British Open

Carnasty (maybe)

It's Major Championship week! If your looking for a course breakdown or some other boring shit, this ain't the place for you. I've been putting in some long hours researching the last week because from a DFS perspective, this is my favorite tournament of the year. Allow me to elaborate....A. It's a Major B. the 3 biggest weeks I've ever had in DFS golf all came in tournaments with large to very large tee time splits because of rain/wind....from what I hear they tend to get both of those in Scotland (or at least it used to rain there)

C. I get to take advantage of the fact that a large portion of players this week do not take into account that the European tour just started using strokes gained. Now, you can find season long strokes gained data on Europeantour.com, but it still presents problems when comparing players. Take for example a guy like Alexander Bjork. He's literally never played in the states, so a ton of DFS players would skip right over him because they probably don't have any data on him, but that would be a mistake. He's finished 8th, 14th, 19th in the three Euro events leading up to the Open, is 2nd in strokes gained approach on the Euro tour, and has hit at least 71% of his greens in regulation the last three events at a mere $6800. Or take a guy that plays on both sides of the pond like John Rahm. If you just look at his traditional strokes gained data you basically have two events of data to look at since the BEGINNING OF MARCH. Data that you don't see that would surely raise his total strokes gained the last 24 rounds from 21st to much higher are his 4th place finish at the Masters, 5th place finish at the Open de France, and 4th place finish at the Irish Open....3 top 5 finishes and NONE of that data is in his strokes gained data! And one last really great example (don't tell David...actually, do tell David)....Tyrrell Hatton, if you look at his strokes gained data it's basically shit dating back to the beginning of March. But again what you don't see in his data is a 6th place finish at the US Open, 16th at the French, and 9th at the Scottish...his form has gone from shit to really good, and you would never know IF your not paying attention! Tee Time Draws:As it stand right now, I see a slight advantage for the Thursday AM wave, the earlier the better, and Friday PM wave, the later the better. Here is a quick snippet from windy.com as of 11:28am EST: Speaking of wind! I've spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out in my own back testing if there is such a thing as a good wind player. So let me save you a week of research and sum up my findings in 3 words from the only actual conclusion that I could confidently come to....wind=bad. There seems to be two key 'tipping points' at which PGA level golfers scores will start to be adversely effected by the wind. Tipping point #1 occurs at about 12 mph....you could call it the 'continental shelf' where performance goes from your standard baseline to the beginning of the drop off. Tipping point #2 is at about 20 mph...at 20 mph you basically go from the continental shelf to the abyss of performance, no matter who you are. If you really want to dig into it, the tournaments I found where the tee time wind speeds were 20mph+ (going backwards in time the last calendar year): Open de France, US Open, Valspar, Honda, CJ Cup (17), Andalucia Masters (17), Alfred Dunhill Links (17), British Masters (17), British Open (17), Scottish Open (17). If you care to know the winners from those events, scroll down to the 10 facts. Here is a list of relevant guys that have the best draw (so playing at least 75% of their holes in the lowest winds): Willet, Grillo, List, Pepprell, Fisher, Dunne, Cook, Hatton, Cantlay, Lowry, Pieters, Phil, Rafa, Harman, Landry, Si Woo, Webb, Cink, Stone, Pat P, Suri, Na, Kuch, Lahiri, Uilein, Spieth, Rose, BarnRat, Rahm, Fowler, Wood, Oost, Casey, Reed, Finau, X. Now again the winds are not currently projected to be all that heavy, but I would say for sure the late Thursday/early Firday crowd should have a half stroke per round added to their projections, and if you notice, LOTS of the big names are in the draw!A couple last nuggets about the common narratives I've seen. Difficulty....everyone & their momma, myself included, thought this course was going to play super hard, and it still might. But with the winds *relatively* calm and no real rain, the bookmakers are currently projecting the cut line at +3, the over/under for lowest round is 64 which seems really low, and the over/under for number of players under par is 24-27. Distance is being heavily discounted, but this is your friendly reminder that distance ALWAYS matters, just to varying degrees. 

Finding Value & Information in Head to Head Matchups

This is something I've been incorporating more & more into my weekly analysis, & is absolutely critical when we have all the best players in the world going head to head. Essentially we look at the head to head matchups posted on mybookie or Bookmaker to see where the books disagree with the DFS world and where we can find value. Some weeks the DFS world & the books are in almost complete agreement, but most of the time there are clear differences of opinion that we can take advantage of. It almost always ends up being a great clue as to where the sharp money is & what the books were expecting. It's an interesting week because there really aren't a ton of 'surprising' lines, but plenty of ones to help us spot value! So lets look at a couple that are standing out this week: Yes sir, you see that right....Justin Rose is the head to head favorite against DJ. I think you can chalk this up to several things....1. Rose has been in incredible form all year 2. He played well in the Scottish Open 3. He's been better on bent grass 4. He's more accurate 5. He has a better track record on less than driver courses 6. He has the way better tee time draw. At the US Open DJ was a -130 favorite over Rose, but on the home soil the odds have flipped to Rose. This line actually did surprise me. Rory has been in pretty middling form so I was expecting at minimum a +125 yet he's only a very slight dog to DJ. After you go back & look though Rory's Open performance it's vastly superior to that of DJ's and he's generally played very well across the board on links style courses.I couldn't help but think of these two gif's when I saw this line, btw, Braveheart is a top 5 movie of all time, if you don't agree please unsubscribe:Yay yay I know Rory hates his national identity so much he didn't play in the Olympics, but he's still an Irishman. Anyways, everyone's super trendy not secret at all course record holder Tommy Golden Locks is a decent dog to Rory. Going back to point C from the opening again, if your only looking at strokes gained data your missing his last two events, which BTW he finished 59th and missed the cut at the other one! I also think this is a testament to how the books are expecting the course to play. Rory tends to eat up easier courses, and I believe that the smart money thinks Carnasty is just going to play as regular ole Carnoustie. BTW, Rickie is also a dog to RoryI think this is both a vote for Stenson and a vote against Spieth. JS is *only* $2400 more expensive than Stenson, yet he's a pickem at best and in several other places Spieth is a plus moneyline underdog. The only real case I can make for playing Spieth is ownership, and ownership alone as I'm sure he will probably come in at sub 10% in the milly. Battle of the Sweds! Noren is probably the most touted player in the field and for good reason coming off a Open de France victory in pretty tough condidtions. BUT Stenson is still a -145 favorite, translated into implied odds the books are still expecting Stenson to come out ahead 59% of the time.I'm very high on both Casey & Reed, so to see them as virtual pickems against Hatton really got me digging deeper. Everyone keeps talking about Fleetwood's course record here at Carnoustie but I've heard almost no one talk about how Hatton has won the Alfred Dunhill back to back years which they play on Carnoustie! He's found his form again and while he doesn't have a great Open record he spends most of time on the euro tour where he also just happens to be the #1 points leader for the Ryder Cup.This line surprised me because Dufner is 5 for 5 in cuts made at the British and is the type of player fit that generally does well here. Berger did finish 6th at the US Open & is certainly in better form. Berger is 26th in the field in strokes gained approach but only $7300....perhaps he needs a closer look?If you haven't listened to the last 20 minutes of this weeks podcast, stop what your doing and download it. It's classic TJ material with Pat tuning in and out, Pat getting hammered, Pat pronouncing names wrong, Pat slurring his words, Pat getting grumpy, Pat wanting to make a bet then forgetting what he wanted to bet on, etc. Literally 5 seconds before the above bet was made, the following words came out of Pat's mouth, "I don't even know what the hell we're talking about." Anyways if you bet on Keegan, your on team David, if you bet on Thor your on team Pat, fire away. And we have to cover at least one Tiger line, and it just so happens to be against David's love child who he apparently has seen the size of his sack (again, download the pod). If* Tiger is gonna make a run at a major I'm in the camp that this is his best shot. According to 15thclub.com the average pro will use their driver about 8 times a round, which sets up perfectly for big cat. On the flip side Brooks is easily the most underrated links player in the field as he cut his teeth on the Euro Tour and already has 2 top 10's to boot in Open Championships. FREE $25! Since David and Pat wanted to argue for 10 minutes over this particular match-up while Pat was on 'Planet Tito's.' our friends over at Mybookie let us create our own prop bet to settle the score! PTP (Planet Tito's Pat) made the argument that CH3 who currently has 8 tags according our friends over at fansharesports.com will be higher owned than Grillo who has 20 tags currently.....its a free $25 over at mybookie right now, your welcome. Sign the fuck up below to get a 50% deposit bonus PLUS a free $25 dollars when you bet on Grillo to be higher owned in the milly. 

THE Chalk BombSince the pricing is super soft this week it's extremely hard to find anyone to fade based on price alone. Spieth certainly comes to mind but between his price and current form I would be shocked if he's over 9% in any of the big contest. I'm going to share with you some FACTS on this weeks chalk bomb (try not to scroll down to see the pic yet) and before you see this person's name you tell me how confident you would feel being overweight: No one priced 8k and up has a worse Open history than this guy, as he has made 1 of 4 his four cuts at the Open. He's an underdog in every single posted head to head with guys that are priced above him. In his last two events in weaker fields he's finished 59th and missed the cut. He's in the bad tee time draw, playing Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. In his last 6 events he ranked 51st in the field in greens in regulation, and in 30 rounds this year on the Euro tour he's 49th in strokes gained approach. Did I mention he's a bad putter? He ranks 194th this season on the Euro tour & 80th on the PGA in strokes gained putting. So, how over weight do you want to be on this guy?? Well fanboys, your chalk bomb this week is none other than:TOMMY FLEETWOODPS. I also have no problem fading anyone that will be over 10% that played in the John Deere and is also in the bad tee time draw, between those two things you could realistically add a full stroke per round to their projections simply from travel/wind. 

David wanted to honor the English people by partaking in a 24 ounce ole English for the British Open. It was bad choice. Don't make bad choices, read the 10 Facts!

1. The tournament winners from the last calendar year where the wind has been over 20 mph on average at the start of the tee times:  Noren, Brooks, Casey, JT, JT, Sergio, Hatton, Dunne, Spieth, Rafa. 2. Your top 10 Euro Tour strokes gained approach leaders on the season (min 20 rounds) 1. Bjork! 2. Mcllroy 3. Sharma 4. Pepperell 5. Frittelli 6. Grace 7. Colsaerts 8. Kaymer 9. Fitzpatrick 10. Westwood3. Top 10 Euro Tour strokes gained Tee to Green (min 20 rounds) 1. Rory 2. Fleetwood 3. Fox 4. Frittelli 5. Westwood 6. Bjork 7. Van Rooyen 8. Grace 9. Suri 10. Pepperell4. Top 10 in my model under 8k: 1. Henley 2. Finau 3. Poulter 4. Cook 5. Cantlay 6. Hoffman 7. Oosthuizen 8. ZJ 9. Hatton 10. Knox5. Top 10 in my model that play at least 50% on the Euro Tour: 1. Hatton 2. Rahm 3. Bjork 4. Campillo 5. Noren 6. Sullivan 7. Fitzpatrick 8. Fox 9. Olesen 10. Frittelli (11. Southgate)6. Top 10 guys that have performed better on courses that take driver out of your hand: 1. Tiger 2. The Barn Rat 3. Noren 4. Fleetwood 5. Benny An 6. Grillo 7. Stanley 8. Dufner 9. Armour 10. Rafa7. I've heard very little about the green type but from what I've read it mostly bentgrass, so your top 10 bentgrass putters are: 1. Uihlein 2. Olesen 3. Ancer 4. Li 5. Kaymer 6. Armour 7. Koepka 8. Fowler 9. Lahiri 10. Kuch8. Top 10 in GIR the last 6 events: 1. Molinari 2. Cook 3. Southgate 4. Moore 5. Henley 6. Kokrak 7. Cink 8. Knox 9. Bradley 10. Fox (the next 5 are interesting as well, Bjork, Zanotti, Rose, Finau, Poulter)9. Top 10 strokes gained approach on the PGA tour last 12 rounds: 1. Rose 2. Tiger 3. DJ 4. Molinari 5. Cink 6. JT 7. Burgoon 8. Cantlay 9. Na 10. Bryson D10. Did you know that Carnoustie is almost on the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska? I always knew it was North but that really surprised me. Also the Scottish have over 100 different words for 'rain'.....though they haven't gotten to use many of them recently!Bonus Fact:1. My favorite head to head bet this week is Ryan Fox over Danny Willet....Will-et as Pat would say has had a couple decent rounds lately but they are almost entirely short game driven.

Win a FREE M2 Driver!

So we've got WAY to many listeners to not be seeing Goalby up at the top of the leaderboards every week in the DFS streets. If anyone finishes in the top 5 of the Fore ($4), Albatross ($12), or Millionaire Maker ($20) on DraftKings, we'll send you a TJ hat, AND if you can take one down with the TJ logo at the top when it's all said & done, we'll send you a brand new TaylorMade driver on us! Literally all you have to do is change your avatar & screenshot us those green screens! Bome! Just use the link here to change your avatar: Tourjunkies Avatar