The First Tee – CareerBuilder Challenge

The emergence of a star. A now 4-time winner on the PGA, I started talking about JT over the fall circuit when he was making his rounds in Asia. I stuck with him at the TOC, but for some reason I decided to buy into his own talk of “winning is hard week to week.” Yea, well not when you’re playing this well, Justin. Finally, we head state side to La Quinta, and to the second strongest field golf has to offer this week. But hey, it’s where biggest DK contests are so that’s where we need to focus our attention.

DraftKing Pro Results: Our first Large GPP win of the year from one of our residents this week in Hawaii. JetBlackx jumps out to an early lead for “Pro of the Year.”  Want to see your stats and the leaderboards? Click here!

JAE686

Yearly Results:

• Wins: N/A
• Top 3’s (High $$$ GPPs): 2
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): N/A

Weekly Results: Not a great week overall, but a profitable one.

• Contest Results:
  • 3/4 Dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 363^rd
  • 33 Entries:70
    • Best Finish:30^th, 36X2
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 18^th, 22^nd
  • 1060-3^rd
  • 5300-2^nd
• Golfers Used: 3/33
  • Justin Rose- 42%
  • Jordan Spieth-40%
  • Paul Casey*-37%
  • Russel Knox-32%
  • Grace/Matsuyama/Haas-28%
  • Simpson/Na-25%
  • Justin Thomas- 6%
• Players Used & Ownership–
  • Total Players Used: 51
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total: 150%/400
  • Average number of players Used: 47
  • Average High Ownership: 42

SaahilSud – Paul Casey at 90%. You can imagine it wasn’t a great week for this go big or go home player.

Yearly Results:

• Wins:1
• Top 5’s (High $$$ GPPs): 1
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): N/A

 Weekly Results: Awful week.

• Contest Results:
  • 3/4 Dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 2185^th
  • 33 Entries:150
    • Best Finish: 199^th
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 5
    • Best Finish: 0 in the top 25
  • 1060-20^th
  • 5300- 9^th
• Core Golfers Used: 3 & 33 $ contests
  • Paul Casey*-90%
  • Webb Simpson-76%
  • Knox-69%
  • Rose-62%
  • Matsuyama-53%
  • Bradley*/Palmer*-40%
  • Hahn-32%
  • Justin Thomas- 0.0%
• Players Used & Ownership–
  • Total Players Used this week: 31
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total: 280%/400%
  • Average number of players Used: 29
  • Average High Ownership: 86%

Jetblackx –First W of the year for our resident pro. Taking down the 33$ dogleg, let’s see how he did it.  However, his results in the higher dollar buy ins were rather lackluster. I imagine it was still a profitable week.

Yearly Results:

• Wins: 1
• Top 5’s (High $$$ GPPs): 0
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): 1

Weekly Results: Win number One.

• Contest Results:
  • 3/ 4 dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 7^th
  • 33 Entries: 150
    • Best Finish:1^st
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 6
    • Best Finish: Did not have a lineup in the top 25
  • 1060-8^th
  • 5300-6^th
• Core Golfers Used: 3 & 33
  • Spieth-58%
  • Knox-49%
  • Simpson-35%
  • English*-34%
  • Kirk*-30%
  • Matsuyama-25%
  • Jimmy Walker*-24%
  • Justin Thomas-6.7% or 10 lineups, and one of those ten was good enough to win the $33 dogleg.
• Players Used & Ownership–
  • Total Players Used: 51
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total: 210%/400%
  • Average number of players Used: 43
  • Average High Ownership: 64

FlavorFlav-  Must be the no-cut events. He’s back.

Yearly Results:

• Wins:0
• Top 5’s (High $$$ GPPs): 0
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): 0

Weekly Results: Highest owned guy, again was Paul Casey at 70%.

• Contest Results:
  • 3/4 Dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 2226^th
  • 33 Entries:150
    • Best Finish: 203^rd
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 5
    • Best Finish: 13^th
  • 1060-15^th
  • 5300- 9^th
• Core Golfers Used: 3 & 33 $ contests
  • Paul Casey*-70%
  • Justin Rose-62%
  • Palmer*-31%
  • Knox/HowellII-30%
  • Tanihara-28%
  • CT-Pan*/Spieth-25%
  • Justin Thomas-0.0%
• Players Used & Ownership–
  • Total Players Used this week: 35
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total: 280%/400%
  • Average number of players Used: 35
  • Average High Ownership: 70%

Mazwa- A winner of ¼ PGA Millionaire Makers last year, was back and one of only 5 users to max the $1060/$300/$33/& $3 contest.

Yearly Results:

• Wins:0
• Top 5’s (High $$$ GPPs): 0
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): 0

Weekly Results: Highest owned guy, again was Paul Casey at 70%.

• Contest Results:
  • 3/4 Dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 1586^th
  • 33 Entries:150
    • Best Finish: 139^th
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 5
    • Best Finish: No finishes in the top 25
  • 1060-18^th
  • 5300- N/A
• Core Golfers Used: 3 & 33 $ contests
  • Justin Rose-97%
  • Ryan Palmer*-85%
  • Knox-81%
  • Dufner*-78%
  • Zach Johnson-44%
  • Kisner-38%
  • Bradley*-34%
  • Perez/woodland-30%
  • Justin Thomas- 0.0%
• Players Used & Ownership–
  • Total Players Used this week: 29
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total:340%/400%
  • Average number of players Used: 29
  • Average High Ownership: 98%

EmileHeskey- He was spotted on this list last year a few times, and he’s back at it for the first full field event of the 2017 calendar year.

Yearly Results:

• Wins:0
• Top 5’s (High $$$ GPPs): 0
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): 0

Weekly Results: Highest owned guy, again was Paul Casey at 70%.

• Contest Results:
  • 3/4 Dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 363^rd
  • 33 Entries:150
    • Best Finish: 30^th, 39^th
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 0
    • Best Finish: N/A
  • 1060- N/A
  • 5300- N/A
• Core Golfers Used: 3 & 33 $ contests
  • Spieth-38%
  • Horschel/Matsuyama/Kirk*/Simpson-32%
  • Dufner*/English*-30%
  • Grace/McGirt/Perez/Knox-28%
  • Justin Thomas-19%
• Players Used & Ownership-
  • Total Players Used this week: 32
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total:140%/400%
  • Average number of players Used: 32
  • Average High Ownership: 38%

Jrozzinri– I had a pretty bad week. I was very low on JT.

Yearly Results:

• Wins:0
• Top 5’s (High $$$ GPPs): 0
• Top 10’s (Low $ GPPs): 0

Weekly Results:

• Contest Results:
  • 3/4 Dollar Entries: 150
    • Best Finish: 1120^th
  • 33 Entries: 60
    • Best Finish: 112^th
  • 300, 333 or 400 Entries: 2
    • Best Finish: 17^th
  • 1060-N/A
  • 5300- N/A
• Core Golfers Used: 3 & 33 $ contests
  • Spieth-52%
  • Matsyama-36%
  • Walker*-28%
  • Perez/Howell-26%
  • Snedeker*-22%
  • Piercy-16%
  • Justin Thomas- 4.7%
• Players Used & Ownership–
  • Total Players Used this week: 57
  • Average Core 4 Ownership Total:140%/400%
  • Average number of players used: 53
  • Average High Ownership: 56%

Contest Stats & Trends: In this section, I’m going to provide some quick stats and trends and sometimes a few peculiar facts.

• The most duplicated lineup was 20 times by 1 user (whoops). Other than that, it was 7 times by 7 different users.
• Justin Thomas was rostered 1 time out of 10 in the $5,300 Thunderdome. That also happened to be his average ownership across the big GPP contests.
• The winning lineup in the $3 was a user that entered a total of 4 lineups, conversely the 33$ was won by a user who max entered.

Career Builder Challenge Stats & Trends

A little unique challenge for DFS’ers this week, as this tournament is held at 3 different courses the first 3 days, then there is a cut, then the top 70 play at PGA WEST TPC Stadium Course on Sunday. All of them are par 72’s that are shorter than 7200 yards. For reference, this event had the most eagles made on tour last year.

Last week’s results:  I was able to identify Spieth in 3/5, Rose 1/5, and Woodland 1/5.

Stats:

• Birdie or Better*- Always
  • Palmer, Mickelson, Garrigus, Loupe, Thompson/ Web Guys- Murray, Bryan, Potson, B-Campbell
• Tee 2 Green-
  • Casey, Simpson, Bradley, Palmer, Molinari
• Strokes Gained Approach to Green-
  • Na, Simpson, Mickelson, Garrigus, Points
• Strokes Gained Putting-
  • Kisner, Summerhays, Molder, Mickelson, Baddeley
• Par 5 Scoring- Palmer, Varner, Cejka, Reed, Howell / Web Guys- Murray, Brehm, Hagy, Potson, Randolph

Trends:

• Average Winning Score since 2012- -25
• Average Cut Score*3 day- -8
• Stats from last year’s winner- Greens in Regulation & DKPoints vs Weak Field

Player Focus:  A rather lackluster, let’s call it what it is, dreadful. I told you to fade JT, and boy was I wrong, and told you go to Jimmy W who MC’d. Brutal. Still told you to play Spieth and Howell III nice top 10’s there.

• Percentage of Picks that Made the Cut – 75%
• Number of Winners Picked – 1
• Number of Top 10s Picked 2 events – 8

Players: Top 5 guys and a pick to click this week.

• Luke List- $8,600 From fade to fave. That’s the List way. These courses seem to set up well for him noted by his 6^th place finish here last year. His game is in great shape going 6/6 in his last 6 appearances finishing no worse than 26^th.
• Hudson Swafford- $7,900 This isn’t the first time you have read about Hudson on this website, and it won’t be the last. Another good finish at the Sony Open, now he just needs to put together a good Sunday and he’s on pace for a top 10 finish here.
• Adam Hadwin- $7,500 We haven’t seen this, and now he is the second Canadian on the list, in over 10 weeks, where he was putting together another top 10 at the OHL Classic. A 6^th place finish here last year, and a nice long off season, I like Adam to jump right back into the fray and compete for another top 10 this weekend.
• Anribn Lahiri- $7,000 Now this is a very reasonable price for Lahiri. We know about the top 5 upside, and he played well here last year even coming from Asia the week before. This time he’s coming from Hawaii, where he did MC, so he has ample time to prepare. I like his upside this week.
• Henrik Norlander- $6,800 Keep an eye on this guy. Last two tourneys he’s had a shot at a top 5 finish and converting one of them for a T2 at the RSM.
• Mark Hubbard- $5,900 The perennial Friday cut-day sweat, gets a minimum of three rounds this weekend. He loves birdies, making a ton of them last year, good enough for 31^st most on tour and 32^nd most eagles as well. He’s 2/2 here so at MIN price, sure let’s roll the dye.

Pick to Click:

• Patrick Reed- $11,200 I had six to choose from, and Patty has had a week off to recover so let’s see if he can get a W out of the way early in the season. Then maybe, he will start to focus on the majors instead of playing every week.

Fades: Blew it last week. I’ll do better this week.

• William McGirt-$7,400 Cooled off last week, and not a great history here= a fade for me. Still at 7400 for a cash game only – may not be a bad play.

• David Hearn- $6,200 Is 0/5 in cuts made here since 2012 and has only made 1/5 altogether, he’s not at Mike Weir status, but he’s getting kind of close.

Names I had to look up:

• Chris Evans- $6,000 Described as a “talented local-golfer,” he works at the bag room at the Plantation Golf Club in Indio, CA. Would be an incredible story to tell if he were to help you win a GPP, but with his lack of experience on tour, he’s probably not worth many shares at all.
• Kenny Pigman- $6,000 He won the SCPGA Professional Championship earning him an exemption into the tourney this week. This will be his first start on the PGA Tour.

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Tweet me and follow me @DFSgolfer23. Good Luck!