The PGA Championship is in the rearview mirror and we have seen a massive change in the ReignMakers market after the last two majors. The winner of the PGA Championship is not available on the market as Brooks Koepka is not even a PGA Tour member, but runners up Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler will be teeing up in the Charles Schwab Challenge this week.
If you are not familiar with ReignMakers, check out my "Introduction To ReignMakers Article" here, to get you up to speed with the basics and few more sneaky tips that can help you along your journey of building a player pool that can provide you with both short term and long term upside.
If there is something ReignMaker related that you would like to see in this article, feel free to reach out to me with your ideas. You can find me on Twitter an unhealthy amount of the time @TheModelManiac, if you have any questions, compliments, or insults for me. Let's make it Reign!!
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ReignMaker Strategy
Model Criteria
- A long-term rating of the golfer's overall skillset
- A combination of their strokes gained total L50 + their trajectory (how their SG Total was trending over a long/medium/short time frame)
- PGA Priority List # as we want to know which events a golfer will be able to play in.
- FedEx Cup Points (The Final Event of the season is the Tour Championship, which will feature 30 of the top FEC points scorers. The more FEC points you have right now, the better your chances are of making it to the Tour Championship, increasing the value of a card by end of the season)
- We will add the power rankings from my Masters model into the above ReignMaker rankings to come up with a short-term salary to compare to the market, to get a good feel for who short term targets will be.
The salary we will see in the remainder of the article will be catered to the lowest priced RARE cards (usually #/600 edition tier) on the market because 1) It is easier to manually update these prices by hand when filtering on the cheapest golfers in the tier 2) You can buy more of these cards to enter into contests, as they can be half the price of some of the #/120 edition tier cards, 3) RARE cards prices fit my personal budget so my information I share here will be what I use to make my own personal decisions.
Supply and Demand
It seems like if you want to make profit off selling your cards, the best time to do so is before a major, with the average price of cards hitting a 4 week high at last week's PGA Championship at $15.98. What goes up must come down, and the Charles Schwab Challenge has returned the lowest average price of cards since I started recording prices on Sunday nights, at $14.25. We have another major in 4 weeks time, so if you are looking to snag a few cards you have had your eye on or if you are just getting started in the ReignMakers world, now is the time to get your guys.
The most expensive golfers
The golfers who have seen the biggest dollar INCREASE this week
After 68 golfers saw a 50 cent increase in their price heading into the PGA, we now only have 31 with the same uptick in price this week. 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" is running out of marketable lolly pops the week after the 2nd major of the year. Viktor Hovland's dip heading into the PGA and then promptly shoving receipts of those sales into seller's faces with a T2, leads the way with almost a $15 increase, the most sizeable of the week by a long margin.
The golfers $5+ who have seen the biggest percentage INCREASE this week.
A solid showing at the PGA sees Cam Davis' NFT prices with the biggest % increase in price, heading to a positional course where he has typically thrived on. Callum Tarren also played nicely last week seeing his priced go up by 33%.
The golfers who had the biggest dollar DECREASE
Last week we saw 51 decreases of 50 cents or more, with that number getting blown out the water this week at a crisp 100 NFTs with a decrease of the same magnitude. In fact, 50 golfers saw their price drop $2.50, adding to the biggest drop in prices week over week since the Masters. The Tyrrell Hatton market has been an absolute roller coaster since the Masters with $36.50 being the low point Wells Fargo week and peaking at $85.50 last week, only to get dumped like a girlfriend who cheated on you with your roommate.
The golfers $5+ who had the biggest % DECREASE
Tom Kim taking his clothes off on the course didn't sit well with his card holders, seeing drastic drop in price too. Kuchar missing the cut at the PGA and then not teeing it up in Texas this week also sees his price take a hit over 40%.
Short Term Targets
Scottie Scheffler is a must roster as his worst finish in his 9 starts this year is a ... T12. LoL. The guy is a robot and now heads to a course in Texas, and we know Scottie loves to perform in his home state. If a $197 RARE is a little spendy, grab him in the CORE market and roster him that way. You simply have to have him in your lineups right now!
"Sungjae Im has played 109 rounds in the last 12 months, which is the most by TEN rounds of the 13 dudes who have gained 1.5 strokes per round over that stretch. Sungjae has averaged the 7th most strokes gained on tour in the last year and is the 9th most expensive player available which seems like some solid value." - PGA article. Rinse and repeat with Sungjae. His major track record is rather questionable, but now we go to a course where his accurate driver and tidy short game will shine, at a price $5 cheaper than it has ever been. We are talking about a golfer who tees it up in as many tournaments as he can, with SEVEN top 21s in his last 8 starts!!! What am I missing here? Buy buy buy!
Chris Kirk has made his last 5 cuts and is starting and heads to a course that suits his accuracy off the tee, validated by his SEVEN top-16 finishes at this event in his 12 showings since 2008, with one of those being a win in 2015. A lot to like about Kirk at this price this week.
"Christiaan Bezuidenhout has made 8 of his last 9 cuts at Majors and since changing coaches at the Players Championship, in the last 16 rounds he has played, finishing inside the top-30 all four times, he has averaged +1.06 strokes on approach gaining in 14 of them. That is 1.5 strokes better than the 16 rounds he played this year prior to the Players. He is a great Bentgrass putter and is an incredible talent out of greenside bunkers at $17." -PGA article. His price has gone down since the MC, which is great!!!
Guess what folks, although Bezzy missed the cut losing -4 strokes putting as one of the best Bentgrass putters on tour, he improved his SG Approach average to +1.16 over the last 18 rounds. Over the last two dozen rounds he ranks FIFTH in this field on strokes gained approach, with ... now check these names out ... Viktor Hovland and Tony Finau barely ahead of him and Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa averaging +0.15 and +0.26 more per round. I am VERY excited about the prospect of Bezuidenhout becoming a great iron player, especially with this ability to drain putts on demand. BUY BUY BUY!
Brendon Todd also missed the cut at the PGA, but that course could not suit his game less. He is a short accurate hitter that has gained the most strokes short game over the last 24 in this field. Did we mention that his last two starts here were 3rd and T8, and after a T8 two starts ago, his game seems to be trending in the right direction at $12.85.
Hayden Buckley had a nice showing at the PGA adding his T26 there to a stellar recent run of T43, T5, and T10 in his last 4 starts. He is second in strokes gained off the tee to only ... Scottie Scheffler (elite OTT), and after missing the cut here last year as not nearly the caliber of golfer he is now, he will look for a similar performance to that of the one he had at the Sony Open, finishing 2nd at a course that is a comp to Colonial CC.
Did you know RotoBaller has a Premium DFS PGA subscription? Like what you read today? You can show your support for Byron by using the discount code MANIAC when purchasing a PGA Premium Pass. You get 10% off and full access to all of our Premium PGA articles, DFS tools, models, projections and Lineup Optimizer! You also get access to weekly betting picks from Spencer Aguiar, one of the top betting minds in the industry.
End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod
2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 UnitsTotal Winnings: +311.229 Units
Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36
H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE
— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022
Long Term Targets
These are golfers that are not playing this week who have some long-term upside.
the Memorial
Jon Rahm saw his price drop significantly post PGA. It is time to grab him, as we get him teeing it up at the Memorial, which he has absolutely dominated at in the past, then the US Open, where he will be a co-favorite on the odds board, with the Travelers the week after. A lot of utility from the World No. 1 at a price that is $30 cheaper than Scheffler.
Patrick Cantlay has rattled off two high end finishes in his last two majors and despite his last 9 starts being no worse than T21, with FOUR top-5s, he is still not priced at $100 which I think is a fair price for one of the leading birdie makers on tour with a floor as high as snoop dogg!
Jason Day wins a tournament, openly admits he is not nearly prepared enough for the PGA Championship after the many obligations he had to fulfill after winning the Byron Nelson, not evening playing a practice round at Oak Hill. Very disappointing for somebody who bough my fair share of him leading into the week after his price barely moved post win.
However, he has had ample time to rest up and will be teeing it up at the Memorial where he finished T4 in 2020 and in some really great form. Unless he wins the Memorial and doesn't get a practice round in for the US Open, he will be very live to win out on the west coast where he has played some of his best golf over the years.
RBC Canadian Open
Cameron Young is a very promising talent, and his price has seen a bit of a dip since his T7 at the Masters four starts ago. I already have my fair share of him at a much higher price, and if you think he can get his game back to the level that saw him rattle off finishes of T7, 2nd, T10 and T20 in a five event stretch, $57 is well worth the price of admission. He will be playing the Memorial as well as this watered down field in Canada as an RBC ambassador.
Sahith Theegala has not been confirmed to tee it up in Canada, but he is also part of team RBC and has rattled off T20s in 42% of his starts, with half of them being top-5s. He is $45 and is currently 20th on the FedEx Cup points list, with a win seemingly imminent for the very talented 2nd year PGA professional.
How to get your hands on the model?
If you are looking to get your hands on my ReignMaker Model, it will be made available in the RotoBaller PGA discord for our premium members to utilize as they see fit. Use code: MANIAC for 10% off our weekly or annual premium packages that will get you access to this model, my showdown model, premium articles, DFS optimizers, research tools, and our discord where @TeeOffSports and I hang out throughout the week.
Useful Resources
I do a weekly ReignMaker show with @DraftMasterFlex on Mondays at 8ET if you want to tune into that for some more ReignMakers information that we will be discussing.
I really hope you enjoyed this article and found it useful to kick start your ReignMaker journey or to polish up on some things you may not have been sure about.
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