and 92nd in GIR. He is ranked 33rd in Par 4 scoring, but his approach game has helped him a ranking of 9th in strokes gained tee to green. If he can putt the way he did last week, he will be in contention again this week. At his price, and with his current form, we are overweight Holmes this week to the tune of 35%. Holmes has one start at Augusta and took 25th back in 2008. This is another high risk/high reward selection. In a normal week, fading Holmes might be the right play. He could miss the cut outright. However, on the other end, his ceiling is really high and that is exactly what we are looking for in a GPP, particularly one where a high ceiling is essential for every player that we roster this week.

SLEEPERS

Ryan Palmer – It is hard to believe that Palmer is in this category, but with Draft Kings weighing tournament history at Augusta more than recent form, Palmer seems to have slipped through the cracks this week. Palmer has taken his game to another level over the last year. Palmer has 3 top 10 finishes and six Top 25’s in seven starts this year. He does have one Top 10 finish at Augusta from back in 2011, but missed the cut in 2012 and has not played there since then. He is very solid for us statistically. He’s 44th in total driving (6th in driving distance), 41st in GIR, ranks 5th in Par 4 scoring and 8th overall in strokes gained tee to green. As a bonus, he ranks 20th in scrambling which will help him greatly this week. If he can avoid that one bad round, he could very easily find himself teeing off on Sunday afternoon. Palmer and Kevin Na are the two biggest bargains in terms of pricing in relation to Vegas odds this week. Given his extremely low price and how his stats should match up well with the course, we are all in on Palmer this week. We anticipate 35-40% ownership levels for Palmer and are going to overweight our holdings to the 45-50% range. We look for Palmer to have a big weekend and at this price, it leaves us with a lot of flexibility in building out the rest of our lineup.

Russell Henley – Henley was our cutmaker with upside last week and we think that he has upside again this week. His strong finish last week created a mismatch between his price and the Vegas odds. He has yet to miss a cut this season so he is great for cash games as well as GPPs this week. He has three Top 10 finishes this year and did finish 31st at Augusta last year. He is 17th in total driving, but only 81st in GIR. He ranks 23rd in Par 4 scoring this year as well. He excels on the greens where he ranks 16th in strokes gained putting and is 33rd in total strokes gained. After last week, Henley will be on everyone’s radar and we expect his level of ownership to be in the 20-25% range. We are comfortable weighting our rosters at those levels.

Kevin Na – The other biggest mispricing of the week is Kevin Na. He is coming off of three straight Top 10 finishes followed by a 20th place finish over his last four tournaments. He is rounding into form at just the right time and will be ready to step up this week. He placed 12th here in 2012 and 59th in 2013 after missing the cut in 2010 and 2011. He is not very good off the tee ranking near the bottom in total driving and 145th in GIR. He does rank 15th in scrambling which helps his performance and 23rd in Par 4 scoring. He is 27th in strokes gained tee to green and 29th overall in total strokes gained. Typically, he putts a little better than he has this year so if he gets that part of his game going, he definitely has a shot at making it into the Top 10. At Na’s price, we anticipate that he will be highly owned this week as the last piece of most lineups. When looking in this range for one final player, Na’s name jumps out. We think he will have 25-30% ownership levels. We will be at 25% for Na this week.

Charley Hoffman – Our final sleeper is Charley Hoffman. He is a solid GPP play due to the volatility of his game. He could be in the Top 10 this week or absolutely blow the cut and be at the bottom of the standings. With two straight 11th place finishes since the pricing was released, Hoffman is another player priced well in comparison to Vegas. Hoffman has five Top 15 finishes this season including a win at the OHL Classic. He is middle of the road in most statistical categories. He ranks 49th in total driving, 45th in GIR, 23rd in Par 4 Scoring and 50th in strokes gained tee to green. He placed 27th in his lone appearance here in 2011. Recent success and a lower price should lead to Hoffman being owned by 15-20% of the field. We will be right around 15% for Hoffman this week.

Those are our primary core and sub-core players this week. There are 16 players in that range to start building your lineups with for the week. For the rest of the field, there are about 30 players that we will work into our lineups to some extent. As a quick example for how to build multiple lineups, pick four players that you have a deep conviction on. If Bubba is your pick to win, start with him, in the middle range, add a player like Westwood and further down someone like Casey. If you believe like we do that Palmer is a steal at his price, use him to round out your cluster group. With these four players, you will then build four to five lineups with an average salary of $7850 per player. Grab one European player like Louis Oosthuizen and one steady US PGA Tour player like Bill Haas. Then go back and do it again and try that same cluster with Branden Grace and Patrick Reed. You can do this over and over, but the key is to build those little clusters that you have total faith in and then sprinkle in different pieces many times. Think of it like cracking a safe, you’re just trying to find the one combination that cracks that code.

That will do it this week for our preview. We hope you enjoyed the extended preview as we tried to touch on a lot of strategy points as well as a deeper look at not only who to pick, but who to avoid, who to overweight and who to underweight. As always, we are here for questions so do not hesitate to get in touch with us all day today on Twitter.

Best of luck to you all and let’s go get that million dollar prize!

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