PGA DFS: Course preview and core plays for Workday Charity Open

Welcome to the first edition of 'Redkacheek's Core' at its new home of FTN. If you are familiar with my content from Fantasy Golf Bag, I will look to expand upon my write-up a bit more as FTN now allows me more time to research and determine various cash/GPP strategies each week along with utilizing the amazing tools in the works at FTN. This week for the launch I will keep it in a similar format to what you have seen at FGB. So those who are new to my work can expect to see a "bottom-to-top" article highlighting the course, how the course affects my ideal profile for golfers, how to run a model targeting these types of golfers and then different ranges of my top targets for the week. For now, let's take a look at the course and dive right into this week's plays.

Course Preview

Below is a snapshot of last year’s Memorial Tournament (being played next week), which is held on this same course every year:

I love starting every week right here, using the course to get a picture of what kind of golfers to target. If you are new to PGA DFS or golf in general, there are really just 2 main types of golfers: birdie-makers and bogey-avoiders. Of course, some players are more consistent than others in both aspects which warrants 9 or 10k price tags on DraftKings. Every course poses a different challenge so most research goes into which style to target.

My biggest takeaways this week are the long approaches (avg. 167.11) and the very low GIR% vs. DA% (62/70). You may hear course comps frequently in PGA DFS which is essentially identifying similarities between multiple courses to help determine course fit. Course History is a discussion for another day, but you can also use tournament history on that course to get a picture of which style stood out. My course comp for this week is Bay Hill, host of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Take a look at some of the similarities aside from the grasses.

So I won’t dive into everything that is looked at after comping a course, such as field strength, grasses, etc., but this is a good starting point to see consistent performers at both venues. Don’t be afraid to gather some ideas for your mid- and value-tier plays by glancing at prior API leaderboards. For example, Leishman has five straight top 25s at Bay Hill and four top 15s of last five starts at Muirfield.

Building a Model

At FTN, we will be building out many of our prior FGB tools, so this is a great opportunity to connect the dots on course fit and how to apply it to your golfers.

With the information above, and the history of the event proving several key categories are very important, you may start with honing in on a model that looks like this:

As you can see, I am very focused on approach stats such as SG:APP and wGIR. Adding in the remainder of SG:Tee-to-green (OTT and ARG) adds a bit more stability and then SGFD (strokes gained field differential) helps with cutting out players who may have scored well in extremely easy events. With all of this info, we can dive into the players. Stay tuned, as I will continue to roll-out more StatModel tutorials and research videos to bring your PGA DFS skills to the next level.

Player Pool Core

Elite

• Jon Rahm ($10900 DK / $11800 FD / $16900 FDRFT / $47 Yahoo)
• Patrick Cantlay ($10600 DK / $11700 FD / $16900 FDRFT / $47 Yahoo)
• Hideki Matsuyama ($10000 DK / $11300 FD / $16700 FDRFT / $45 Yahoo)
• Viktor Hovland ($9500 DK / $10900 FD / $15800 FDRFT / $40 Yahoo)
• Collin Morikawa ($9200 DK / $10600 FD / $15300 FDRFT / $45 Yahoo)

Mid-Tier

• Marc Leishman ($8700 DK / $10100 FD / $14600 FDRFT / $40 Yahoo)
• Joaquin Niemann ($8400 DK / $10000 FD / $14600 FDRFT / $38 Yahoo)
• Matt Kuchar ($8500 DK / $10300 FD / $14900 FDRFT / $42 Yahoo)
• Gary Woodland ($8300 DK / $9900 FD / $14500 FDRFT / $41 Yahoo)
• Adam Hadwin ($8200 DK / $9900 FD / $14500 FDRFT / $34 Yahoo)
• Matthew Fitzpatrick ($8000 DK / $9700 FD / $14200 FDRFT / $34 Yahoo)
• Kevin Streelman ($7800 DK / $9600 FD / $13800 FDRFT / $29 Yahoo)
• Corey Conners ($7600 DK / $9200 FD / $13500 FDRFT / $32 Yahoo)

• Value

• Maverick McNealy ($7500 DK / $8900 FD / $13000 FDRFT / $25 Yahoo)
• Emiliano Grillo ($7200 DK / $8700 FD / $12600 FDRFT / $25 Yahoo)
• Max Homa ($7100 DK / $8600 FD / $12300 FDRFT / $32 Yahoo)
• Pat Perez ($6900 DK / $7900 FD / $11700 FDRFT / $26 Yahoo)
• Sam Burns ($6900 DK / $8100 FD / $11800 FDRFT / $20 Yahoo)
• Jim Furyk ($6900 DK / $8300 FD / $12000 FDRFT / $32 Yahoo)
• Tom Hoge ($6900 DK / $8200 FD / $11900 FDRFT / $25 Yahoo)
• Sebastian Munoz ($6800 DK / $8000 FD / $11600 FDRFT / $29 Yahoo)

Super value/Punts

• Henrik Norlander ($6500 DK / $8000 FD / $11700 FDRFT / $20 Yahoo)
• Carlos Ortiz ($6400 DK / $7600 FD / $11300 FDRFT / $29 Yahoo
• Brandon Wu ($6500 DK / $7700 FD / $11200 FDRFT / $20 Yahoo)