PGA DFS Picks - Round 3 Showdown for 2023 Sony Open

Uh, *Jordan* what is going on? Yesterday we asked the same question about Tom Kim. Today Jordan Spieth started R2 in the lead and landed up missing the cut while amassing a whopping 11 DraftKings points, only 24 points less than field average. He did so as the second highest owned golfer on the slate, at roughly 30% ownership across different contests. As readers of this article, hopefully we all dodged that bullet and played 2% Nick Hardy who was the NUTS in R3. Granted, I had Emilliano Grillo and Co. in my Hardy lineups so that never worked out either. There are ZERO $10k golfers available for tomorrow R3 slate. Truly a remarkable sequence of events.

This article is going to take a look at showdown slates 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 more often than not this can make you feel like an unsuccessful DFS player, but every now and then 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 previous round's top performers and duds 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.

Ownership Analysis

Going into Round 3, these are the color codes we will be using to identify who we want to target based off what we think their ownership will be. Think of it as a traffic light with four colors. Stop at mega chalk and go when we see leverage that makes sense.

By taking a look at yesterday's ownership, we can get an idea of where people will be willing to go in R3 (DK points include finishing position).

• Mega chalk: A popular player who played well.
• Chalk: a) A popular player who played okay b) A less popular player who played well.
• Pivots: a) A popular player who played poorly b) A less popular player who played okay.
• Leverage: A less popular player who played poorly.

Top Points Scorers

Highest Owned Golfers

Lowest Owned Golfers Who Scored 40+ Points

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Round 3 Power Rankings

These golfers can all be considered for cash games or double-ups. My power rankings for round 3 are calculated as follows: Pre-event Ranking (50%) + Round 2 Scoring Average (37.5%) + Birdie or Better % (12.5%)

The Chalk Squad

There are no $10K golfers to select for tomorrow's slate. Something that does not happen often and provides a really unique opportunity to take advantage of very friendly pricing if we can dodge ownership effectively.

These golfers should be the most owned tomorrow based on their round 1 performance and general skill level (Pwr Rnk). As usual, we are going to give most of these golfers a skip, as their ownership is going to be bonkers. Rahm could come in a 50% owned, based on his play yesterday and pretournament popularity, with Collin's price and performance most likely getting him close to 40%.

***PLEASE NOTE: The following three sections have filtered out any player with a power ranking below zero as we want the best golfers to choose from. If you want the entire showdown cheat sheet, it's free to download here. I have added a projected ownership column that is a very rough approximation using that is simply there to provide a ballpark number.

$10,000: Nobody.

$9,000: Nobody.

$8,000:  Nobody.

$7,000: Nobody.

$6,000: Nate Lashley, Stewart Cink.

The Pivot People

These guys find themselves in the middle of the leaderboard. Their round did not go entirely according to plan, and we are banking on them to bounce back today.

$10,000:

$9,000: Corey Conners, Brian Harman, Russell Henley.

$8,000: Adam Scott, Cameron Davis (will probably still be popular and should probably be in the chalk squad section).

$7,000: Matt Kuchar, Aaron Baddeley, Eric Cole, Harris English, Andrew Putnam

$6,000: Justin Suh and Danny Lee

The Leverage Lads

The lowest-owned golfers who should give us the most leverage in a DFS Showdown slate.

$10,000:

$9,000: Tom Hoge will be in A LOT of my lineups. 

$8,000:

$7,000: Brendan Steele, Troy Merrit

$6,000: Austin Smotherman, Nick Taylor, Davis Thompson

Good luck this week and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!

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