PGA is probably my favorite Daily Fantasy Sport to play. A lot of randomness, a lot of game theory on ownership, and a lot of it happens while I can follow it at work.

I figured it would be fun to run a "control group" on this season, so my nine year old daughter will be picked a team each week and I can see how I do compared to her.

If anyone wants to play a head to head my DK name is also Ken_AA

January 4th Tournament of Champions

With a small field no cut event I think one of the biggest keys will be ownership at the top. I am leaning Fowler in GPP's and Speith in cash. I think Fowler will be the lowest owned but Speith's course history here is amazing.

Also only like 4 out of 48 first time players have top 5 finishes here. You will probably need the winner and the 2nd or 3rd place finishers to do much damage this week. Despite this fact I like some of the first timers in Rahm, Cantaly and Smith. I look forward to donating my money to a needing DFS player.

I should also state I am not good at this. I won 68 bucks on golf DFS last year and that all came from the one team in the PGA Championship Millionaire Maker that did well.

This week I will be playing a few head to heads, the Quarter Jukebox and one team in the 7 Dollar GPP.

One note for new Draft Kings players. Each day you get a "mission" which you can find on the home screen on the app. You get a new one each day. Check this before you sign up for any contests. it may be something like "Play any $3 contest and earn 50 points". You click start mission and it takes you to the lobby. 550 points for a dollar of entries. I am sure if you play higher stakes your missions are worth more.

Good Luck, I will post my daughter's "control group" team Thursday afternoon.

I would like to learn about this DF golf stuff but I am pretty much on par with your daughter at how much I know at this point.

Fowler always gets a bunch of love no matter the field. I would bet JT or Hideki have the lowest ownership out of the top.

Hideki will definitely be lowered owned then Fowler, I had artificially made my cut off point over 10K.

JT is the defending Champion at this event and Defending Player of the year. In a no cut event where people feel a little safer with the plugging in cheaper players I definitely expect him to pretty well owned. I am often wrong though.

Thomas also won the other Hawaii event last year, so he will be the defending champ at next weeks Sony Open as well.

Main things to look for is birdies. Example

Player one shoots 18 Pars
He will score nine points. Each Par is .5 Points.

Player two shoots 8 Birdies and 10 Bogies.
He will score 19 points.
Each Birdie is 3, each Bogey is -.5


So guys who move all over the scoreboard are generally good plays. Many people also target players who have been putting poorly with the idea that putting is random, so they are due for positive putting regression. Course history is usually a decent thing to look at.

You can also get a bit more strategic with weather, like if it's gonna be windy in the morning target guys with later tee times, if they are playing different courses on different rounds looking at who will be on the tougher course in the bad weather day and avoiding them ect.

Golf is a one person game, so motivation is a bit of a factor. Withdraws will kill you, so when you hear about odd things around a guy I steer clear, like is his wife due with a baby in the next two week? What if she goes into labor early?
Did he just get paid a million dollar appearance fee for a tournament in the middle east and he might be jet lagged? If he is jet lagged and close to the cut line does he take a dive to get some extra rest for next week?

Stuff like that happens.

Interesting stuff, thanks.

I need a new hobby with football over and this seems to fit the bill.

Couldn't agree more. I knew nothing about golf a year ago and now it is one of my favorite sports. You just can't get a sweat like you can in golf. You are pulling for your guys that week and hating on everyone else, absolutely love it.

I like Rahm, Spieth, and JT and the top this week. I'm going to say Rahm gets the win in Hawaii.

Leishman, Perez, Cam Smith, Dufner in the mid range and Bryan, Armour at the bottom. Armour and Dufner are my favorite cheap guys with upside.

I feel like a balanced lineup is pretty sub optimal this week, especially since there is no cut this week.

Control group lineup selected by a nine year old:

Chappell
Fowler (I did not tell her I was playing him)
Leishman
Matsuyama
Points
Swafford


Also I was very wrong about Fowler/ Thomas ownership. In the big $7 Fowler is nearly 30% owned and JT is 15.

Good luck!

So I mashed some buttons and came up with this:

Austin Cook 19.8%
Si Woo Kim 8.3%
Jordan Spieth 39.7%
Kyle Stanley 32.8%
Brendan Steele 38.9%
Justin Thomas 16.6%

I read something on some blog by some random and tried to fit Spieth and Thomas both in so I got some random types in there.

Austin Cook 19.4%
Jason Dufner 11.4%
Si Woo Kim 8.1%
Kevin Kisner 17.3%
Jon Rahm 25.1%
Justin Thomas 15.3%


This lineup has many people on it. Do they sell entire lineups somewhere or something?

Isn't there a link to a place where you can see if your lienup is unique and which lineups are the most popular or something?

Fowler is always chalky. He has some of the most loyal fans and is usually priced cheap for the top end.

Not a bad lineup. Your running really bad with Spieth as am I.

I use cutsweats.com on Friday's to see how what percentage of lineups have a chance to go 6/6 on the cut.

I haven't seen a site like the one you mention, but it wouldn't surprise me.

When you have been playing golf your whole life you are used to not rooting against guys you are playing against even when money is on the line. But for some reason with DFS golf that completely changes. I had a sweat once where I was screaming at Jimmy Walker to miss a putt and fist pumping when he did.

I guess I never gambled on the course where it was a $1,000 miss, maybe then I would have.

That looks like a small field tourney, but ownership percentages on these no cut events are always very high. Full field tournaments are much easier to hit that one 1% that you need to ship a GPP.

Week one recap:

I went 2/3 in head to heads, but did not cash a single GPP team, so I lost about 45% of my buy-in.

The control team (team picked by my 10 year old daughter with no advice given) scored 498.5 points and she also won her head to head. I think her best move was the opponent she picked since they only spent about 42K.

Anybody have more success than that?

Had about a 200% ROI last week, but most of that was from having DJ/Rahm in weekend golf.

Really like Spieth, Leishman, Zach Johnson, and Henley at the top this week. Going with Leishman for the win this week. I almost called Rahm last week if it weren't for that DJ guy.

Under 8K really like Woodland, Spaun, and Na. Under 7k - Armour, Sabbatini, and Baddeley.

BIG week for donkeyballz....... my daughter randomly selected him as her opponent this week. I just noticed this.

I wont reveal his lineup...... but if he loses it will be to a 10 year old.

Control group lineup this week:
Bryan
Kokrak
Na
Reavie
Spieth
Uihlein

Uihlein and Na will definitely miss the cut and Spieth is teetering. Looks like Donkeyballz will come out ahead, especially if Spieth misses.


It looks like you will need 6/6 to cash in GPP's this week. I see very few popular names at the bottom of the leaderboard. Maybe I'm wrong but I would be shocked to see anything but min cashes for 5/6 lineups.

Ken

Damn its going to be a sweat. Definitely not my week in 4 day, but dammit I don't want to lose to a 10 year old.

Love PGA DK. Last year I had 69 cashes on 311 entries for a net loss of $397. I play every week, still looking for a score, but damn it's hard!

I had 10 entries in the Sony for $30, and cashed for $50 (net +$20).

What do we think for the Careerbuilder? We have to look at Haas! I also like Rham , Reed, CH3, Sneds, Cauley, Harman, Steele, Laird, Lingmerth, Chaps, Hahn, ZJ, Kis, Knox, Ollie.

I'm thinking of having zero Phil, Bubba, Walker, or Hadwin in any lineups.

My DK name is mattlac3

In for the goat sport for daily fantasy. Did absolutely terrible last year, hoping to rebound. Going to play a ton more head 2 heads this year.

PGA is tough, but nothing beats a PGA Sunday sweat.

For Careerbuilder I'm probably going to have reduced exposure ATM. I don't like the 3 different courses for research purposes, but I'll probably talk myself into higher volume the closer it gets to Thursday.

When there are three courses I like to find the easiest course and the best weather day and stack a lineup of those guys. When they play these multiple courses there is always one that plays pretty easy.

I believe that would be the La Quinta (spelling?) course this week. Stadium Course is the toughest.

I plan to have zero Rham in GPP's this week. I think that's the easiest way to be contrarian. Might skip Simpson also as I think he will be pretty highly owned.

Last week the Control Group Lineup (Lineup picked by my 10 year old daughter with no input) scored 379 points and she lost her head to head. She is now 1-1 on the season.

I also lost all 7 of my head to heads despite having 6/6 make the cut on all my lineups (played three slightly different lineups)

Tough week, hope this one is better.