Eighteen holes in, it looked like Jordan Spieth wanted nothing to do with the Quad Cities. Some DFS higher-ups were either bracing for a MC/WD or bragging about their 0% Spieth ownership. Fifty-four Fifty-six holes later, there he was, raising another trophy on the 18th green. Spieth posted rounds of 64 and 61 on Friday and Saturday to play his way into the final group. Despite a rocky Sunday start, he bounced back nicely to grind out his fifth professional win. For our purposes, this win will only drive up Spieth’s Open ownership.
Looking a little bit forward, Spieth 1) has won the previous two majors, 2) is coming off a win in the previous week, 3) is only $12,000 on DK, and 4) won’t have to deal with Rory McIlroy. “Only” and a salary of $12,000 should rarely be used in the same sentence, but it’s appropriate here. The player pricing for The Open Championship is really soft… like, you can almost get any six golfers you want soft. Given Spieth’s name, form, price, and lack of a real top-end alternative, I expect his ownership in the Millionaire Maker to eclipse 30%. Just something to consider when you’re making lineups this week.
Back to the JDC… “bwil1013” took down the $275k Drive the green on DraftKings with a lineup of:
Jordan Spieth (28.6%) $13700 – 143
Danny Lee (18.0%) $7700 – 120
Johnson Wagner (1.5%) $7300 – 117.5
Justin Thomas (19.5%) $8700 – 113.5
Will Wilcox (15.1%) $6400 – 107
Vaughn Taylor (10.8%) $6200 – 76
He maxed out his salary and scored 677 points. If you’ve been following along with the recent winners of these large-scale GPPs, there’s a trend forming. The winners have been using all $50,000 of their salary cap and mixing 4-5 common sense picks with 1-2 low-ownership plays. The winner this week rostered only one golfer with an ownership coming in below 10%; proving once again that you don’t have to go overboard differentiating yourself from the pack. One sharp, subtle pivot can turn a heavily-overlapped lineup into a unique, GPP-winning lineup.
“bwil1013” hit four of the six optimal picks for the week; pretty good. Here’s what the rest of the optimal lineup would have looked like:
Jordan Spieth $13700 – 143
Chris Stroud $8000 – 113.5
Danny Lee $7700 – 120
Johnson Wagner $7300 – 117.5
Will Wilcox $6400 – 107
Tom Gillis $6300 – 124.5
That would have been $49,400 spent for 725.5 points. As an aside, if you had Tom Gillis on your roster, you deserved the $100k.
Let’s revisit the expert consensus for this past week…
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Kevin Chappell
A+ – Will Wilcox
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Jason Bohn
A – Jerry Kelly
A – Robert Streb
A – Shawn Stefani
B – Chad Campbell
B – Kevin Kisner
B – Ryan Moore
B – Scott Langley
B – Steve Stricker
C – Chez Reavie
C – David Hearn
F – Brendon de Jonge
F – Erik Compton
F – J.J. Henry
F – Steven Bowditch
F – Tim Clark
F – Tony Finau
Overall, not too bad. Probably one or two too many MCs, but nearly 40% of these picks returned “A” value or better.
In terms of the individual expert selections, two guys really stood out. TheFantasyGolf.com KILLED IT; scoring the highest composite grade to-date. He (or they?) made 17 picks, and NINE (53%!) returned “A” value or better! SIX of those nine finished t-8 or better in the tournament! And only two of his 17 picks missed the cut. This excellent performance comes on the heels of a week where he recommended 100% ownership across your lineups for Robert Streb (who finished t-2 after losing in a playoff). TheFantasyGolf.com takes home top honors for the week, great job!
If it were any other week, Michael Riek of rotowire.com would have found himself in the top spot, but he’ll have to settle for second. Riek made 18 selections this week, just like TheFantasyGolf.com, NINE (50%!) returned “A” value or better, and he had four golfers miss the cut.
You can find the full results below.
Chris Durell – dailyfantasysportsrankings.com
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Jerry Kelly
A – Robert Streb
B – Chad Campbell
C – Chez Reavie
C – Harris English
F – Brendon de Jonge
F – J.J. Henry
F – Tony Finau
Daniel Dobish – dailyroto.com
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Kevin Chappell
B – Steve Stricker
F – Eric Axley
F – George McNeill
F – Mark Hubbard
Zachary Thompson – fansided.com
A+ – Chris Stroud
A+ – Danny Lee
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Brian Stuard
A – Jason Bohn
A – Jerry Kelly
A – Robert Streb
A – Shawn Stefani
B – Brian Harman
B – Bryce Molder
B – Cameron Percy
B – Jhonattan Vegas
B – Kevin Kisner
B – Ryan Moore
B – Scott Langley
B – Steve Stricker
C – Alex Cejka
C – Chez Reavie
C – David Hearn
F – Brice Garnett
F – J.J. Henry
F – Jonathan Byrd
F – Steven Bowditch
F – Tim Clark
F – Tony Finau
Steve Pimental – fantasyalarm.com
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Luke Guthrie
B – Chad Campbell
B – Ryan Moore
B – Scott Langley
B – Steve Stricker
F – Brendon de Jonge
F – Erik Compton
F – Kevin Stadler
F – Steven Bowditch
F – Tim Clark
F – Tony Finau
Seth Finkelstein – rotoballer.com
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Will Wilcox
A – Jason Bohn
B – Steve Stricker
C – David Hearn
F – Andres Gonzales
F – J.J. Henry
F – K.J. Choi
F – Stewart Cink
Pat Mayo – rotoexperts.com
A+ – Will Wilcox
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Jason Bohn
A – Jerry Kelly
A – Luke Guthrie
A – Robert Streb
A – Shawn Stefani
B – Bryce Molder
B – Chad Campbell
B – Kevin Kisner
B – Scott Langley
C – Boo Weekley
C – David Hearn
F – Brendon de Jonge
F – Carlos Ortiz
F – Erik Compton
F – Scott Brown
F – Steven Bowditch
F – Tony Finau
stlcardinals84 – rotogrinders.com (Daily Fantasy Foursome)
A+ – Zach Johnson
B – Steve Stricker
F – Tony Finau
F – Will Mackenzie
Michael Riek – rotowire.com
A+ – Danny Lee
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Justin Thomas
A+ – Kevin Chappell
A+ – Will Wilcox
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Brian Stuard
A – Hudson Swafford
B – Chad Campbell
B – Kevin Kisner
B – Ryan Moore
B – Steve Stricker
C – Jonas Blixt
C – Seung-Yul Noh
D – Patrick Rodgers
F – Bo Van Pelt
F – Tim Clark
F – Tony Finau
thefantasygolf.com
A+ – Jordan Spieth
A+ – Justin Thomas
A+ – Kevin Chappell
A+ – Will Wilcox
A+ – Zach Johnson
A – Hudson Swafford
A – Jason Bohn
A – Robert Streb
A – Shawn Stefani
B – Kevin Kisner
B – Ryan Moore
B – William McGirt
C – Boo Weekley
C – Chez Reavie
C – Pat Perez
F – Camilo Villegas
F – Erik Compton
That does it for the John Deere Classic. A million dollars is out there for someone to win this week. I’ll be back on Wednesday to share what the experts have been saying. Thanks for reading!
