Another week, another Jason Day victory. The FedEx Cup has become a bit of a snooze fest. Day goes crazy low Thursday, extends his lead to double digits on Friday, and cruises through the weekend to victory. Rinse. Repeat. It’s like prime Tiger without the excitement and buzz. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not terribly interested in watching Jason Day slaughter the field on a weekly basis.
In fantasy news, we might have seen the best Drive the Green performance to-date. Granted, we were dealing with a limited-field tournament, but Rycol19 scored 665.5 points; a mere nine points away from the optimal lineup!
Daniel Berger (8.5%) $6,800 – 121.5
Jason Day (13.3%) $12,600 – 144.5
J.B. Holmes (4.8%) $7,500 – 105.5
Hideki Matsuyama (14.3%) $8,900 – 95
Kevin Na (11.4%) $7,200 – 86.5
Scott Piercy (3.5%) $6,900 – 112.5
The optimal lineup would have included Cameron Tringale instead of Kevin Na. I think he did alright for himself just the same. Rycol19 entered this lineup twice and took down the top two spots for a total of $150,000. Not a bad week.
This is something you need to consider if you plan on playing the Tour Championship. There were 70 golfers in the field for the BMW, and someone got within nine points of optimal. Only one player who finished in the top 46 of the DTG did not have all three of Day, Berger, and Piercy (1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the actual tournament). With the field shrinking to 30, you’re more than likely going to need to nail the optimal lineup to take down a large GPP (and by take down, I mean chop up the top spots a couple of ways). Therefore, I think you need to build your GPP lineups from the top down. To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at the scoring breakdown for the top 20 finishers at the BMW Championship.
It’s easy to see that Day blew the field away, and Berger and Piercy were able to separate themselves from the pack by finishing second and third, respectively. As you know, golfers are awarded bonus points for order of finish on DraftKings. There’s a huge gap between first and second (30 v. 20 points), then the bonuses drop two points every spot down through seventh and one point every spot after through 50th place. With only 30 players in the field for the Tour Championship, everyone will be awarded at least three bonus points for order of finish. Now back to the chart. This type of scoring distribution is common on DraftKings. The top two or three guys score many more points than everyone else, and once you get outside the top ten or so, the scores tend to bunch up. To win this week on DK, you’re going to need something like four of the top five plus two other top ten scorers. The guys who round out your lineups will be interchangeable; the top finishers will not. Identify the winner, and go from there. Those 30 bonus points are the key to success this week.
This was the most bunched up week for expert grades so far. The Expert Consensus finished in the middle of the pack, and the individual experts were, for the most part, tightly grouped around it. Let’s start by reviewing the Consensus, and then I’ll make note of the expert who I thought had the best week.
Expert Consensus
Highly Touted
A – Kevin Na
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
F – Jim Furyk
Recommended
A+ – Jason Day
B – Brendon de Jonge
B – Robert Streb
C – Daniel Summerhays
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
Suggested
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A – Justin Thomas
B – Louis Oosthuizen
C – Tony Finau
D – Russell Knox
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Rory Sabbatini
Not it’s best week, but not awful either. As Kent Murphy would say, “Mediocre at best, Grandma.”
Golfweek.com puts out a weekly article where a number of writers and experts offer up their DraftKings lineups. I like the way they do it for two reasons. First, they are operating under DK’s salary cap. They can’t play it safe with only high-priced options. Their lineups are something you can use, either directly or with your own personal spin on them. Second, they aren’t covering their bases by recommending 40% of the field. The more picks you make, the less variance you will have in your selections. If you pick 40 guys in a given week, you’re never going to be at the bottom of anyone’s rankings, and you’ll always have a pick you can point to as something you got right.
That said, Adam Schupak of golfweek.com is my pick for top expert of the week. His lineup looked like this:
A – Dustin Johnson
A – Kevin Na
A – Ryan Palmer
B – Justin Rose
C – Daniel Summerhays
D – Danny Lee
That would’ve been a great cash and decent GPP lineup. In a week where most experts completely whiffed on a few picks, Schupak came pretty close to hitting on all of his selections. I like what he did best, and you guys should include Golfweek.com in your weekly research.
Before I get to the remaining individual grades, I would like to point out Jason Sobel of espn.com and stlcardinals84 of rotogrinders.com both had very good weeks, as well. I think Sobel has turned in the most consistently successful picks of any expert out there, and stlcardinals84 has been pretty hot of late. You should definitely check both of them out if you’re looking for sound advice.
Chris Durell – dailyfantasysportsrankings.com
A+ – Jason Day
A – Justin Thomas
A – Kevin Na
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Zach Johnson
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Jim Furyk
F – Rory Sabbatini
oreojenkins – dailyoverlay.com
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A+ – Jason Day
A – Nick Watney
A – Rickie Fowler
B – Jimmy Walker
B – Paul Casey
C – Ryan Moore
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
D – Sean O’Hair
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Jason Bohn
F – Jim Furyk
F – Rory Sabbatini
Daniel Dobish – dailyroto.com
B – Robert Streb
C – Henrik Stenson
D – Sang-Moon Bae
D – Sean O’Hair
F – William McGirt
KendoVT – dfsondemand.com
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A – Jordan Spieth
B – Justin Rose
C – Brooks Koepka
C – Daniel Summerhays
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Matt Jones
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
D – Russell Henley
D – Russell Knox
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Bryce Molder
F – Jason Bohn
F – Jerry Kelly
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
F – Rory Sabbatini
F – William McGirt
Jon Kelly – dfsreport.com
A+ – Daniel Berger
A+ – Jason Day
C – Henrik Stenson
D – Danny Lee
F – Ian Poulter
F – Jim Furyk
Josh DeMaio – DraftKings Playbook
A+ – Jason Day
A – Justin Thomas
B – Brendon de Jonge
C – Daniel Summerhays
C – Matt Jones
C – Sergio Garcia
C – Tony Finau
D – Russell Henley
D – Russell Knox
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
Jason Sobel – espn.com
A+ – Daniel Berger
B – Brendon de Jonge
B – Keegan Bradley
B – Rory McIlroy
C – Sergio Garcia
C – Zach Johnson
F – Hunter Mahan
Zachary Thompson – fansided.com
A+ – Daniel Berger
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A+ – Jason Day
A – Bubba Watson
A – Justin Thomas
A – Nick Watney
A – Rickie Fowler
B – Brendon de Jonge
B – Louis Oosthuizen
B – Robert Streb
B – Rory McIlroy
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Kevin Chappell
C – Matt Jones
C – Patrick Reed
C – Tony Finau
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
D – Sang-Moon Bae
D – Sean O’Hair
F – Brian Harman
F – Charley Hoffman
F – Chris Kirk
F – Gary Woodland
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
F – William McGirt
Drew Phelps – fantasyalarm.com
A+ – Jason Day
A – Rickie Fowler
B – Justin Rose
B – Keegan Bradley
B – Robert Streb
C – Daniel Summerhays
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Pat Perez
C – Tony Finau
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
F – Rory Sabbatini
F – Webb Simpson
F – Zac Blair
Lance Ringler – golfweek.com
A – Kevin Na
C – Pat Perez
C – Zach Johnson
F – Jim Furyk
F – Shawn Stefani
F – MattKuchar
Jim McCabe – golfweek.com
A – Kevin Na
C – Henrik Stenson
D – Russell Knox
F – Bryce Molder
F – Ian Poulter
F – Jim Furyk
Jeff Babineau – golfweek.com
A – Kevin Na
B – Louis Oosthuizen
C – Bill Haas
C – Zach Johnson
D – Russell Henley
F – Jim Furyk
Brentley Romine – golfweek.com
A – Justin Thomas
A – Kevin Na
B – Brendon de Jonge
C – Patrick Reed
C – Zach Johnson
F – Jim Furyk
Alex Miceli – golfweek.com
B – Louis Oosthuizen
C – Bill Haas
C – Henrik Stenson
D – Danny Lee
D – Sang-Moon Bae
F – Gary Woodland
Andy Zunz – golfweek.com
A – Jordan Spieth
B – Brendon de Jonge
C – Bill Haas
C – Steven Bowditch
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
Seth Finkelstein – rotoballer.com
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A – Jordan Spieth
B – Robert Streb
C – Daniel Summerhays
C – Tony Finau
C – Zach Johnson
F – Jerry Kelly
F – Jim Furyk
Pat Mayo – rotoexperts.com
A+ – Jason Day
B – Robert Streb
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
D – Russell Knox
F – Jason Bohn
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
stlcardinals84 – rotogrinders.com (Daily Fantasy Foursome)
A+ – Daniel Berger
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Matt Jones
C – Sergio Garcia
Michael Riek – rotowire.com
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A+ – Jason Day
A – Jordan Spieth
A – Rickie Fowler
B – Louis Oosthuizen
B – Rory McIlroy
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Hunter Mahan
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
thefantasygolf.com
A+ – Hideki Matsuyama
A – Brendon Todd
A – Jordan Spieth
A – Justin Thomas
A – Kevin Na
B – Justin Rose
B – Louis Oosthuizen
B – Paul Casey
B – Robert Streb
C – Daniel Summerhays
C – Henrik Stenson
C – Kevin Chappell
C – Pat Perez
C – Zach Johnson
D – Danny Lee
D – Russell Knox
F – Brandt Snedeker
F – Ian Poulter
F – Jason Bohn
F – Jerry Kelly
F – Jim Furyk
F – Kevin Kisner
F – Matt Kuchar
F – Rory Sabbatini
F – Zac Blair
Given the smaller field, I think I’m only going to put out one picks article this week. I know, I know… try to mask your outrage and disappointment. I will offer up who I like as well as where I think you can differentiate yourself in GPPs so that you (hopefully) don’t end up chopping with 100 other players. That will go up tomorrow, and the Expert Consensus will drop on Wednesday, as usual. So until then, you take ‘er easy.
oreo
