At this point in the tournament, chaos is the new normal. Kurt Kitayama leads Brandon Wu (who?), Keith Mitchell, Hank Lebioda, and Joseph Bramlett, who all sit inside the top five and tied for second. Round 3 will be starting an hour earlier because excessive winds will be blowing away on the field later in the afternoon. Trying to play weatherman in this tournament has been more frustrating than Maverick McNealy's five total birdies through two rounds. Tomorrow provides another fantastic opportunity to attempt to find the best tee times on the two courses that play remarkably easier than the other.
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 gravitating towards, as they could very easily bounce the following day at half the ownership.
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Ownership Analysis
Top Points Scorers
Kevin Tway made a double-eagle on Spyglass Hill today, with nobody rostering him to take advantage of the 16 points he racked up, outscoring 11 other golfers' R2 points total ... in one hole. This is the kind of environment we are trying to play showdown in, which is absolutely treacherous. Seamus Power blitzed the field with 63.70 points around MPCC.
Highest Owned Golfers
We said in our R2 article that everybody would be playing those on Monterey. 19 of the 20 highest-owned golfers teed it up on MPCC today. It must be noted that the field has been "fixed" so that the best players will play on Pebble Beach tomorrow, where we get a shot tracker, the majority of the cameras, and the tour hoping to capitalize on the handful of stars in the field playing the premier course of the three in rotation (Ignore that salary for the score column).
Going into Round 3, these are the color codes we will be using to identify who we want to target. 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 R2 (DK points include finishing position).
- Mega chalk: A popular player who played well yesterday.
- Chalk: a) A popular player who played okay yesterday b) A less popular player who played well yesterday.
- Pivots: a) A popular player who played poorly yesterday b) A less popular player who played okay yesterday.
- Leverage: A less popular player who played poorly yesterday.
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Round 3 Weather
The first tee time tomorrow is at 7:30 AM, which is an hour earlier than the first two rounds as the Tour is expecting high winds in the afternoon that they are looking to get ahead of. We will be stacking Pebble and Monterey early tee times. Monterey had the premier players on it today but has played the easiest of the three courses by some margin through the first two rounds. With the very clickable names heading to Pebble tomorrow, we should have some leverage opportunities on MPCC for R3 in some VERY windy conditions. ***Please note that the below tee times will be an hour earlier than listed (the formatting makes it too tedious to change each time to an hour earlier).
Round 3 Power Rankings
These golfers can all be considered for cash games or double-ups. The model has not accounted for the courses the golfers will be playing, which just goes to show how the talent was biased to the two waves ending on MPCC and Pebble. PLEASE NOTE: If you want the entire showdown cheat sheet, it's free to download here.
The Monterey (Chalk) Squad
Early tee times going off MPCC and Pebble are going to be popular clicks. If a golfer has been playing well so far, he will be even more popular.
$10,000: Nobody.
$9,000: Nobody.
$8,000: Nobody.
$7,000: Nobody.
$6,000: Nobody.
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: Let's click a little Jordan Spieth, who has yet to really have a solid round yet. We have seen the magic he produces around Pebble, which came in rather low-owned today and never produced as Viktor Hovland did. He will probably come in at half Viktor's ownership with the model suggesting they are evenly matched tomorrow.
$9,000: Tom Hoge in Round 3 is a must-roster. Thomas Detry. Matt Fitzpatrick has a little redeeming to do tomorrow after some rather abysmal finishes to his first two rounds...
$8,000: Dean Burmester.
$7,000: MJ Daffue.
$6,000: Kyle Westmoreland, Tyson Alexander.
The Leverage Lads
The lowest-owned golfers should give us the most leverage in a DFS Showdown slate.
$10,000: Nobody.
$9,000: Nobody.
$8,000:
$7,000: Davis Riley is absurdly priced for somebody with his upside, which we may see tomorrow with zero pressure on his shoulders. Mark Hubbard, Kevin Kisner, Danny Willet, Carl Yuan.
$6,000: Cody Gribble, Nick Watney, Michael Gligic, Kevin Tway.
Good luck this week, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!!
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