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Byron's top PGA live bets, rankings and PGA DFS lineup picks for FanDuel, DraftKings. The Round 4 showdown slate on 10/15/22 for the 2022 ZOZO Championship.
For those of you who have been loyally supporting Breaking $100, my very first article for RotoBaller, thank you! Your support has been rewarded with a slew of additional articles heading your way each week. This article is going to take a look at showdown slates, round matchups, and potential outright/T20 adds after each completed round. You can find me on Twitter an unhealthy amount of the time @TheModelManiac, if you have any questions, compliments, or insults for me.
My DFS style is very ownership-centric, and at times this can make you feel like an unsuccessful DFS player, but when a sneaky, low owned golfer comes through for you, it is all worth it. In this article we are going to break down the tournament's Ballers and Crawlers and use that information to derive a player pool full of upside and leverage.
The general logic to showdown has been to target golfers who played well the day before and particularly those who hit their irons well. This makes sense as you want to roster players who are playing good golf right now. These players will be higher owned and chalkier than golfers in the same price range, who had an off day, particularly with their irons. These are the golfers I am gravitated towards, as they could very easily bounce the following day at half the ownership. Adding finishing positions to the equation makes it even more fun.
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Finishing Position Points vs Ownership
Round 4 showdown adds the element of finishing position points to the mix. It provides an immense leverage opportunity for those of us brave enough to click on names with a T30 associated with them. There is a five-point difference between second place and 15th place, the points equivalent of one extra birdie in a player's round. If somebody sitting outside the top 20 entering round 4 has an amazing day, making only one extra birdie than the guys in the top 5, they essentially nullify the finishing position advantage. Did we mention that they will also come in at a quarter of the ownership?
Ownership in DFS is king. If you are part of the 2% of the field that has John Huh shooting -9, 98% of the field is missing out on those points. This is where money is made in DFS and if we ignore finishing position points for the most part, there is a decent chance that one of the top points scorers is sitting outside the top 10 entering round 4. There will be instances where the leaders continue to play well, and that is not ideal, but how many times have we seen a 45% owned overnight leader have his nerves get the better of him and shoot over par. In this scenario, you have a major edge over half the field.
Weather Watch
Mother nature will be going easy on the field, keeping winds low and temperatures in the mid-70s for most of the round. Winds don't appear to change too much throughout the day and temperatures in the 70's won't have much success at baking out the course as the day goes on.
Tee Times
The only relevance the weather conditions should have on today's event is to predict scoring conditions, which could see guys going even lower, with 20 golfers shooting -4 or better yesterday in windier conditions. All 78 golfers will be going off both tees within the space of two hours, so a weather edge is even more nonexistent.
Hole 18 has been the easiest hole on the course all week by a significant margin. Hole 1 has played under par two of the three rounds and hole 3 has played under par all three days. This is relevant because those that start on hole 10, have a decent opportunity to take advantage of hole 18 and turn that very likely birdie into a streak if they birdie holes 1 and 2. Hole 17 has played over par all three days, putting a wrench in the potential birdie streak holes 16, 17 and 18 could provide.
It is not a significant edge, but worth considering in tie breaker situations. The majority of players who will experience this mini edge, will also be significantly less owned. Maybe it's a bigger edge than we think?
Round 4 Power Rankings
My power rankings for round 4 are calculated as follows: Pre-event Ranking (50%) + Round 4 Scoring Average (37.5%) + Birdie or Better % (12.5%). Viktor Hovland is probably going to be owned by over half the field.
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The Chalk Squad
These golfers should be the most owned tomorrow based off of their position on the leaderboard entering round 4.
Chalk I have my eye on: Grillo, Hoge, NeSmith
The Pivot People
These are all golfers who sit at -6 or worse, mostly going off the 10th tee due to their position on the leaderboard. This group of players is exciting me more than it should, as we have Xander Schauffele, Tom Kim, and Hideki Matsuyama sitting in T26 and T31. These were the top three players in the power rankings and are going to be relatively low owned compared to Rickie Fowler and Andrew Putnam who are not in the same stratosphere as these studs when it comes to skill level and scoring ability.
About 80% of my player pool will consist of these guys, who all have immense scoring capabilities and should mostly be under 10% owned if not named Xander or Tom. Tom and Xander should still come in under 20% which is fine considering they are the two highest ranked players for round 4 and are still at half the ownership of most of the guys towards the top of the leaderboard.
My favorite plays will be Conners, Xander, Tom, Hideki, Sungjae, Collin, Mito, and Jaeger. Most of these names are exceptional players and rattling them off makes it seem like we are being very predictable, but their position on the leaderboard will have a lot of people ignoring them. Remember, one birdie more than somebody inside the top 10 basically nullifies any points advantage they started with.
Round 4 Matchups
(Viktor Hovland over Maverick McNealy: $13.50 @ -135 on DraftKings)
I typically try to return a unit on matchups, with $13.50 returning $10, which will be our theoretical unit for this article.
With no exposure to Viktor in DFS, we are going to have him as our matchup for round 4. Hovland is typically a much better player than McNealy and has found himself at the top of the leaderboard with way more regularity. Mav should be more conscious of his nerves and along with Hovland's overall superior skill level, we are happy to drink the juice the at -135.
Good luck and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!
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