The PGA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.
The fourth and final major of the 2017 year is here, and it comes at an exciting time: Many of the world’s top golfers are in excellent form, which should make for an exciting weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Course
Our Kelly McCann will have out soon a comprehensive course breakdown of Quail Hollow, the site of this year’s PGA Championship. I discuss the course in my piece on how to build the optimal model for Quail Hollow. To recap: Quail Hollow plays long at nearly 7,500 yards and thus favors golfers with distance off the tee. Even though the PGA Championship rotates sites every year, we still have a ton of information on Quail Hollow since the course typically hosts the Wells Fargo Championship. Whereas a course like Erin Hills — the host of this year’s U.S. Open — was relatively unknown, we only have to look at the bevy of information from Wells Fargo to see which types of golfers perform well here.
That said, some DFS users might not use Wells Fargo data when analyzing golfer history this week. I have seen analysts discuss history at the PGA Championship — a variety of courses — instead of history specifically at Wells Fargo. If that type of analysis continues, there could be a slight edge this week, as ball-striking is a tick more important at Quail Hollow than your usual PGA Championship venue. Don’t get me wrong: Distance is still important here. It’s just that it isn’t the only important thing, and metrics like Long-Terms Greens in Regulation (LT GIR) backtested well. Quail Hollow should do exactly what majors should: Highlight the best golfers in the world.
The Studs
He isn’t World No. 1 — that distinction still belongs to Dustin Johnson — but Rory McIlroy has everything you want out of a golfer at Quail Hollow. He is long with a 309.4-yard LT Driving Distance (DD), and trails only Jordan Spieth in the field with his 15.9 LT Birdie Average. Rory is solid in a ton of important metrics: His 68.0 LT Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score) is one of the best marks in the field, and he is fine hitting greens with a 68.8 LT GIR. He has struggled in 2017, especially over the last couple of months, averaging a -9.13 DraftKings Plus/Minus with a 40 percent Consistency Rating over his last 10 events . . .
. . . but he seems to be rounding into form, coming in fifth in last week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and fourth in the previous week’s British Open. He is the current favorite to win with a 13.3 percent implied probability, in part because of his elite course history at Quail Hollow. He has a 67.2 Course Adj Rd Score over his last five visits here, and his finishes have been excellent:
Of course, everyone knows about that — which is probably why he’s the Vegas favorite — and will thus be one of the highest-owned golfers of the week. Game theory warrants limiting exposure to him in guaranteed prize pools (GPPs), but it is scary to fade Rory at Quail Hollow; he’s the favorite for a reason.
Shortly after the event starts, pro Subscribers can review ownership trends in our DFS Ownership Dashboard and analyze exposure patterns in the new DFS Contests Dashboard.
That said, ownership is oftentimes distributed in loaded fields. Take a look at the ownership for the studs at the British Open a couple weeks ago (per the Ownership Dashboard):
Rickie Fowler was owned in a whopping 38.93 percent of Milionaire Maker lineups, but that was surprising; at the U.S. Open, for example, no golfer priced at $9,000 or above even approached 25 percent ownership in the Milly Maker. Rory and some of these guys will be popular, but given how they’re all playing it’s doubtful that any player will get close to Rickie’s 40 percent ownership a couple weeks ago. That was likely an outlier.
Perhaps the easiest way to stay chalky but also have a unique lineup in the Milly Maker is to leave salary on the table. Here was the salary breakdown for teams in the British Open MM (per our new DFS Contests Dashboard):
A whopping 38.4 percent of lineups used every penny of the salary cap, and dropping down to even just $49,500 in total salary provided a huge edge in terms of having a unique lineup. If you spent just $49,000, you only had to compete with 0.9 percent of users to create a unique lineup. And while you must still nail the winner of the tournament to win a GPP, the top-heaviness of the MM and other large-scale GPPs makes it worth being the sole winner.
Because salaries are released early for majors, you can track player rating movement across weeks. I built a Quail Hollow model early, and thus I was able to see which players got the largest boost from last week to this week based on new data. Some golfers saw their ratings tick up simply because they turned around poor recent performance — Brendan Steele, Adam Hadwin, and Ryan Moore had three of the biggest bumps from last week to this week — but others, and perhaps the most important bumps, were enjoyed by the top guys like Hideki Matsuyama. He didn’t just win the WGC-Bridgestone. He smashed it and its loaded field, posting a Sunday 63 en route to a five-stroke win. With his 67.5 Recent Adj Rd Score, he’s second in the field only to Spieth, who won the British Open before his 13th-place finish last week. Matsuyama is an ideal golfer for this course. He’s long enough and a good ball-striker: His Recent DD of 306.5 yards is more than sufficient, and his 72.2 percent Recent GIR is elite. This is why these studs are the best players in the world: When you combine length with elite ball-striking upside, you have a special player with major-winning potential.
Note that the ownership projections in our Models will continuously update leading up to the start of the tournament based on changing odds and analyst recommendations. It’s possible that someone like Jon Rahm could potentially have lower ownership than expected, and that’s always something to monitor. We talk about this topic more in this week’s PGA Daily Fantasy Flex podcast.
The Value Plays
There are two large pricing inefficiencies in the value tier with Tony Finau at $7,000 and Paul Casey at $7,800. The first is coming off a fifth-place finish at the RBC Canadian Open and has been excellent in 2017, posting a +17.47 DraftKings Plus/Minus with a 90 percent Consistency Rating over his last 10 tournaments:
And if you think that’s impressive take a look at Casey’s recent form:
Finau has the length to handle Quail Hollow: His 309.7-yard LT DD ranks fifth in the field, and his 13.7 LT Birdie Average is excellent for his price. Further, he has solid history here, posting a Course Adj Rd Score of 68.7 over the last two years. He has absolutely smashed the ball of late, posting a 321.2 Recent DD. Even if his 55.4 percent Recent DA isn’t elite, his 73.2 percent Recent Scrambling is. Only DJ has more Pro Trends (12) this week, although his obvious misvaluation should cause him to be one of the chalkiest golfers.
That’s true for Casey as well, probably to a stronger degree. The most important golf metric we have at FantasyLabs is LT Adj Rd Score, and Casey is sixth with a 68.3, trailing only DJ, Rory, Spieth, Jason Day, and Sergio Garcia. He’s tied with Matsuyama and ahead of higher-priced guys like Rahm, Justin Rose, and Rickie Fowler. I normally run a regression to create Vegas Bargain Ratings for majors, and I’ll do the same with LT Adj Rd in that piece on Wednesday; there’s little doubt that Casey will easily be the highest-rated player. What that means is this: Casey is one of the most talented golfers in the world, and he’s priced at only $7,800. He’s a no-brainer cash-game play, although, like Finau, he will likely be egregiously owned in GPPs.
One of my favorite ways to deal with chalky value plays is to pivot to golfers near them in salary. At the British Open, Matt Kuchar was (mis)priced at $7,200 and projected to be incredibly chalky. Pivoting away from him didn’t work in that situation since he finished second behind Spieth, but the process was still optimal. Golf is a volatile sport; Casey and Finau could very well miss the cut this weekend:
It’s a balance of equity. You have to give up a ton to fade Casey at $7,800, but you also will likely gain a ton of ownership equity. If Casey misses the cut or even is just merely in the top 30 while another golfer close to him gets a top 10, you’ll be sitting pretty in tournaments. Two potential pivots from Casey and Finau are Daniel Berger ($7,700) and Xander Schauffele ($7,000). Given their similarity in pricing to the chalk, they should have reduced ownership despite their excellent data. Berger has an excellent 68.7 LT Adj Rd Score and has posted a solid 68.8 Course Adj Rd over the past two years. His 16.7 Recent Birdie Percentage is one of the best marks in the entire field. Xander has averaged a +16.83 Plus/Minus with a 90 percent Consistency Rating over his last 10 tournaments and continues to get better every week: His 68.1 Recent Adj Rd Score is the seventh-best mark among all golfers. Berger will still likely be around 10 percent ownership, but Xander will almost certainly be in the single digits.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Jamie Lovemark: He’s been excellent of late, posting a +14.05 Plus/Minus over his last 10 tournaments; his 68.4 Recent Adj Rd Score is one of the better marks in the field. His 69.6 LT Adj Rd suggests he’s a value at his $7,200 salary, and he sets up well for Quail Hollow, especially with his 303.7-yard LT DD. He is currently projected for just two to four percent ownership.
Charley Hoffman: He will likely be chalky even with Finau and Casey around his price range ($7,600), but he’s also probably worth it. He’s averaged a ridiculous +25.74 Plus/Minus over his last 10 events; check out this recent game log (per our Trends tool):
He played in some loaded fields and absolutely held his own. He trails only Matsuyama and Chez Reavie with his 19.5 Recent Birdie Average.
Ross Fisher: I’ll leave some really contrarian picks for Kelly’s Five Under Five piece on Wednesday, but I do want to highlight Fisher, who is currently projected at just five to eight percent ownership. He’s an excellent play — his 304.6-yard Recent DD is good enough, and he came in 10th last time he played Quail Hollow — and non-PGA members could be undervalued. Only the PGA Tour has Shotlink data, and thus sites that don’t use conventional data (our proprietary Adj Rd Score does) will possibly undervalue good Euro Tour players like Fisher.
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Good luck this week!
