RADIO
Byron's top PGA DFS lineup picks for FanDuel, DraftKings. The Round 4 showdown slate for the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open.
We have a fully-fledged Farmers Insurance Open on our hands in San Diego. The first four names on the leaderboard are all from across the pond, with all five pursuers in T5 from North America (we have one Canadian in there). The four Americans in fifth were on the KFT tour as recently as December, with Taylor Montgomery in his second year on tour after graduating from the KFT in 2022.
Names like Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Will Zalatoris (is he back from his back?), Emiliano Grillo, and Ludvig Aberg all sit four shots back of Stephan Jaeger in a 10-person tie for T10. A stumble out the gates from the leaders and this tournament is wide open. I am very excited to see how it all unfolds tomorrow.
You can find me on Twitter/X 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.
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Finishing Position Points vs. Ownership
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. Code NEW (*ends this week) will get you 30% off our PGA platinum package, which ends up being $17.40 a month. Basically a "top-10 golfer in the world priced in the $7K range" kinda value, if you want my honest opinion.
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.
Bozo Brainwash Brigade
If I were to guess the most duplicated lineup tomorrow, this is most likely it. Folks... don't be like the 25+ people who play these six guys in the same lineup. How do you expect to profit when you enter a $5 entry to win and split it with 1.5% of the field ... IF you it the nutz? The chance the leaderboard ends up looking like this tomorrow is VERY unlikely! Don't be a part of the Bozo Brainwash Brigade, please.
Round 4 Strategy
With birdies not as readily available on the South course, finishing position points are relatively more important but are not the be all end all. A great round from somebody sitting three or four shots outside the top 10 can really vault them up the board at significantly lower ownership than a birdie fest, as the lack of scoring points will have people more focused on where golfers find themselves on the leaderboard after R3.
Fortunately, for us, points are awarded for position on leaderboard after R4, which we will try anticipate. Just because you are sitting in the top five right now does not mean after R4 it will be that way. In fact, it's likely half of the top five names will be new ones after R4 ends. We just need to figure out who they will be.
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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 $5 PGA SHOWDOWN 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.
$10,000+
Favorite play: Xander Schauffele easily has the best Sunday Charge rating in the field. He is a California bull, looking to lower his horns at the red blotches of every flag ahead of him (all six flags ahead of him have red in them). He is most comfortable when he is chasing and on a course where he has played well historically. He also gained the fourth-most strokes tee-to-green this week, and all we need is the putter to warm up and Xander will be bucking and head butting those that get in his way on home soil. We are locking him into 100% of our lineups tomorrow as a result of all this reasoning.
Other considerations: Max Homa will find himself in the stars and scrubs portion of the Xander lineups. Starting lineups with these two guys leaves you with a $7,250 average remaining for your other four spots, but with a few appealing $6K names south of $6,500, we can quickly recoup our budget going forward.
$9,000+
Favorite play: Keegan Bradley is old school. He is passionate and emotional about the game he loves. He wants to play on the next Ryder Cup and do so by qualifying for it through objective points rankings. He will not give up on a tournament, especially if he is sitting T38, only three shots back of T10. A marvelous round from Keegan can vault him up the board, while gaining all those birdie points. He has immense upside and I think his time to shine this week comes in R4.
Other considerations: Nicolai Hojgaard is the only golfer in this price range sitting inside the top five who I am willing to eat the ownership on.
$8,000+
Favorite play: Sahith Theegala is likely going to be lacking finishing position points, but on a course he has thrived on (scoring 47 fantasy points on the South Course in R2), we are going to hope for a similar, if not better, performance from the Pepperdine product. Low ownership with inversely high upside is what we are looking to complement a Xander + Hojgaard lineup with and Sahith is going to be that guy. Or even Xander, Zalatoris lineups. He adds more water to a concentrated bucket of ownership, while providing slate-breaking scoring potential.
Other considerations: Justin Rose, Will Zalatoris
$7,000+
Favorite play: Alejandro Tosti is my boom or bust low priced performer. Sitting in T27 he has enough firepower to crack the top 10 at a flat $7,000, but he has the ability to completely self-combust in an Argentinian inferno of doubles and despair. It happened last week, but we are hoping that our fiery Phoenix friend emerges from the AMEX ashes and sings his song with powerful precision and shoots our entries up the leaderboard like a perfect piece of Tosti (I couldn't help myself).
Second Favorite play: Maverick McNealy at $7,000 really has my attention as a long shot who is sitting T10 and can have the best putting round of the week on these Poa greens he grew up on. The top of that board is littered with randos who can all stumble out the gate and bring a lot of the fiend back into this. His putter can be the ultimate equalizer and if it gets nuclear, we want to be the ones wearing the hazmat suits, ruthlessly radiating points at our fellow DFS fantasy competitors, who we wish nothing but health and wealth in the real world.
Other considerations: Taylor Moore, Matthieu Pavon (our R3 top-five fighter), Nick Hardy, Sam Stevens, Mark Hubbard.
$6,000+
Favorite play: Rafael Campos had the 18th-most fantasy points in R3 and is once again priced as a bargain bin item. Hopefully not too many people start realizing that once Campos makes the weekend. Whatever moves got him to the dance, he doubles down on and continues to avoid bogeys while he boogies like it's 1989.
Other considerations: Parker Coody, Sami Valimaki, Trace Crowe
Good luck tomorrow, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor!!
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