Is Line Movement Important?
How important is line movement in PGA DFS? That’s a question we’re debating here at FantasyLabs. In this week’s PGA Daily Fantasy Flex podcast for The Open Championship, Peter Jennings (CSURAM88) mentioned that Jon Rahm was highly owned in a high-stakes tournament on DraftKings for the Quicken Loans National because of his heavy line movement on Wednesday before the tournament.
Despite the reason for Rahm’s elevated ownership, PGA Director Colin Davy pointed to his recent study on line movement and came with a fairly hot take when he said, “Open-to-close line movement may not be all that predictive of DFS outcomes.” It has been widely assumed that line movement does matter. As DraftKings prices players before lines move, a lot of people believe that any movement thereafter represents an inefficiency to be exploited.
The fact is that some sharp DFS players rostered Rahm because of line movement. So what gives? — is it useful or not?
The Open Championship
Colin’s study measured all line movement for all tournaments, and he in that same article made two important points.
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Not all line movement is created equal.
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Line movement at different opening odds may mean different things.
Those are both excellent points, so as I give the line movement I’ve tracked so far this week for The Open Championship, I’m going to give it over a three-day period, show the difference in odds after movement for each player, and also measure the percentage difference. A full percentage point move for Jason Day isn’t the same as an identical move for Tony Finau, as they have drastically different baselines.
Here’s the table and let’s discuss some standout points below:
Analyzing the Movement
We see at the top an example of the same movement with different baselines: Dustin Johnson has moved from 10 percent odds to win to 10.5 since Monday, while Adam Scott has moved from 4.3 percent to 4.8. That’s a total increase of 0.5 points for both golfers, yet it represents only a five percent move from baseline for Johnson, whereas it is an 11.6 percent move for Scott.
The same is true for negative movement. Rory McIlroy has seen the largest dip in odds since Monday: He is down to 8.3 percent odds to win from 9.1. However, that difference (-0.8 total points) is actually less on a percentage basis (-8.8 percent) than Zach Johnson’s 1.8 percent to 1.5 drop (-0.3 points), which represents a -16.7 percent decrease from his baseline.
The question that we’re all unsure about is how to deal with line movements for the super-low implied guys. For example, Colin Montgomerie — a 53-year-old member of Royal Troon, by the way — has seen an increase of 33.3 percent since Monday, as his odds to win have jumped from 0.3 to 0.4 percent. If you were tricked by the huge 33.3 percent number at first, that’s the problem: At what point does movement start to matter? — for all golfers, but especially the lower-implied ones?
Tune in Later
Again, this topic is still a debate and we’re working toward answers. However, the data is still incredibly useful to have as you set lineups for tomorrow. If you believe line movement matters for DFS prediction, use the data to select golfers. If you believe it doesn’t matter for DFS prediction, use it to fade golfers likely to be over-owned in tournaments by those who do think that line movement is important.
And of course, tune in tonight to hear us talk about it some more on the FantasyLabs Live show.
