RADIO
We have 3 rounds of golf left at the Texas Children's Houston Open and Scottie Scheffler is already +120 to win the tournament. Wyndham Clark sits five shots back of Scheffler and is double the odds to finish top five. We are in some seriously unchartered territory with Scheffler right now.
I guess we should give Wilson Furr a shoutout, as the rookie who earned his card through the KFT sits atop the leaderboard at -6, alongside Taylor Moore, who has now gone a year and a week without a PGA Tour victory, failing to defend his title last week despite a valiant effort to finish T5.
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 toward, as they could very easily bounce the following day at half the ownership.
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Round 1 Analysis
Winning Lineup
Four golfers sub 10% ... showdown is a silly game. Despite only five of the 19 top points scorers going in the PM wave, Shawnzhan managed to squeeze two afternooners in his winning lineup for R1.
Round 1 DK Points Leaders
A lot of AM green.
Round 1 Ownership Leaders
Weather, Course Conditions & Tee Times
Round 2 Strategy
There is a distinct advantage to go off before 10 a.m. tomorrow. The more holes our guys can get in before the wind picks up at 11 a.m., the better. Some guys should be able to get about nine holes and some in single-digit wind early in the morning. The course is going to get blown dry and crusty by the time the afternoon tee times go off, presenting a decent wave advantage to try take by the horns. We just need to be sure we are not rostering six really popular golfers at the same time, as a decent chunk of the field will be looking to do the same tomorrow morning.
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 $5 SINGLE 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+
Favorite play: Sahith Theegala and Wyndham Clark are both going to see a lot of lineups together and alone, rostering both of them in the 50% capacity. Both should get in about nine holes worth of relatively calm conditions before the wind picks up. If they can go out and outscore Scottie somehow, who is going off in the afternoon wind, half the battle will have been won. Both rank No. 2 and No. 3 in the R2 model behind Scottie, but both are $2,400 and $2,700 cheaper than Scheffler, who was barely outscored by their total scores in R1 ... yikes. Bounce-back time, boys!
$9,000+
Favorite play: Tom Hoge at single digit ownership is hitting his irons incredibly well right now. We are looking for a little magic on the greens and for the irons to show back up so that he has chip less and not lose two strokes around the greens again. He gets an 815 a.m. tee time that should see him in the calm, scoreable conditions for about half his round. Let's go low, bro!
Favorite pivot: Will Zalatoris had one really bad day with the putter in R1, but continued to strike the ball well. We have seen golfers and Will bounce back the following day, gaining strokes on the greens. Zalatoris will be single-digit owned after a poor R1 and a p.m. tee time in R2. He has the ball-striking ability to break the slate in the windy conditions if the putter shows up.
Other options: Tony Finau, Jason Day, Si Woo Kim
$8,000+
Favorite play: Kurt Kitayama lost almost four strokes in the short-game department. He did just fine on the ball-striking front, particularly off the tee. If we can get the irons to fire back up and avoid the disasters on and around the greens, a 4% Kurt Kitayama going off at 815 a.m. is exactly what we are looking for to get different in our a.m. stacks, pivoting off of Hughes and Moore.
Other options: Billy Horschel
$7,000+
Favorite play: Sam Ryder is $7,400 and somehow found himself ranked sixth in my R2 model. Ryder has been making birdies at an impressive rate now that the putter has fired itself back up in 2024. He is also rather impressive at hitting approach shots closer than his peers out the rough. When Ryder's putter starts to roll, we try get behind it as soon as possible, as a hot putter can score TONS of points in the wind.
Other options: Joseph Bramlett, Nate Lashley, Daniel Berger, Scott Stallings
$6,000+
Favorite play: I am running an audible that is not in the player pool cheat sheet and throwing Ben Silverman into our favorite play for the $6K range. He usually thrives out the rough with his long irons and for a $6K golfer, we will take a R2 scoring average that is pushing a full stroke gained on the field. He has the potential to go low and is one of my favorite golfers from the KFT graduating class. For what its worth, I would have had Ryan Palmer in this spot before seeing that I forgot to click Silverman with white highlight.
Other options: Scott Gutschewski, Michael Kim, Bud Cauley, Padraig Harrington, Vincent Norrman
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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