Chalk Bomb week 2

So I have a regret from last week.....

BUT its not the one you think. Remember when I said last week that we would be process focused not results focused? Given the information I had on Tuesday, I would pick Berger to be the chalk bomb again, but what I regretted was not checking back in on Fansharesports.com late Wednesday to see how the ownership projections were shaping up. I really expected Berger to be at least 20% owned given his course history, ok form, & carried 20% ownership last time out. I was gravely disappointed to find out at lock that Berger was only 10%, which at that ownership he wasnt chalky enough to bomb enough lineups to really get the leverage on the field which is the entire point of this. Fansharesports.com is the best in the business at identifying who exactly has been touted the most, hence increasing ownership. Berger barely made the top 10 in tags, & guys right above him, Webb, ZJ, Spieth, Hideki, Fowler which FanShare nailed, would have all made better choices from a pure ownership play. Better information equals better lineups, its as simple as that. 

They have been kind enough to give us a sneak peak at the top salary range for this week. Below are the top 3 tagged golfers 10k and up for this week, to see all the current projections just click the link below. 

The highest owned guy to miss the cut this past week was Spieth, followed by Webb & Hideki, so lets do a little digging and see if we can learn anything. For Spieth its just all about his putter right now....to give you a little reference, your generally in the top 10 on tour if you gain about half a stroke against the field putting each round, which Spieth has done in 15' & 16'. In both rounds last week, Spieth LOST almost a full 2 strokes per round. Digging a little deeper, in this young season so far, JS is ranking pretty pretty close to dead last in every putting category right now. It's not just one particular distance either, its like every distance. Their were chinks in the armor last year as well....after the Zurich Classic JS's putting basically went to shit the rest of the year outside of the two week stretch from the Travelers to the Open, but because the RA is stupid & doesnt believe in fun golf stats or letting women in certain clubhouses, we dont have the data for those rounds which he certainly gained strokes on. But from the Zurich Classic thru the end of the year, Spieth was gaining on average about 0.1 strokes per round which puts him with the likes of Dufner, Webb, & Adam Scott, none of which are known for their putters. Now I use the term, 'went to shit' very loosely, because even while he's in this rut of his, he's still GAINING strokes on average, Hideki wouldnt know what that looks like (even with his Tour Junkies sponsored lasik!). In 2017 Spieth lead the PGA tour in strokes gained approach the green, so all it really ever took for him to play well last year was an historically 'average' putting tournament. I write all this because even with the missed cut last week, Spieth is still the 5th most tagged golfer on FanShare, and trending towards being quite chalky again. And the even larger question is, is Jordan Spieth even an 'elite' putter anymore, or is now the time to buy the dip? I almost always lean towards buying the dip on elite players, but Spieth's putting has been in a substantial rut now for almost 9 months and has been down right terrible the last 3 tournaments he's played in. Its hard to be much worse than he's been the last two tournaments specifically, but at some point you have to adjust his baseline for that putter from 'elite' to just 'slightly above average.'

Putting is hands down the most volatile stat in golf, & will be a constant theme when were evaluating players, especially for the chalk bomb. So after I just wrote a book on JS's putting your going to be surprised to find that he is NOT in fact the chalk bomb this week. No my friends, were diggin deep this week & going strongly against the grain (& going against some of what we discussed last week re: being price sensitive). 

Da Chalk Bomb, our Guy this week.......

Is projected to be in at least 21% of lineups across the industry, & I honestly think he could get up into the high 20's by lock. Similar to last week, with the top 5 guys all soaking up quite a bit of ownership, its going to form very chalky pockets at the bottom because everyone will need those savings to go up & get those top 5 guys. Our chalk bomb this week is coming off a T-6 in which he averaged 24! putts per round (tour average is just over 29 btw). Generally when someone averages 24 putting strokes per round they win a tournament going away...BUT that obviously was not the case for our chalk bomb. In said tournament, he both failed to even hit 60% of his greens or 50% of his fairways, but managed to get up & down 3/4's of the time & one putt like every hole. Our chalk bomb this week also has what I would consider terrible course history which really doesnt happen very often. On his record he has 2 missed cuts & a 47th....and despite all the courses being short this week, distance has a very strong correlation with past success, which this guy ranks outside the top 100 in average driving distance. Now his price is a big reason why hes going to garner so much ownership, at $6900 he is admittedly to cheap given his talent & world ranking. Just making the cut at $6900 locks in some profit, but if your going to take down a GPP, just making the cut aint gonna cut it, see what I did there? From my seat, given the recipe of having putted out of his mind last time out despite poor ball striking to finish in a deceptive T-6, poor course history, poor course fit, & over 21% ownership....our chalk bomb this week is non other than Rafa Cabrera-Bello! 

10 Things You Need To Know So You Dont Look Like This Come Sunday

1. Brandt Snedeker again lost strokes off the tee & approach last week...the short game has come back around but hes still trying to get his Tee to Green game back. 2. Fatrick Reed is in a very similar boat...he gained 0.62 strokes T2G last week & mostly rode a hot putter to his 17th place finish last week. Both of these guys have been pretty heavily touted & have good course history, but their recent form is still very lacking. 3. Tom Hoge continues to gain strokes both off the tee & on approach, his putting has just been awful the last 2 weeks. He has the ball striking to win on tour, & after a MC he'll have very little ownership.4. I know we've already hit on it, but despite these courses being very short this week, distance was the biggest correlation we found to past success at this tournament, followed by scoring in general, GIR, & scrambling which very rarely pops. 5. Top 5 guys playing this week that lost strokes putting last week but gained strokes Tee to Green (in order of strokes lost putting) aka guys that got unlucky. 1. Spieth 2. Hoge  3. Lowry 4. Piercy 5. Nick Taylor6. Top 5 guys playing this week that gained strokes putting last week but lost strokes Tee to Green (in order of strokes gained putting) aka guys that got lucky 1. Na  2. Van Aswegen 3. Squirtin McGirtin 4. Mahan 5. Horschel7. Top 10 guys in my favorite secret scoring stat: 1. Spieth 2. Rahm 3. DJ 4. Rory 5. Cantlay 6. Casey 7. Phil 8. Day 9. Woodland 10. Project Pat Perez8. Top 6 sneaky distance guys (in order of average Driving Distance) 1. Keith Mitchell 2. Tom Lovelady 3.Trey Mullinax 4. Brandon Harkins 5. Grayson Murray 6. Aaron Wise  9. Guys with sneaky good course history (remember only looking at last 5 years & weight missed cuts heavily). 1. Fatrick 2. Streelman 3. Jimmy Walker 4. Jason Kokrak 5. Shane Lowry 6. Chris Kirk 7. Matt Jones 8. Hadley 10. Beau Hossler is another guy that keeps playing great & just playing like shit on Sundays. Don't let his box score fool you, hes been around the top of the leaderboard the last two weeks.  

Thats it for this week!

I'll have some new segments coming on line in the following week that should be fun reads, & we'll try & do one deep dive a week as well. Two last notes, just like last week, I think it again makes a ton of sense to have at least 10% of your teams that have zero of the top 5 guys in them (worked out very nice last week). The second thing is that it looks to be pretty windy on Saturday, I would do a couple teams with guys just playing Spy Glass & Pebble on Saturday as they could have a big edge in scoring those days. May your screens be green!