RADIO
We have a first-place party and one of the three guests' name is Marty, Marty Dou. He shot a -7 (64) to vault himself into a tie for first alongside Texas native, Ryan Palmer and one of two people who shot -8 (63) today, Austin Eckroat. Palmer has steadily been maintaining pace at the front of the field for most of the week, while the two other co-leaders were 4 and 5 shots behind him when R3 began. Scottie Scheffler sits two shots back after recording a level par (71). Vegas still has him as the favorite to win, though.
The general logic for 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. We will also be using my DFS Showdown Model which is available for premium members on the website and in our discord.
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.
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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 five, 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.
Round 4 Strategy
With golfers going off both tees in threesomes tomorrow, we are lacking an weather edge for AM vs PM as the leaders are simply 2 hours behind the course front runners.
I am going to suggest Scottie Scheffler ($12,500) but with a caveat that if you plan on entering only 1 or 2 lineups, to avoid him. By clicking on the World No. 2's name you leave yourself with $7,500 average salary for the next 5 golfers. Trying to isolate who the heck, below $8,000, is going to provide you with any predictable results is going to be really tough to do if you are not playing 20+ lineups. A "balanced build" that does not include Scottie would probably be the way to go with limited bullets in the chamber.
If you are playing 20+ lineups, then you probably want to lock him into at least half your lineups and hope that you can get all 5 of the mid-tier golfers in the remainder of your lineup to all have pretty solid performances. Because we are going to have at least 4 guys sub $8k in our lineup, the inconsistency put forth by golfers in that price range makes "hitting the nuts" rather difficult as somebody is inevitably going to shoot a poor round, which is why they are priced this way.
That being said, 20 golfers scored 50+ points in R3, with a whopping 16 of them priced below $7,600 for R4 which is basically what you would have left for the 5 remaining Scottie lineup spots. Now the tricky part is, of the 16 only 1 of them was 11% owned, 7 between 4-8%, and the other half 3% (2) 2% (1) 1% (3) and 0% (2). Trying to identify who exactly these miracle men in this range will be is ... tricky, but if you DO manage to put 5 low priced avengers alongside the Texas Hulk that is Scheffler, that may very well be "the nuts".
Wow, did not plan on typing that much about Scottie, but he poses such an interesting scenario at this ridiculous price tag, that my inner nerd simply could not resist. I am going to probably lock Scottie in 90% of my lineups and try get lucky with a fabulous five, but for those of you entering single entries or 3-max, I will provide some insight on candidates for that angle of attack using *bold to identify them.
Round 4 Power Rankings
The Power Rankings for Round 4:
These are the golfers I will be looking to slot into my lineups for round 4. The ownership numbers are projected for R4 of $6K CADDIE [SINGLE ENTRY], which is important to note, as contest size and entry fee impacts the ownership numbers of different golfers across the contests. Click here for a full field power rankings that is part of the DFS Showdown Model on RotoBaller's website.
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Top 10 Candidates (Chalk)
$10,000+: Scottie Scheffler!
*Jason Day sits in T4 alongside Scottie and will probably come in at similar ownership to him too, as he is the 2nd most expensive golfer but ... $2,400 !!!! cheaper than Scottie. You would have to scroll past 23 golfers to find the guy $2,400 cheaper than J Day. Anyway, J Day has been cooking on approach this week and has been hot and cold with the putter. He boasts a really impressive R4 SG average and is capable of making enough birdies to potentially catch the three ahead and not get caught from behind.
$9,000: Nobody.
$8,000: Nobody.
$7,000: Nobody.
$6,000: Nobody.
Top 10-20 (Pivots)
$10,000+:
$9,000: *Adam Scott has not really had the ball striking needed to sustain enough birdies to win, but he is a top-tier birdie maker and the way he is putting lately, he could be in store for a low round tomorrow.
$8,000: Sam Stevens is one good putting performance away from going nuclear - why not tomorrow?
$7,000: James Hahn has gained the 3rd most strokes on approach over the first 3 rounds. Mackenzie Hughes is due for a bounce back and has the short game magic to go low.
$6,000: Sean O Hair has been striking the heck out of his irons with only 5 guys gaining more on approach through the first 3 rounds.
Outside Top 20 (Leverage)
$10,000+: Nobody.
$9,000: Hideki Matsuyama is primed to make a charge up the leaderboard after tumbling down the leaderboard in R3. We saw him do it last year, almost winning the event with the leaders still needing to play the entire back 9 basically. Hideki has the 3rd best SG average in R4 since 2022 and is far enough down the leaderboard to provide some ownership leverage at his $9,700 price tag. We have a few $6,000 and $6,100 guys we will have to pair with Hideki to get us back into the $7k range for the next 4 Scottie sidekicks.
*Tom Kim has the 2nd best R4 scoring average and after a lack luster -2 (69) we can expect his second bounce back of the week at minimal ownership. Add another Tom Hoge to the mix, as he is an elite ball striker that has barely gained any strokes on approach this week. He made 7 birdies in R3 and shot -2...
$8,000: *Taylor Montgomery is -10 over his last two rounds and is far enough down the leaderboard that we could get another single digit owned Monty, who, has the 2nd best birdie or better % behind Scheffler. The week Stephen Jaeger finally decides to gain strokes putting, his stellar iron play gets left in the cellar... let's pair that fine wine iron play with some Gouda putting tomorrow, Jaegs!
Eric Cole loves himself a Sunday round as he has the 6th best R4 strokes gained average. Brandon Wu has been hitting his irons incredibly but has lost just shy of two strokes putting, which can easily turn around tomorrow.
$7,000:
We are basically going to play these next few guys in about 5-20% of lineups as this is the part of the range of golfers we are going to spam into our lineups hoping that 4 or 5 of them can all play well in the same lineup somehow.
Robby Shelton and Garrick Higgo both can tear it up on Sundays. When Cameron Champ makes the weekend, he typically continues to play well. Nate Lashley hasn't got hot with his irons yet and he is typically a really good iron player. Will Gordon please start making birdies? Harry Hall can light it up with the putter (he hasn't been) and is a solid R4 scorer.
Matthew NeSmith just floating around the middle of the pack waiting to shoot 59 and finish T5? Seonghyeon Kim has a solid R4 average for his price range. Jimmy Walker somehow shot over par today, which is disappointing for my T20 hopes, but being in the winning showdown lineup may help heal those wounds.
$6,000:
Andrew Novak and Lucas Glover both have been striking their irons well with little help from the putter. Satoshi Kodaira and Jonathan Byrd will be alongside Scottie Scheffler in a few lineups providing some salary relief. Justin Lower is having a really good week on approach and a little putter help will be ideal tomorrow. Stewart Cink can't shoot 66 or better three times in a row, can he?
Parker Coody made his first PGA cut and then struggled in R3. He jammed out on Friday to make the cut, and at $6,000 he has decent upside and maximum salary relief. I have no idea who Peter Kuest is, but he has gained over +1.3 OTT in all three rounds and seems like a decent putter at $6,000 #SalaryRelief Ryan Brehm got his bad round out the way today and hopefully bounces back tomorrow at $6,000.
If Chad Ramey could channel his inner TPC Sawgrass that would be great. Martin Laird is hitting his irons well and has improved on the greens each day. Doc Redman and Augusto Nunez have been hitting their irons well too.
Featured Group 3-Ball Bets
We have gone 2-1-3 (W/L/Push) in our first 6 "forced degenerate action" for the week.
Once I locate the featured groups for R4 I will update this part of the article.
Good luck tomorrow, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!
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