PGA Stats & Plays from CheatSheetPros!
QUICK NEWS AND NOTES:
Last week we had a great play in Tom Lewis who was climbing the leaderboard and put up 109 DK points priced near the bottom on DK. Rickie Fowler was one of our favorite plays priced in the low $8Ks and he hung up top until the final day when he slid back down and couldn’t close it out. The strokes gained putting ranks on the green type vs. all other proved to be helpful and most of those golfers were in the top 30-35.
COURSE:
TPC Harding Park – Par 70 – Measured around 7,250 yards give or take depending on the tee box placement but they will stretch it out so could play closer to 7400.
GREENS:
Bentgrass greens with flat “easy to putt” on greens.
QUICK BREAKDOWN OF SOME KEY STATS:
Easiest holes to birdie on are the (2) Par 5s and they have a 40% and 26% birdie rate. There are also (2) Par 4s <350 that have 27% and 29% birdie rates. Those make up the 4 highest scoring holes on the course. Hardest holes are going to be (5) of the Par 4: 450-500’s as they all have a bogey rate of 25% and up. They range from 25% to 33%.
SG: OTT is going to be important this week and if you have ever read my articles I’m not an OTT fan but it will be in play this week. There are long narrow fairways lined with trees and thick rough. It will be devasting to miss the fairways. The greens are fairly flat and easy puttable surfaces so golfers who normally struggle to putt should do fairly well this week and have plenty of 10-15’ straight putts for birdies. Ball striking it going to be a big factor this week. We want golfer who are good ball strikers and good in their approach and proximity. I don’t mind taking the golfers who struggle with the putter this week *cough *cough Collin Morikawa…
WEATHER:
The course is not far from the ocean so the golfers could see all kinds of changes in weather. The most difficult will be the wind gusts up to 20 mph that will stay above the tree line and golfers won’t realize it until they hit a few shots. Thursday looks partly cloudy in the morning with 5-10 mph winds increasing to 15-25 mph in the afternoon wave. Friday will also be a little cloudy with wind speeds of 10-15 mph. Everyone is looking for weather on the internet and from people on Twitter, my thought is just look at where the course is and enter it on your smart phone and it will usually give you the hour by hour temperatures and wind speeds. So we are going to add golfers who are decent in the “moderate winds” this week to our player pool.
GOLFERS OVER 10,000 ON DK: “HIGH END STUDS”
To win a GPP you need to have the “Winner” in your lineup so we are going to start up top as those are the golfers with the most likely odds to win the tournament. I don’t spend a ton of time on the high end golfers because they are the most discussed but I’ll hit on a few.
JUSTIN THOMAS (11,300 DK / 11,600 FD) – Why not start at the very top! JT is the highest priced golfer this week coming off the come back win at the WGC. He was #1 in the field last week in SG: T2G at +3.27 (Chez Reavie was +3.02 right behind him and they were the clear leaders of the tournament.) Thomas is coming off the win, then an 18th at the Memorial and a 2nd place finish where he lost the playoff to Morikawa. His game is as good as it gets right now. On the cheatsheet this week I pulled the last 36 rounds and he ranks #1 in T2G, #2 in APP and 15th in OTT. His P3/P4/P5 scoring is 20th, 2nd and 10th. Outside of the crazy difficult course played for the Memorial he hasn’t shot a round over +1. If you take out the Memorial tournament his last 8 rounds are -4, par, -4 and -5 from last week with -4, -6, -6 and -3 at the Workday. He has a scoring average of -2.55 per round across his last 22 rounds and that is after shooting a +2, +3 and +2 at the Memorial. 3 of his last 5 tournaments he has put up over 110 DK points.
BROOKS KOEPKA (11,100 DK / 11,400 FD) – We have to bring up Brooks because of his amazing major streak. He only plays the other tournaments for sponsors and doesn’t really seem to give it his “all” so to speak. In the PGA Championship (keep in mind it moves courses) Brooks has finished 1st, 1st, 13th, 4th and 5th over the last 5 years. Coming off back to back wins and looking for a 3rd. He has been struggling with his left knee and I’m not 100% sure what happened but he seems to be improving after his T2 last week. Brooks can also go “low” and we like that for GPPs. He shot -8 in the first round last week and then at the RBC he busted out a -4, -5, -3 and -6. I won’t focus on his ranks because of his knee issues and we all know Koepka is a stud.
XANDER SCHAUFFELE (10,000 DK / 11,100 FD) – Xander is a grinder! He just chucks out consistent points and stats and stays in that top 25 on the leaderboard week in and week out. He has put up 87, 75, 90, 88, 79 and 106 DK points since the return for an average of 87.3 DK points per tourney. Now that isn’t a great return value on a 10k golfer over on DK but that is better than the 76.3 average Rory has put up or the 74.3 that Jon Rahm has been sitting at since the return.
HIGH PRICED FADE OF THE WEEK:
BRYSON DECHAMBEAU – He has the highest ceiling of all the top end golfers since the covid return at 146 DK points and an average per tournament of 94 DK points (which is also the highest). But he is a bomber who puts out these massive 360+ yard drives and he can’t do that this week. With all the trees and the extreme rough this could be a week that Bryson struggles more than he did last week. Bryson is a great golfer so don’t get me wrong but I’m not on him this week. He looks awesome on paper when you see the 5th in T2G, 1st in OTT and 4th in putting. However, when you look at the stats for this week you see 77th in APP and 89th in proximity. Off all the top end golfers and I consider these are the guys over 5 figures on DK he has the lowest SG: APP actual number at +0.24 on the season. If you are curious they are on the cheatsheet but I’ll give you the top guys here. Justin Thomas +1.21, Rory +0.71 are the top 2.
GOLFERS 9,000 – 9,999: “UPPER MID-RANGE”
PATRICK CANTLAY (9,400 DK / 11,000 FD) – I am between Cantlay and Webb for my favorite in this pricing tier of only 4 players. Cantlay struggled the first two rounds last week putting up an ugly +3 and +2 but they finished strong with a -5 and -3. He ranks really well for this type of course and has an average of 82.5 DK points per tournament (over the 4 he has played since the return) and an average of -1.4 strokes per round and that includes an ugly +7 at the Memorial. Cantlay is a great ball striker and he is at +1.53 strokes gained per round in ball striking which is the highest behind JT and Rory. He is also +1.01 strokes gained on APP and +1.71 on T2G. He has 4 top 35 finishes since the covid return and I consider him a pretty “safe” play for the week. Another note to add is that he is +1.49 strokes gained in heavy wind conditions so they likely won’t affect him as much as some of the other golfers.
WEBB SIMPSON (9,700 DK / 10,900 FD) – He is going to fall as my #2 favorite play in the $9k range. I can’t get behind Tiger due to his ownership levels and his only recent tournament was the Memorial and he has two rounds of +4 each. Dustin Johnson always shows up for the majors but after shooting a +7 and withdrawing at the 3M and then +8 and +8 at the Memorial I just have a sour taste on him. Webb is solid as he ranks 12th in T2G, 7th in APP, 20th in P and 4th in Par 4 scoring but my only concern is his 62nd rank in OTT and 58th in GIR:G. Those two stats had my drop him behind Cantlay but still strongly ahead of Tiger. Webb is also a solid wind player and ranks at +1.01 strokes per round in heavy wind conditions.
GOLFERS 8,000 – 8,999: “THE SWEET SPOT”
COLLIN MORIKAWA (8,600 DK / 10,700 FD) – Morikawa is a great irons player and is crazy accurate but can’t putt to save his life. Watching him on TV lineup a putt makes me want to scream. But he is a PGA golfer and I’m an arm chair QB so I’ll give him the advantage. He ranks 3rd in T2G, 3rd in APP over the last 36 rounds but ranks 133rd in putting. If you read the above this course is FLAT GREENS and should be EASY to putt on and they should mostly be straight putts. Someone like this who is crazy accurate at hitting greens and OTT could do really well here. He is #1 in ball striking on the year at +1.79 strokes gained and that is out of ALL PLAYERS on the cheatsheet this week. Ok so you probably scrolled back up to see what JT’s number was and it was +1.78 so he is putting up JT “like” stats at a much cheaper price point. We like that he can get “low”. At the Workday he shot 3 amazing rounds of -7, -6 and -6.
JASON DAY (8,400 DK / 9,900 FD) – He make the list due to his current form and he ranks 26th in putting on Bentgrass (vs. 83rd in all other surfaces). Day is not a great ball striker and ranks just +0.42 in ball striking on the season. He is coming off a 6th, 4th and 7th place finish in his last 3 tournaments. Day is also a great “wind” plays and ranks at +1.67 strokes gained in moderate winds and he is over +1.00 in heavy winds. He was +1.44 strokes gained ball striking last week so don’t want that earlier +0.4 number to scare anyone off. In the last 5 PGA Championships he has 5 top 25 finishes including a 1st, 2nd and 9th before going 19th two years ago and 23rd last year. Solid value! He also has put up 97, 81 and 97 DK points across his last 3.
HIDEKI MATSUYAMA (8,200 DK / 10,600 FD) – Just like Morikawa we want to look for lower priced golfers who are great ball strikes but struggle with the putter. Hideki was the second guy that came to my mind. Hideki is +1.48 strokes in ball striking and +1.90 on T2G but ranks a horrible -0.52 with the putter. Since we have easy greens we might get some value here. Hideki is coming off a 20th, MC, 22nd and 21st place finish. He has done well at the PGA Championship putting up a 16th, 5th and 4th all in the last 5 years and then a 35th and 37th the other two years. Just Morikawa he is 2nd in T2G, 4th in APP and 146th in putting.
GOLFERS 7,000 – 7,999: “The LINEUP FILLERS!”
GARY WOODLAND (7,900 DK / 9,800 FD) – Wow there are a ton of 7000 range golfers on DK this week! Let me start with Woodland because he has played here before when I believe he lost in a playoff… Can’t remember exactly. He is +0.96 in ball striking and +0.81 in T2G. He has finished 8th and 6th in the last two PGA Championships and he has the length off the tee if he needs it. Woodland also ranks 22nd in strokes gained putting on Bentgrass vs. 59th on all other surfaces and he is +0.89 strokes in heavy wind conditions. Woodland averages about -1.2 strokes per round and only 64% of his rounds are below par since the covid return. But we have seen him get hot and make moves.
ADAM SCOTT (7,800 DK / 10,000 FD) – Scott is a great golfer in any wind conditions as he ranks +1.42 and +0.94 strokes get per round in moderate winds to heavy winds respectively. We haven’t seen Scott since the covid layoff but I could of swore that I was reading and article and he won something during that time. Anyways, I’m unable to find the details on it quickly so I’m going to move on. He is the 9th ranked golfer in the world and in his last 36 rounds played he is 11th in T2G, 15th in APP, 11th in driving distance and even 9th in GIR:G. Scott has finished 8th and 3rd in the last two PGA Championships. He is +0.56 in ball striking and +1.13 in T2G.
SERGIO GARCIA (7,600 DK / 9,500 FD) – Interested to see the ownership on Garcia this week. He is 137th in putting in his last 36 rounds but has solid ball striking numbers at +1.44 and +1.95 in T2G. he has 3 top 35 finishes and he has missed his last 4 cuts at the PGA Championship. If his ownership comes out sub 4% I’m going to grab some shares as he fits the mold of a solid ball striker and horrible putter. Garcia is also over a stroke gained in moderate AND heavy wind conditions.
JOAQUIN NIEMANN (7,300 DK / 9,000 FD) – This might also be a lower owned play considering the field depth. 21st in T2G and 8th in APP and 138th in putting. Wow we just keep getting this same format of players, I think I found my Milly Maker strategy. He hasn’t done anything amazing recently but he is +1.22 stroke gained ball striking and that is one of the highest 7 in the 7k range on DK.
TOM LEWIS (7,100 DK / 7,600 FD) – He is coming off a great 2nd place finish last week and also put up a 32nd and a 12th in his prior 2 events. He has put up 109, 78 and 92 DK points across his last 3. He started off rough last week with +3 and then a par but then came back in round 3 with a -9. One of our members played the $444 entry showdown and I believe there was 200 players and he was the only one that had Tom Lewis and he ended up taking it down. Tom has an average per round score of -2.43 and 71% of his rounds are below par. He finished last week at +1.90 strokes gained in ball striking so a good start heading into this week.
RICHY WERENSKI (7,000 DK / ?? FD) – This guy is RED HOT right now! He won the Barracuda Championship last week since he wasn’t invited to the WGC. Prior to that he finished 3rd, 35th, 21st and 46th. He is priced so low this week for his upside. No I don’t think he is going to win here but he is on fire right now and putting up solid rounds. At the 3M he put up an opening round -8 and followed that up with a -4, -3 and -1. He has an average of -2.05 strokes per round and 70% of his rounds are below par.
HARRIS ENGLISH (7,200 DK / 9,300 FD) – Now we are just getting into some crazy pricing. I just paid around $9k for him on DK a couple tournaments ago but I know the field was really week. He is +0.92 in ball striking and +1.09 in T2G. He is coming off 3 finishes in the top 18 and putting up an average of -2.05 strokes per round and 71% of rounds below par. He is also someone that can go “low” and has rounds of -6 and -7 since the return giving us a good ceiling for GPPs and showdown slates.
SHOWDOWN THOUGHTS:
I love playing showdown slates on Draftkings. Don’t forget the players that you were high on before the tournament started. Last week was a good example when we had a member put in “Tom Lewis” in the round he shot -9. I almost died when he sent me the lineup because I was really high on him pre tourney and then he got swept under the rug after and opening around +3 and then par. Won’t happen to me again! Good luck everyone!
Thanks for reading,
Haze