I have a decent amount of Rodgers this week because of that reason. Also have a good amount of Emiliano Grillo.

Top guys for me are Matsuyama, Berger, Chappell and Woodland. How about you?

Loved your Wyatt pick last week as well.

Guys I've been going with 6200 and below would be Vijay, Micheal Thompson, Brendan de Jonge, Chessin Haddley, Jim hermin and you can't beat Wyatt again for 6k.

Geoff oglvy has sucked this year but he loves this course. 6200

Guys who live in Charlotte
Matt every
Brendon de Jonge
Web Simpson member at quail hollow
Jason kokrak
Harold Varner 3rd
Kyle Reifers
And jhonson Wagner

Who has the guts to fade Rory?

Fading Rory

Middle of the pack guys
Kokrak
Kisner
Chapel
Bryson Dechambeau
Steele
Hass
Scott brown.

All should do well. Hope this helps the late nighters

Great week at the Masters, bad weeks at RBC/Texas, another good week last week for the slightly + ROI month.

This week: fading most of the top guys. Got Matsuyama, Holmes, Berger, Thomas, Chappell, Bryson on alot of rosters with some lower priced guys like Barnes, Singh, Toms, Hadley, Donald.

RE: fading top guys, did throw in a few rosters with Rory though. :-/

Looks like my rosters might be a little chalky because everyone went HAM on Matsuyama and Holmes which is predictable I guess.

Looks like fading Rory was the way to go

Seems correct just looking at owner %s

kind of surprised considering rory's recent form and the depth of the field

Steve Wheatcroft with 2 eagles already in 10 holes (previously had 3 this season in 882 holes). This is a guy I started passing on recently because he never ****ing makes eagles or even birdies (t187 in birdies/round even though he plays a lot of the easier events) even though he is pretty good at making cuts.

Good effort by Jonathan Byrd out there today.

1. I did a pretty decent analysis of this and guys who make the cut close to the number but don't finish high (e.g., recently guys like Wheatcroft, Hubbard is the canonical example right now) are probably in fact getting lucky and simply making 1-2 extra putts over two days. That is someone who goes 74-71 and is making cuts on or around the number versus someone who is consistently going 74-74 and missing cuts around the number -- those three strokes are usually NOT SGTG but strokes gained putting. And then secondarily, think of putting like BABIP for pitchers which is: it's mostly luck. SOME Tour players are in fact much better putters than the average pro (e.g., Jamie Donaldson) or are bent/bermuda specialists or whatever but GENERALLY speaking putting is sort of random, especially outside of 5 feet.

The take away is: if guys are consistently making the cut but on or around the number and not finishing high (e.g., Wheatcroft, Hubbard) they are probably getting lucky and should be faded.

And then the reverse: guys missing cuts but are near the cutline or whatever are candidates for rebound/surprising performances.

And most of it simply due to the variance of putting.

Obviously guys just playing bad (e.g., right now Bowditch, Mike Weir) should just be avoided entirely. You can spot the 'playing bad' when you see consistent Thu/Fri scores => 3 shots or more off the cut line. Basically, made cuts/missed cuts are just a lot of luck IF it's happening on the margins within a small range of the cut line.

Now there was similar analysis (in Moneygolf) using Shot Tracker data that pros are in fact better at making par putts than birdie putts that are equivalent difficult/distance, which suggests there MIGHT be some skill in cut making. It suggests pros react differently to the same putt depending on their score; you might be able to assume then that some pros are conscious of the cut line and projecting it and passing up scoring opportunities to ensure they get past the cut in the same way they aggressively approach par putts and are more passive with birdie putts.

That is logical for them but it's a catch-22 for DFS because while cutmakers are valuable, 'cut-making' as a skill is probably a player who is passing up scoring opportunities to avoid big numbers and make the cut; players who are passing up scoring to make sure they make the cut seem like Fool's Gold for DFS but YMMV, particularly in cash. Everyone's GPP strategies may be different but even if I'm fishing from the bottom sub $6k tiers, cut making is key but you still need 6 bullets of guys who can win; you need someone who can hit the 1 outer and ship the tournament or get a top 5 finish or whatever, not some dude passively making cuts to collect $25k checks.

If it helps you feel validated, then, because while I haven't studied his results in depth at all, I think fading Wheatcroft is right because the combination of his lack of scoring plus the fact he was making cuts without really finishing highly and doing much better than the fields = he was probably just hitting a few extra putts and potentially playing overly passively; and putting wasn't a factor which would be predictable and is usually more random going forward, and playing overly passive is a liability in GPPs.

2. I've struggled with projecting 'scoring' (e.g., birdies and eagles) in my model because of that notion; what's an 'easy' event? Strength of field? That's not necessarily a correlation of the quality of the course or the difficulty of the setup or whatever.

ldo I am not yet rich off of DFS PGA winnings so take all this with a grain of salt.

Good writeup and what you said makes a lot of sense. I was thinking off the "easy" events as the ones with low scoring which is why his birdie number is pretty horrid as he plays a fair amount of the shootout type tracks without ever going very low himself.

That's a little tricky too because some tracks are significantly effected by conditions. Harbour Town/RBC two weeks ago is a decent example. 2015 the winning score was -18; 66 guys finished even par or better. This year it was -9 and 30 guys finished even par or better.

The difference was last year conditions were ideal, and this year Thu-Sat winds produced 20-35mph gusts.

Is Harbour Town a hard track or an easy track? Well, if it's windy it's probably a below average scoring track/above average difficulty. But if conditions are nice, the course isn't that long, and so then pros are going to crush it and go super low.

British Open courses are the same way. St. Andrews with no wind -- everyone is going low. With wind and it's carnage.

So now you have to factor conditions week to week or else your model is impacted by randomness. In other words, take Wheatcroft: "t187 in birdies/round even though he plays a lot of the easier events" -- but he played RBC, so his birdies/round is going to look worse than whatever, the PGA replacement level player who skipped RBC but only because it was windy.

Ugh, gona be very low 6/6 lineups out there. Not good for me. Have like 3 line ups out of 35 with all guys even or under par.

0/20 teams for me with all guys par or better, a few 5/6 with rory though so all is not lost, leaderboard sucks right now though

Had a few rosters with 140pt+ days:

Matsuyama, Holmes, Mickelson, Berger, Chappell, Barnes
Matsuyama, Holmes, Mickelson, Berger, Chappell, Hadley
Matsuyama, Holmes, Mickelson, Berger, Chappell, Toms

But ldo if Matsuyama misses the cut these are headed for min cashes.

Fading most of the top guys seems validated so far since the top 15 are not the top tier players, but none of the top end guys played themselves out of it yesterday either.

The only good news about how crappy all of my lineups are (three lineups at 79,78, 85) is that I can focus on the horse races and just write this week off.

Sincerely,

Mr. Positive Spin

Got a few 6/6 past the line in GPPs:

Berger/Chappell/Holmes/Matsuyama/DaLaet/Lovemark
Berger/Chappell/Holmes/Matsuyama/Mickelson/Toms
Berger/Chappell/Holmes/Matsuyama/Mickelson/Hadley
Berger/Chappell/Holmes/Matsuyama/Reed/Hadley

But no great sweats yet.

~+20% ROI week. Seems like Hahn was barely owned in any contest. Like .1%.

Understandably so, went off at like a 450-1 shot at $7k DK price which would have been preposterously bad value imo even if you thought his true odds were like 250-1 instead.

Talk about a golden differential at .1% ownership. And very low percentage got 6/6 through the the cut and big advantage.

https://twitter.com/plako21/status/728735968438652928

Not seeing a lot of obvious value picks this week. I like knost at 6100, Donald at 6900, and Kaymer at 7200. Still trying to decide my feelings on DL3 at that price on this course but he might make my list

Freddie Jacobson at 6100 plays the course well.

Love KJ Choi at 6200, good course history

worst DFS week to date for me last week 0/20 cash in the gpp, like matsuyama, stenson, grillo and fitzpatrick this week.