RADIO
Today presented us with one of the most epic cut sweats we have had this year. David Micheluzzi allowed 19 professional golfers to play the weekend by missing an 11 foot birdie putt on his final hole. Had he sunk that, the cut would have consisted of exactly 65 golfers, but instead, its now 84. What a crazy game we play. Oh, I guess Scottie Scheffler is leading the tournament at -14 after a pair of 64s - nothing new there.
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. More often than not, this can make you feel like an unsuccessful DFS player. 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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Round 2 Analysis
Best Scores
Four of the top five scores were from the AM wave with 7 of the top 12 scores being AM.
Ownership
AM seemed to garner the most ownership yet again, with scores being half a stroke lower in the AM.
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 Round 2 (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 Strategy
The entire field will be going off within 2 hours of each other, so no wave edge can really be derived.
But, there may be a small tee edge which can be used as a tie breaker as it appears that 8, 9, 10 and 11 played under par both days making the 3-hole combinations (8, 9, 10 or 9, 10, 11) the lowest scoring average on the course both days. If you tee off #10 you don't get a crack at the easiest birdie streak opportunity on the course. Now, this is not a massive edge, but if one of the guys you roster tomorrow gets an extra 5 points because he went off #1 instead of #10, it may be the difference between 1st and 2nd (hopefully).
Unfortunately this means that we are going to have to dodge even more ownership as the top of the leaderboard will go off #1 with the bottom half going off #10. Ownership will pool towards the top half of the leaderboard purely because they are playing the best golf through 2 rounds. So we will definitely be rostering guys going off #10 as we will be getting low single digit ownership on some of them.
Round 1 Hole Scoring per DataGolf.com (an awesome site for nerdy stuff like this)
Round 2 Hole Scoring
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 pre-event rankings, round-specific scoring averages, birdie percentages, weighted approach ratings, and ownership projections for tomorrow's showdown slate.
***Full disclosure: The ownership numbers are based on the PGA TOUR SHOWDOWN $4K CADDIE [SINGLE ENTRY], 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+
Not going to play Scottie Scheffler at 60% ownership and $12,400. If he shoots another -7 round, well, then so be it, but at 60% ownership a dud of a round from the World No. 2 gives us massive leverage on the field. Is he likely to play poorly tomorrow, probably not, but IF he does, we are in business. Also, at $12,400 that leaves $7,520 average salary for the rest of your 5 roster spots.
Tyrrell Hatton (10%) is typically a great putter, but his poor Bentgrass stats are seemingly continuing to plague his scoring and at $10,200 that seems a little too spendy for somebody who is on one of their worst putting surfaces, losing strokes putting in both rounds.
Jason Day (28%) is going to be much more popular than Tyrell and once he gets to the top of the leaderboard, he struggles to get back into the groove that got him there.
$9,000+
Low owned Tom Kim time baby (again)! He had an impressive 6 birdie and -5 under round in R2. His putter seems to be cooperating on the greens a little and he has some momentum heading into the weekend and we know how low he can go when he is feeling it.
Hideki Matsuyama tends to put his foot on the gas peddle over the weekend. He sits in 6th spot right now, but that is 5 shots back of the leader, who is the World No. 2 in his home state of Texas. He will need to be chased down with a barrage of birdies and the way Matsuyama has been striking his irons, he may have the fire power to try make a charge up the leaderboard.
Tom Hoge made it to the weekend and now we can expect fireworks from the 2nd-best R2 SG average in the field. He makes birdies in bunches and we saw him shoot a course record on Saturday at The Players not so long ago. After a disappointing start to the event, he will be single digit owned and could go absolutely nuclear tomorrow if he can get some putts to fall early. My favorite play of the slate.
$8,000+
The chances that Taylor Montgomery goes off again tomorrow like he did for us in R2 are slim, especially with his rather lack luster R3 SG average. However, at roughly 6% ownership, he will be in about 3 of my 20 lineups just in case he keeps the putter cooking.
Stephen Jaeger barely made the cut after a level par R2. Jaeger and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Adam Hadwin and Brandon Wu will all be roughly 5% owned and are high upside golfers who sit anxiously in the $8k range.
Sam Stevens is going to be our one chalky play in this range, as his approach play is just too good to pass up. He is very affordably priced at $8,300, has gained the 10th most strokes on approach through two rounds, AND has the best weighted good shot percentage in the field over the last four months. This means that he is better than both Scottie Scheffler and Tom Hoge (both elite iron players) at gaining more than +0.5 stroke on a single approach shot from various key proximity ranges on this course. His putter has been rather cold so far, but if he gets hot, he almost certainly will have an abundance of makeable birdy putts to capitalize on.
$7,000+
Joseph Bramlett and Sean O Hair will be pushing double digit ownership but we like O Hair's bridie making ability and Bramlett is an incredible iron player for their sub $8k price tags.
Aaron Wise made the cut on the number after taking some time off for a mental health break. He now gets two "free" rounds of golf and for somebody who was evidently lacking confidence in a severe fashion prior to his hiatus, making the cut in his first event back while losing -4.44 on approach is actually an amazing achievement. His confidence can only have gone up from here and maybe with the pressure of having to make the cut now behind him, he can start swinging his irons a little more freely and give himself the birdie looks that has him ranked 4th in Birdie % in the field this year.
Cameron Champ is a really good long iron player and he also fancies himself Saturday round of golf, popping as one of the best R3 scorers to have made the cut, at $7,100 and hardly owned, that's enough to go to the longest driver of the ball in the field.
Not so straight Nate Lashley leads the field in strokes lost off the tee, throwing away -3.2 strokes in his first two rounds in abnormal fashion. Expect him to iron out the driver and make a charge up the leaderboard in R3.
$6,000+
Aaron Baddeley tends to play Goodeley on Saturdays as he has the 2nd best R3 SG Avg in our player pool. He can light it up with the putter when and is priced at $6,800.
James Hahn and Satoshi Kodaira will be two low-owned $6k golfers, although by avoiding the entire $10k range, we don't necessarily need to rely on them that much.
Harrison Endycott is typically a really solid iron player but gained 4 strokes putting yesterday. If he can revert back to stirking his irons well, that putter seems like it is ready to pounce on some birdie opportunities.
Featured Group 3-Ball Bets
If you are a golf nerd like me and land up watching a lot of the featured group coverage on ESPN+, this new segment of the article is going to consist of Maniac Magic by making a bet on each 3-ball of the featured group just to have a little sweat while watching the morning coverage. If you are looking for much more strategic and reliable matchups, check out @TeeOffSports R2 matchups here. This part of the article is straight-up degenerate as we are forcing pocket money plays simply to enhance our golf viewing experience.
Round 2: Results (1-1-1)
Win. Seamus Power +155 over Tom Hoge and Davis Riley. Don't trust Hoge's R2 average and Riley is really inconsistent lately.
Loss. K.H Lee +250 over Jason Day and Scottie Scheffler. The defending champ is going to bounce back tomorrow, and we are fading Scottie and Day in Showdown, so why not expect some regression from both of them after going low in R1?
Push. Si Woo Kim +100 over Taylor Montgomery and -- checks notes -- Richard Johnson, who is one of the worst golfers on tour. It is basically Si Woo over Montgomery and Si Woo has a massive ball-striking edge over Monty despite Montgomery's massive showdown upside. He is far from consistent lately.
Round 3
Tom Hoge +125 over Matt Kuchar and Trevor Cone
Tyrrell Hatton -120 over Jimmy Walker and Doug Ghim
Adam Scott -120 over S.Y Noh and Sangmoon Bae
If you wanted to parlay the three bets like a true gamblers anonymous degenerate, they would be at +656 on DraftKings.
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 or points into your optimizer.
Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.
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