RADIO
Kevin Yu are the round 1 leader of the Farmers Insurance Open and lead the seven other golfers T4 or better who all played on the North course in R1. On the South side, the two guys with all the tricks are both Nicks. Nicolai Hojgaard and Nick Hardy blistered the South course, shooting -5 and gaining the second-most strokes of the day to end up T9. Nick Hardy gained 5 strokes ball striking, while Hojgaard played the course blind as rain and a Wednesday start only saw him playing 9 holes of pretournament golf on the North course after travelling from Dubai on Sunday. Just a casual 12-hour time difference.
Some really big names played really poorly, with about 4/5 of my outright card unlikely to make the cut, never mind win. Some honorable mentions to have lost a stroke or more today: Sepp Straka, Sahith Theegala, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley, Sungjae Im and Will Zalatoris. Some of them head to redemption on the North course looking for a low one, while others head South, with their hopes and dreams of weekend golf heading the same direction.
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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Round 1 Analysis
Winning Lineup - All Northerners
Round 1 DK Points Leaders - LoL
Round 1 Ownership Leaders - LOOOOOL
Weather, Course Conditions & Tee Times
Breathless and cool. Course is still rather wet from the heavy rains earlier in the week, so golfers will be flag hunting in soft conditions. No tee time edge to exploit really as the entire field is going off both courses and off both tees simultaneously.
Round 2 Strategy
Below are the number of times a score lower than 67 has been shot on either course. 62s and 63s are non-existent on the South Course, and 64s occur at roughly triple the rate on the North course. As a result of this significant advantage between courses we are going to have find a few golfers who are low owned on the North course, while also constructing our roster by leaving some $$$ remaining so that if a lineup does get a little high owned, we can try avoid duplicates if it does well.
We are going to be playing most golfers playing the North Course as trying to predict which golfer will play well on the South, is just too random and even if they have a good round at low ownership, somebody on the North course in the same salary range is likely gaining less strokes but scoring more DFS points because of the 2 shot difference in difficulty. Of course, Collin immediately debunks our theory here as he has played the South Course incredibly well in the past.
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Showdown Model
Below are the power rankings of the golfers who we have our eye on for Round 2. The full-field model is available to premium subscribers HERE. It includes ownership projections, pre-event rankings, round-specific scoring averages, birdie percentages, weighted approach ratings, projected points, and GPP/Cash Ratings for tomorrow's showdown slate.
***Full disclosure: The ownership numbers are based on the $1 20 ENTRY MAX, which is important to note as ownership in showdown can vary from contest to contest depending on field size and entry fee. However, it should provide you with a guide to who will be the most owned and how those around them shake out.
$10,000+
Xander Schauffele is the only golfer priced in the $10,000 range that is playing the North course. However, in the 7 rounds he has played on the easier course, he has yet to gain more than 1.3 strokes on the field. He is playing really good golf, and with Collin and Cantlay playing the South, he could eclipse 50% tomorrow depending on contest.
He could also overcome his poor form on this course, but in seven of seven trips around here, he has yet to have a showdown winning round for his price tag and ownership. If we brace for impact and fade him tomorrow, we could eliminate 50% of the field if history repeats itself for the eighth time. If he plays well, we are still competing against the other 50% of the field and the other guys who are going to be playing our favorite play in the $9k range.
Dabble a little: Collin Morikawa is going to come in around 7% on the South course and he has the best all time strokes gained average on the South Course in this field, by half a shot over Xander who is in 2nd. Collin is playing incredible golf right now and if anyone can go ridiculously low by hitting loads of fairways and greens in soft conditions, its him. I'll be throwing him into about 20% of my lineups.
$9,000+
Favorite play: Fading the two highest priced golfers on the North course is a little too aggressive for my liking, so we are going to roll out Max Homa with half of the field. Homa typically gets off to a bit of a slow start in R1, but is R2 strokes gained average is much more desirable and is one of the best in the North field. He also has a significantly better track record on the North course than his $10k playing partner. It's going to be a little gross playing Max at this ownership, but we are going to either play him with Morikawa or leave some $$$ on the table.
Other options: Tony Finau and Jason Day
$8,000+
Favorite play: Christiaan Bezuidenhout heads to some Bentgrass greens which we grew up playing most of our golf on in South Africa as juniors coming through the ranks. I can proudly say that I beat him in match play back in our junior days. He was -2 heading into the 14th hole on the South course and then bogeyed three of the next four, tossing a birdie in there on 16 and then parring the par 5 18th. If he can continue to rep out birdies like he did at the AMEX a week ago and play like he did for the first 13 holes, his $8,000 price tag will help squeeze a few more better quality golfers into our lineups.
Other options: Lots of $6k golfers especially when playing Homa Kawa combos.
$7,000+
Favorite play: Taylor Moore is averaging just shy of a stroke gained when combining his North course history and R2 SG average. At $7,400 and after a really impressive -4 under 32 on his final nine (the front side) gaining 3.5 strokes over that stint, we are looking to keep riding that momentum with him. Taylor also grades out really well on approach and spike putting, which we are hoping to have Moore of on a course Taylored for him in R2.
Other options: Stephan Jaeger, Adam Svensson, Tom Hoge
$6,000+
Favorite play: Chan Kim came off a really solid performance at the AMEX and has a really impressive R2 SG average. He lost -4.5 strokes putting today but we are going pretend like that never happened on the tougher South course with Poa greens. His easy scoring average splits are much more appealing than his medium and difficult ones. With eight rounds of 66 or better on the North course in R1, if Kim can be one of those in R2 and hopefully roll them in for the Chan Gang on the Bentgrass greens, we will be delighted.
Other options: Alexander Bjork, Francesco Molinari, Jacob Bridgeman, Ben Martin, Norman Xiong, Erik Barnes, Roger Sloan, Mac Meissner
Showdown Optimizer
The optimizer works nicely with the projected ownership from the model. If you are unsure how to work it, at the top of the "PGA Lineup Optimizer" page, there is a video on how to get my projected ownership and/or projected points into your optimizer.
Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.
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