PGA DFS

Hello everybody, and welcome back to ‘Tee 2 Green,’ a new article that I will be producing for Win Daily Sports weekly to give some extra insight into the DFS world of golf. My focus will be to discuss, decipher and dissect some of my preferred targets throughout the various price ranges, and I will always provide my opinion with a data-intensive outlook that you can see first-hand if you use the weekly model that I provide free of charge. You can find that here.

Kapalua Plantation Course

7,596 Yards – Par 73 – Greens: Bermuda

To me, this is one of the most straightforward courses that we have on tour every season. There are pros and cons to that answer since I tend to like the ability to diversify my thought process from the masses, but 50-yard wide fairways highlight a venue where players are going to be able to do anything they want off the tee. Think of a birdie fest where the tour wants golfers to receive a start of the year present to reward their accomplishment from the season before.

It is worth noting that Kapalua is the only Par 73 that golfers play on tour each year. That, along with elevation, quiets the nearly 7,600-yard total that might appear jarring at first glance if you removed those two factors from the mix. I think distance is certainly weighable, but the fact that the top-six participants last year finished 25th, 17th, 7th, 31st, 12th and 32nd in distance off the tee during the event tells me that placing it into a model might do so more harm than good.

Instead, I would rather look at more course-specific stats since we get a unique layout. There are 11 par-fours. Eight are under 425 yards; the additional three play at least 520 yards. The four par-fives are the most accessible holes. Three of them yield a 48.7% birdie or better rate. The fifth hole is the most getable at 63.2%, and the grainy Bermuda surface can slow things down and provide some tricky lag putts when we consider that proximity is about 7-feet higher than players might expect. As always, you can listen to any of my podcasts to get a more in-depth breakdown, including the one I do weekly with Sia Nejad and Joel Schreck, where we handicap the entire show live at 5:00 pacific time on Tuesday – only at WinDaily Sports.

• Par-Five Birdie or Better (17.5%) & Birdie or Better (17.5%) – I realize 35% on scoring is a ton, but 34 of the 42 players last year were 11-under par or better. You will have to reach a minimum of 25-under to win this thing if winds don’t alter the event. In my opinion, we can’t afford to be underweight to either category when small margins are going to decide the winner.
• Pertinent Proximity Ranges (15%) – That gets us into 45.1% of approach shots when looking at the specific ranges from 0-100 and 200+. I don’t love leaving 50%+ of a quantifiable statistic on the table, but I found it to be a unique approach because it starts to hone in on where most of the scoring opportunities will present themselves. Sure, I might miss out on random chance between a yardage stretching between 100-125 yards, but proximity totals tend to be a faulty statistic when you aren’t building it out to mimic a course entirely. A golfer that can hit an iron from 99 yards doesn’t all of a sudden lose it when the distance goes to 101.
• Putting From 5-10 Feet (10%) – I prefer this route over three-putt percentage for two core reasons. And btw, I think you can use three-putt instead and be just fine, but 1. It separates my thought process marginally when most users will implement the alternative into their weights, but more importantly, these greens are wildly different from most stops where issues might arise. Often, problems come from speed issues where the ball rolls quickly past the hole, creating the break and speed being tough to figure out correctly coming back. We won’t have that situation here. Putting does seem to be easy from 5-10 feet for good putters, which shows why golfers that excel from that distance have found success in the past.
• Course Specific Par-Four (15%) – That incorporates 30% on scoring between 350-400 yards, 40% 400-450 and 30% 500+. Some notable top-seven golfers there were Reed, Xander, Leishman Spieth, Rahm and Thomas. That is every winner in this field since 2014 besides Harris English, who finished a respectable 14th in that category. 
• Strokes Gained Total on Slow-to-Average Bermuda (12.5%) – View this as a secondary way to get putting into the mix.
• Strokes Gained Total on Easy to Hit Fairways at Average-To-Long Courses (12.5%) – I like this statistic because it doesn’t punish your wayward drivers like Jordan Spieth or Patrick Reed. If they can win here, I want to see who improves when the fairways open up, not who can hit it the longest or the straightest on a standard track. 

DraftKings Players ($10,000+)

Jon Rahm ($11,000) – Jon Rahm has never finished worse than 10th in his four prior showings at Kapalua, and it is going to be impossible to run an adequate model that doesn’t at least show him to be one of the main threats to take home the title. This week, my biggest issue with him is that he typically turns into a better play when the course becomes more difficult. These birdie fests limit his upside, although we can work around that if the leverage situation remains where it is with him being only 20%.

Bryson DeChambeau ($10.200) – Bryson DeChambeau is in a bit of a different boat than we just talked about with Jon Rahm, even if their ownership percentages are within the same ballpark. The reason I mention that is because the American has a specific skill set that likely produces the most runaway type potential of anyone in this field, but there are red flags for a golfer that ranks last in this tournament between 0-100 yards in my model. We know he will be bombing drives off the tee and playing with a ton of short irons into the greens, and there are multiple ways the week could unfold for him. I am willing to place him into my core because the potential for victory exceeds any golfer in this field not named Justin Thomas, but the 50% discount in popularity is just too juicy to ignore when looking at a potential pivot.

Fade – Viktor Hovland ($10,000) – I don’t want to overanalyze the 31st place finish last year for Viktor Hovland, but there are concerns on my end with his ranking of 38 out of 38 players in this field around the green over his past 24 rounds. These are large surfaces that will amplify his struggles if he does happen to miss, and I’m not necessarily encouraged by his 35th place rank when looking at just slow Bermuda.

$9,000 Range

Patrick Cantlay ($9,700) – Sign me up if Patrick Cantlay goes off this week at 20% ownership. In a vacuum situation, the American would be the best play in the $9,000s, and it only amplifies that notion when he is 7-10% lower than his counterparts.

Other Targets: None. I won’t talk anyone out of Xander Schauffele ($9,500), but I prefer going Cantlay if adding from this range.

$8,000 Range

Jordan Spieth ($8,900) – Jordan Spieth is likely my favorite play on the entire board. The American ranks first in this field when it comes to par-four average, easy to hit fairways and strokes gained total on Bermuda and hasn’t finished outside of ninth place at this track in his four starts here since 2014.

Brooks Koepka ($8,500) – Brooks Koepka is a shot in the dark, but would it really shock anyone if he won the event at 5-10% ownership? He is GPP only, but the poor perception around him while playing non-majors does create a window of massive potential at only $8,500 and nine percent ownership.

Abraham Ancer ($8,100) – It has taken a few days for me to come around to Abraham Ancer, but there is a leverage window opening. I don’t think he is a better GPP target than the man beneath him in this article, but the fruitful $8,000 range provides a cornucopia of options to decide between, including placing multiple of these golfers into the same build.

Tony Finau ($8,000) – If not for Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau would be the poster child for the $8,000 range, but he adds to the extensive group of options that are in play. Finau has struggled some lately on par-fives, but the wide-open fairways should allow him to use his distance and not worry about some of the misses that have troubled him over the past few months. 

Other Thoughts: Cameron Smith/Sungjae Im are high-owned choices that are worth considering.

$7,000 Range

Patrick Reed ($7,900), Harris English ($7,800), Jason Kokrak ($7,700), Marc Leishman ($7,500) – I listed the group together because there doesn’t seem to be a huge separation. You are going to have to sprinkle this collection into builds randomly, but I am not necessarily rushing to find myself overweight to any of them individually. English and Kokrak are projected to be the two that are lower-owned, so I’ll take them more than Reed and Leishman, who are projecting to be on the more popular side.

Additional Thoughts: The bottom drops off quickly

$6,000 Range

Phil Mickelson ($6,500) – Phil Mickelson is third in this field on slow Bermuda greens and also places at the same rank at longer courses that feature easy-to-hit fairways. We all know ‘Lefty’ is an absolute wizard with his short irons, and there is upside potential for him at a course that isn’t that different from a Champions Tour start. I like him at +200 to come top-20 on FanDuel, and it wouldn’t shock me to see him do better than that.

Additional Dart Throws To Consider: Garrick Higgo $6,400, Lucas Herbert $6,100

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Hello everybody, and welcome back to ‘Tee 2 Green,’ a new article that I will be producing for Win Daily Sports weekly to give some extra insight into the DFS world of golf. My focus will be to discuss, decipher and dissect some of my preferred targets throughout the various price ranges, and I will always provide my opinion with a data-intensive outlook that you can see first-hand if you use the weekly model that I provide free of charge. You can find that here.

Sea Island Golf Club

7,005 Yards – Par 70 – Greens: Bermuda

Sea Island was designed in 1928 by Harry Colt and C.H. Allison but did undergo some restorations from Tom Fazio in 1998. I always note that the main takeaway from a Fazio design is the extreme undulation that can be found throughout, but I think he did an excellent job of keeping the links-style nature about as pronounced as the day it was constructed.

One of the most notable things to keep in mind is that players will be forced to play either their Thursday or Friday rounds on the Plantation Course. Rotational events are always a little more challenging to handicap, but there are at least some similarities in green size and grass type. I’m not going to go wild trying to model both courses into the mix since I think it does more harm than good when the more critical weekend rounds are going to be found at the same track, but I don’t mind adding in some emphasis on par-five scoring since the one-off day will feature four par-fives. I didn’t do that in my model, but I certainly believe it is on the table. Wind typically plays as a factor with narrow landing areas off the tee, and it is a benefit if you can find the short grass. On average, the field connects on 80 percent of their greens in regulation when hitting their approach shots from the fairway, which is right up there with the highest GIR percentage on tour. The putting surfaces are larger than average, and we have an eye-popping nine par-fours that measure between 400-450 yards. I will call it 10 for the sake of my research since one of them is just outside at 452, but the only two outliers are the 368-yard 8th hole and the 470-yard 18th.

The last two items I feel are worth mentioning would be 8.7% more putts get made from 10 feet and beyond here than a typical stop. That is a little troublesome when building models because it suggests a putting contest, and then the distance of 125-175 on approach shots is 8.5% higher than average. All other ranges are below the median output total. Tournaments like this are tough to measure since putting plays such a prominent role, but I tried to get unique in my outlook. As always you can listen to any of my podcasts to get a more in-depth breakdown, including the one I do weekly with Sia Nejad and Joel Schreck where we handicap the entire show live at 5:00 pacific time on Tuesday.

• Weighted Strokes Gained Category – Easy Courses/Bermuda Grass/Under 7,200 Yards (30%) – It was a relatively even split between the three, but to me, those three stats encompassed what I wanted to find at a venue that isn’t perfect from a quantifiable sense. It also let me combine statistics together that are 1. Predicable and consistent when we get set ups like this and 2. Might go under the radar as primary pieces of a calculation. 
• Weighted Putting + Iron Play (30%) –  I also did 30% on a recalculated metric that took proximity from 125-175 yards and putting from five feet and beyond on Bermuda greens and combined them together with a 65/35 split of putting over proximity to form a unique category there. That is the opposite of conventional wisdom when you typically do something like that since proximity tends to be more important than a random putting total, but I didn’t see a great deal of predictability from that range in past leaderboards. Yes, the plurality of shots come there, but the easy answer remains that more putts are being made from 10-feet and beyond, which naturally means irons aren’t being hit as close. 
• Moderate To Severe Wind (10%) – It is still an easy course, but the one true defense can be the gusts. I thought it helped to have it in my model to an extent, even if it is an outlier type stat.
• Greens In Regulation Gained (15%) –  I noted this on my ‘Be The Number’ podcast that I wanted to try and avoid the GIR or accuracy routes this week because it starts making the same builds as every other user. That obviously has less importance in the betting market since what others are betting has little impact on what I am going to do, but I did like this stat because of the correlation I found from past leaderboards
• Par-Four Scoring 400-450 Yards (15%) – That is another outlier category that isn’t great for modeling purposes, but the fact that I have rounded us off to have 10 means over 55% of the scoring chances come in this precise zone. That has to mean something when we are condensing data into the same range over and over again. 

High-Priced DraftKings Players ($10,000+)

Scottie Scheffler (10,900) – It has been a quick turnaround for Scottie Scheffler, who is just a few weeks removed from a much cheaper price tag. However, some of these spots can be intriguing when a player is marginally overpriced but comes in as one of the pivots of the range. I am curious to see where Scheffler heads by Wednesday night, but it is the same theory I mentioned with him last week at the Houston Open. My model thinks he is a negative value against his price. A positive value against his ownership. And he is the betting favorite in all H2H matchups. Not that I take that to be worth a ton, but it at least doubles down the notion that multiple outlets have him as the man to beat. I’m going to keep an eye on where his popularity goes, but I can find interest in playing him if this hovers anywhere near 10 percent.

Webb Simpson (10,700) – My model always likes Webb Simpson, and it particularly finds interest in him when he gets handed a track where he has found past success. We see that here with two top-three results over his past three showings, although it is worth noting that there have been two additional finishes inside the 30s since 2016. That technically means this might not be as robust of a venue as locations like the Wyndham Championship, Sony Open or RBC Heritage, but there isn’t a better golfer on tour when it comes to predictability at the same events yearly.

Louis Oosthuizen ($10,400) – Louis Oosthuizen has surprisingly gone ice cold with his putter, losing in four straight events and averaging negative-two strokes per start. Oosthuizen is leading this field in strokes gained tee to green over his past 24 rounds, so if he is able to flip the script with what should be the best part of his game, the stats are trending towards a big result. I do have some concerns with him for cash-game-type contests because it is always scary when what you do best isn’t working, but that can easily be fixed, especially for something like an outright ticket. We don’t need the safety in a bet like that and just want upside. As far as things go for GPPs, I am going to find myself overweight on him because of the upside he possesses. The South African looks to be the lowest-owned option of the big four, and I believe he carries as much win equity as whoever you want to compare him to for the week.

Cameron Smith ($10,300) – Cameron Smith is the number one ranked player in my model when looking for that recipe of irons + putting and is also fifth when it comes to scoring on an easy course. The Aussie has some of the most playability across the board in my mind.

Fade – Harris English ($10,100) – I don’t feel as strongly about this as I did before talking to Joel Schreck on our live show, but Harris Enlgish remains off the table completely for me in cash after withdrawing from the CJ Cup when his back flared up a few weeks ago. I can see more of the interest in GPPs because of how he fits statistically in a few areas, but I prefer him on long iron tests than these pitch and putt events.

$9,000 Range

Corey Conners ($9,900) – I guess I am all in on Corey Conners at the RSM. Here is a list of categories where he graded in the top-10 of my model. You will see it is almost across the board in every pertinent measurable, including various others that I didn’t include into my mix but still found worth looking into. I will note that OTT is a few percent more impactful here than an average tour stop. A lot of that is because of the accuracy that comes into play, but we have seen good OTT players like Jason Day and Luke List take varying routes to find success. Conners is second in the field when it comes to strokes gained off the tee over the two-year model that I run, and he grades inside of the top-10 in strokes gained tee to green, strokes gained total, strokes gained at easy courses, venues under 7,200 cards, wind play, Bermuda grass, par-four scoring from 400-450 yards, accuracy, GIRs gained and his combination of putting + iron play. When we look at just that weighted putting total, he turns into one of the biggest climbers when running a model to find how a golfer improves when putting from distance versus an overall array of the stat. The top-five largest improvements I had came from Branden Grace, Russell Henley, Conners, Matt Wallace and Charles Howell III. 

Other Targets: Joaquin Niemann ($9,700), Adam Scott ($9,000) – I tend to believe Russell Henley is a better outright bet than he is DraftKings play at 20%.

$8,000 Range

Chris Kirk ($8,000) – Chris Kirk is one of just four players to grade inside the top-19 for me in all metrics that I looked at in my model. The other three were Corey Conners, Webb Simpson and Russell Henley.

Other Thoughts: Justin Rose ($8,800), Brendon Todd ($8,400) and Seamus Power ($8,200) are where I am most interested in finding additional exposure. I do like Joel Dahmen ($$8,500), but I would prefer for his ownership to drop by a few points for GPPs.

$7,000 Range

Brian Harman $7,800 –  Brain Harman is GPP-only at $7,800, but he is one of the better contrarian values I can find in this group. Three top-32s in his last four at the track. The iron play is worrisome having lost in seven straight, but while the results during that time have been far from good, he isn’t exactly bombing in his performances either. Three have resulted in missed cuts. The rest have ranged from 29th to 75th. He is definitely far from my favorite play because of his lack of safety, but I do think he has top-20 win equity in this field. That means something when nobody looks like they want to use him 

Charles Howell $7,800 – Charles Howell III can be fit into pretty much any build and ranks as one of the five best improvements in this field when given this specific green type.

Matt Wallace $7,600 – Matt Wallace is someone that never grades out well for me but landed fourth in my model when looking at overall rank. The best way to deploy him is likely in cash, but 10-11% is low enough for me to consider in GPPs as well.

Additional Thoughts: JASON DAY ($7,600), Kevin Streelman ($7,600), Branden Grace ($7,400), Emiliano Grillo ($7,400), Lanto Griffin ($7,300), Brian Stuard ($7,200) and Alex Smalley ($7,100) are plays I will be finding myself on in various spots. I didn’t include them with the top group because I just looked at the highest priced choices, but there is value to be found throughout in this range.

$6,000 Range

Michael Thompson ($6,700) – Twelve consecutive rounds of being par or better to go along with four made cuts. Those are huge benefits for a golfer that now draws a venue that suits his game as the ninth-ranked player in this field for accuracy and 21st at courses under 7,200 yards.

Additional Dart Throws To Consider: Harry Higgs ($6,900), Zach Johnson ($6,900), Camilo Villegas ($6,800), Cameron Davis ($6,800), Andre Putnam ($6,400), Davis Thompson ($6,400)

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Hello everybody, and welcome back to ‘Tee 2 Green,’ a new article that I will be producing for Win Daily Sports weekly to give some extra insight into the DFS world of golf. My focus will be to discuss, decipher and dissect some of my preferred targets throughout the various price ranges, and I will always provide my opinion with a data-intensive outlook that you can see first-hand if you use the weekly model that I provide free of charge. You can find that here.

Memorial Park

7,432 Yards – Par 70 – Greens: Bermuda

It will be the second time we have seen this tournament at Memorial Park in recent memory. It was hosted here last season but hadn’t been inside of the PGA Tour rotation since 1963. The venue is one of the few municipal golf courses used on tour, costing around $30 for adults and $10 if you are under 18. That typically would lead you to believe that we are in store for a straightforward layout, but that wasn’t the case last year with a winning score of 13-under from Carlos Ortiz.

You get five par-threes and this heavy yardage total of over 7,400 yards, but I wouldn’t call this a venue where distance is the leading proponent. Sure, I think that particular variable will help decide the winner, but accuracy will be just as necessary with the way the property is designed. Large specimen oak trees are positioned to cause issues if you are wayward off the tee, and there are weird quirks throughout, including a clamshell landing area on the par-four 10th that will create problems if you go inside of it. A ravine runs throughout a handful of holes, and despite not having many bunkers, the misses are extreme because of the run-off areas.

The main difference here is that there isn’t as much undulation as we sometimes get from Tom Doak properties, but the overall structure looks like what you would expect. The track does an excellent job of featuring doglegs that move in both directions. That fact mixed with the potential for gusts means we need creativity and thought before hitting every shot, and we see that with wide areas but small targets.

• Weighted Total Driving (20%) – I made my model 57.5% versus 42.5% of distance over accuracy. We have dog legs that go in both directions, which means while length will help, the specimen oak and small landing areas put accuracy into the mix.
• Courses Over 7,400 Yards (10%) – That should artificially add in some measurable totals like distance, long iron proximity and an ability to handle a longer property.
• Weighted Par-Three (7.5%) – I felt compelled to weigh the category because there are five, but I didn’t want to get overly caught up. These range all over the map in yardage, and I tried to accurately assess that narrative by having each stand solo within my weighted model. Three are over 200+ yards, so I did include a reasonable mix of long iron proximity. 
• Weighted Par-Four (15%) – There are birdie holes at 5,13 and 17, but I prefer trying to find how the players perform at par-fours stretching over 500 yards. Five of the seven most challenging holes come between 490 to 529, and I added in some bogey avoidance and long iron proximity to complete that category.
• Weighted Par-Five (17.5%) – We saw 61.5% of Carlos Ortiz’s winning total came there last year. Nearly 73% of Hideki Matsuyama’s second-place production. And 66.6% of Talor Gooch’s fourth-place output. The only outlier was Dustin Johnson, who wins the tournament if he does better than 18%.
• Around The Green + GIR (15%) – It is a one-year data total. Please take that with a grain of salt, but 28.3% of the scoring dispersion came around the green last year. That is 14.3% higher than the tour average.
• Weighted Proximity (15%) – That incorporates the full statistical breakdown of what we got last season. That is going to be a heavy mix of long iron play. Some of the weighted par total categories also include a deeper dive into specific ranges, so I think marginally de-emphasizing approach play makes sense when added in as a secondary metric elsewhere.

High-Priced DraftKings Players ($10,000+)

Tony Finau (10,600) – Tony Finau was the top-ranked player from a statistical perspective in my model. He graded inside the top-50 in all metrics, including rating top-10 in weighted proximity, around the green + GIR, weighted par-three, weighted par-four and courses over 7,400 yards. He looks to be the lowest owned of the group at roughly 11% and carries great GPP appeal.

Cameron Smith ($10,200) – Cameron Smith has seen one of the more significant increases from Monday to Tuesday in ownership and looks to be about 15% in my model, but he possesses many of the intangibles I am trying to find. Smith is 23-ranking spots better in proximity at this course versus an average PGA Tour stop and comes into the week ranked second in par-five birdie or better, sixth in weighted par-three and sixth in strokes gained total over my long-term model.

Other Notable Players I Like – Sam Burns $11,100. You could argue he is a better cash-game play because of his popularity, but I think the price tag is reasonable for the built-in safety he brings to the table.

$9,000 Range

Brooks Koepka ($9,900) – I have been a pretty big proponent of no Brooks Koepka in non-majors over the past few months, but I am willing to come off that stance this week. Please note that Koepka would be GPP-only if you play him, but he is the most considerable model increase I have when looking at win equity versus overall rank. I’m not fond of the narrative that the American is only playable because he helped to design this track, but there is something to that when he is showing as one of the top values before we even take that into account.

Joaquin Niemann ($9,500) – Joaquin Niemann jumps off the page to me because of the leverage he creates in builds versus using Aaron Wise or Talor Gooch. I know DFS users continue to be frustrated by him because of his putter, but he has gained with his irons in 19 of his last 23 trackable starts and off the tee in 33 of 37. Perhaps that is something he can use to his advantage at a venue where missing the greens can be deadly. 

Cash Plays: Adam Scott ($9,600), Talor Gooch ($9,300), Aaron Wise ($9,200). I feel like the prices are fair on the group, but I prefer taking the safety they provide and playing them in cash.

$8,000 Range

Maverick McNealy ($8,500) – Maverick McNealy ranks 12th in both strokes gained off the tee and around the green over his last 24 rounds. We have seen him make 12 of 13 cuts in a row, including 10 of those resulting in a top-30.

Seamus Power ($8,400) – We see Seamus Power follow that same mold of Maverick McNealy. Fourteen made cuts over his past 15 starts. Eleven of those have resulted in a top-31. Form like that is very important during the offseason, and there aren’t many producing as often as those two.

GPP Pivot: Max Homa $8,000

$7,000 Range

Erik Van Rooyen $7,800 – Erik Van Rooyen carries some of the best cost versus upside potential we have talked about so far. Eleventh in my model from both an overall and upside perspective, it shouldn’t hurt matters that the South African finished 20th at the course last year. Van Rooyen ranks seventh in my weighted proximity category and is also 11th in total driving when trying to mimic the track in my spreadsheet.

Chad Ramey $7,500 – Chad Ramey seems to be one of the better Korn Ferry prospects we have entering the PGA Tour this year. His off the tee game has left something to be desired at times, but I have him 13th with his driver for this specific layout versus ranking 86th at a neutral track. Ramey’s ability to hit it long and straight should be a major benefit.

Charley Hoffman $7,300 – The recent form has been questionable, but we get all the narratives that typically spell out a Hoffman week, including Texas and wind. 

Ryan Palmer $7,100 – We saw some life from Ryan Palmer at Mayakoba last week. His preferred surface is Bermuda, and his best results tend to come in windy conditions. 

Talor Moore $7,100 – If you can’t tell, I am a big believer in a handful of these new PGA Tour kids. The one issue with Taylor Moore is that I don’t have a ton of data to work with for him up to this point, but he is the second-largest edge on the board right now in rank versus ownership.

GPP Pivot: Brian Harman ($7,100) – I love the ownership and leverage he can provide to builds

$6,000 Range

Sahith Theegala – Sahith Theegala is one of my favorite values on the board. His first place marks in bogey avoidance and scrambling should give him real upside to compete on the first page of the leaderboard if he brings his best stuff with him to Texas. 

Additional Dart Throws To Consider: Luke List ($6,900) – I could do without the ownership. Tom Hoge, Lee Hodges, Peter Uihlein, Trey Mullinax, Wyndham Clark, Francesco Molinari

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Hello everybody, and welcome back to ‘Tee 2 Green,’ a new article that I will be producing for Win Daily Sports weekly to give some extra insight into the DFS world of golf. My focus will be to discuss, decipher and dissect some of my preferred targets throughout the various price ranges, and I will always provide my opinion with a data-intensive outlook that you can see first-hand if you use the weekly model that I provide free of charge. You can find that here.

El Camaleon Golf Course

7,100 Yards – Par 71 – Greens: Paspalum

The best way to describe El Camaleon Golf Course would be as an exposed oceanside track that features jungle terrain and swampland. That is a unique mixture since you get three different textures with that description, but golfers will need to traverse various hazards, including those of the architectural variety.

There are very few locations on the PGA Tour where distance doesn’t hold an advantage over precision, but nearly 65 percent of all top-10 finishers during the previous eights years have been shorter than average off the tee. It’s not to say that distance is a negative, but accuracy players will undoubtedly see a boost. One of the reasons for that has to do with golfers clubbing down to avoid the plethora of hazards that come into play. The rough is virtually non-existent, but the misses do compound.

While scoring might be easy for the winners, this track isn’t a given! The point gets enhanced when we dive a little deeper into the actual metrics, as El Camaleon ranks near the top-10 on tour every season in birdie or better percentage and double bogey or worse rate. Mistakes will be made when balls get sprayed, and golfers can start to feel as if they are trapped in a tiny bubble once things begin to go wrong. The greens typically register between a 10-11 on the Stimpmeter, which is extremely slow, and we receive that set up so the surface doesn’t get away from the grounds crew if winds do play a factor. Overall, golfers that can find fairways off the tee and pinpoint their irons from a shorter proximity range should be at an advantage, and the ability to play on a slow surface should only help matters.

• Weighted Ball-Striking (25%) – That is something I geared heavily towards accuracy when making my total driving stat, and I then took a smaller percentage on GIR and added that to my total driving to come up with a ball-striking number.
• Weighted Proximity (15%) – That encompassed all proximity values, but 60% of the weight came from 0-150 yards.
• Weighted Scoring (10%) – As I previously noted, El Camaleon ranks inside the top-10 in both birdie or better percentage and double bogey or worse rate. I wanted to find golfers that would not only score but also protect against a big number.
• Weighted Par-Four (15%) – A lot of these holes are going to be your most difficult, and I did come back around on adding a percentage of bogey avoidance here to account for whatever I lost when doing a heavier breakdown of birdies over bogeys in the weighted scoring 
• Weighted Par-Five (12.5%) -These are reachable in two and have been the number one decider between the three par totals in figuring out top-10 finishers over the last few years. 
• Weighted Slow-To-Average Greens (12.5%) – That is a mixture of strokes gained total and putting on a slower surface. Some notable top-10 finishers there were Hadwin, Hatton, Matt Jones, Justin Thomas, Kuchar, Seamus and Ancer.
• Strokes Gained Total At Courses Under 7,200 Yards (10%) – I considered adding in scoring at easy courses to along with it, but the mistakes compound at the track, making how someone plays at a shorter track more relevant.

High-Priced DraftKings Players ($10,000+)

Justin Thomas (11,200) – Justin Thomas was the number one golfer in my model from an overall rank sense. Thomas did drop to fifth when looking for just upside, which is a little discouraging for the best player in the field, but most of that comes down to him being inaccurate off the tee. Thomas should be able to club down, and I think Andy Lack was spot on when he tweeted eight of Thomas’ 14 PGA Tour wins have come between October and January. The American is the number one golfer in this field when given a slower surface, and as would be expected, the 28-year-old ranks first in my weighted proximity category. A lot is pointing in his direction when we remove one trait he might be able to get around because of the length he can carry his irons, and it is hard to ignore his potential to lap the field if he is dialed-in.

Viktor Hovland ($10,900) – I have been saying for the last few months that Viktor Hovland is a hot putter away from winning again. Hovland ranks third in my upside model and has averaged 3.3 strokes with his irons over his last 10 trackable starts. The driver has been just as good, totaling positive strokes in 21 of his past 23, and he finally showed some life with his flat stick at the CJ Cup. The 24-year-old tends to run hot-and-cold with that aspect of his game, but he has followed up a positive showing on the greens with another the last four times he has started a new streak.

Abraham Ancer ($10,700) – If you listen to any of my shows regularly, you will know that I am never an Abraham Ancer guy. I find him to be overpriced because of his popularity throughout the industry, but I don’t believe that is the case here this week. Ancer has shown when he likes a particular track that he often keeps the run going, and we see that here with him having produced four top-21 results in a row. Tournaments like this where the top-three golfers in price are also the top-three on my board make it tough to avoid taking a chalky approach, but I believe you can always pivot elsewhere. I don’t mind a stars-and-scrubs strategy in this spot, and you can find yourself in a unique build by taking many different routes.

GPP Pivot – Tony Finau $10,600 – Finau has been erratic at this course with two top-16s and two missed cuts over his last four attempts, but I’ve noticed he performs better on these shorter tests sometimes than the bomb-and-gouge properties. That is not exactly what you would expect, but the data spells it out that way too, ranking fifth in this field at courses under 7,200 yards.

$9,000 Range

Scottie Scheffler ($9,900) – Scottie Scheffler could just as easily have been in the $10,000s if he didn’t provide two questionable showings in Vegas. I’d be more concerned if one factor of his game kept trending in the wrong direction, but this feels to be more of a situation where he just wasn’t clicking on all cylinders. I assume he will put the pieces together soon, and I find it relevant that he is a favorite in head-to-head matchups against Brooks Koepka, Billy Horschel and Tyrrell Hatton.

Favorite Pivots: Patrick Reed ($9,500), Shane Lowry $9,300 -Both are negative for me in price versus rank, but I don’t mind taking shots since it won’t take much for me to get overweight at five percent.

$8,000 Range

Cameron Tringale ($8,900) – If you are trying to figure out a spot to get contrarian, Cameron Tringale looks to be the natural GPP pivot off of Aaron Wise. Tringale’s course form doesn’t give you an idea that his upside might be as high, but the 34-year-old is a different golfer this season than he has been in his career. Tringale ranks fourth in my overall model and inside the top-40 of all weighted statistics.

Matthew Fitzpatrick ($8,800) – Matthew Fitzpatrick is the third-ranked golfer in this field in moderate-to-severe wind and is just a week removed from being the top-priced player on the board at the Bermuda Championship. Fitzpatrick isn’t necessarily a value for me on the surface, but any course that mimics Harbour Town will be one where I give him a second look.

Russell Henley ($8,200) – Russell Henley has been surprisingly bad at the course with two missed cuts and 29th, but as I have said numerous times throughout the week, I am not overly concerned with course history at this particular stop. Despite his popularity, I would use Henley as a GPP-only play because of some of the negative past trends, but he is top-10 in this field when it comes to weighted proximity, ball-striking, bogey avoidance and par-four scoring.

Mito Periera ($8,100) – Consider this a good price for a golfer who has demonstrated a high floor early in his career, and the fact we are getting him at a price tag outside of the top-20 golfers only enhances his ceiling since we don’t need as much upside for him to zoom past his built-in salary cap.

Other Thoughts: Sergio Garcia $8,700 and Maverick McNealy $8,500 are both in in play

$7,000 Range

Seamus Power $7,700 –   I know I keep stressing this point, but Seamus Power is an elite statistical golfer and has been for the past year.

Emiliano Grillo $7,500 – It is hard to say much bad about Emiliano Grillo at this track. I don’t love the popularity, but his four top-15 finishes in five tries can’t be ignored.

Ian Poulter $7,500 – Ian Poulter looks to be one of the better contrarian pivots. The Englishman is currently a small favorite over Seamus Power in a head-to-head bet, which is relevant since he is four times less popular. I like playing both but don’t forget to work the Poulter into your builds.

Brian Harman $7,300 – Similar mentality to the concept I just said with Ian Poulter. Brian Harman is -110 versus Emiliano Grillo at ownership projections of two percent versus 14 percent. Once again, find a way to work in both, but there is an opportunity to create leverage to your lineups.

Kevin Streelman $7,200 – I have a proper price on Kevin Streelman being in the mid $8,000s. The American is a positive value for me across the board in all game types, although the real value is coming from his upside in GPPs. Streelman ranked 10th for me from a statistical perspective and is 14th in that weighted proximity range I ran to mimic the event. 

Additional Thoughts: Justin Rose $7,900 (GPP), Joaquin Niemann $7,800, Talor Pendrith $7,200, Joel Dahmen $7.000, Brendan Steele $7,000 and Henrik Norlander $7,000 are all in play for me.

$6,000 Range

Chris Kirk ($6,700) – It didn’t quite work for me at the ZOZO when I went overweight on Chris Kirk, but this is another potential opportunity to grab him under the radar. Kirk is the largest model differential for DraftKings that I have, and he has been good at this property with four top-50s in his last four trips, including a seventh-place result in 2016.

Additional Dart Throws To Consider: Tom Hoge $6,900, Ryan Palmer $6,900, Charles Howell III $6,900, Scott Piercy $6,900, Guido Migliozzi $6,900, Stephan Jaeger $6,800, Ryan Moore $6,700, Graeme McDowell $6,600, Chez Reavie $6,600, James Hahn $6,400, Brian Stuard $6,300, Eugenio-Lopez Chacarra $6,000 – I love the $6,000 range this week.

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