The Charles Schwab Challenge 2024 Chalk 💣

Severe weather is pounding the area early this week with continued rain and thunderstorms possible on Thursday as well. The storm cells combined with the regularly gusty Texas breezes makes for an unpredictable couple of days as the tournament gets started. That said, the wind patterns suggest the early/late group may just dodge the worst of it…

For final analysis on weather advantages and tee times, make sure you tune into the Nut Hut live chat starting around 9pm ET for the latest and final thoughts on the weather this week...GET IN THERE

Max Homa -145 ($10,400) vs. Jordan Spieth +115 ($10,600)

Let’s start with a pair of star players north of $10k where we find Max Homa is a big favorite according to the sharp oddsmakers in a 72-hole matchup against Jordan Spieth.

With a decade of starts at Colonial including seven top-10s and a win, Spieth is certainly one of the horses for this course, but that’s not to discount Homa’s experience here with five prior starts and finishes of T9 and T25 over the last two years.

Both of these guys are popular plays this week in DFS, but Homa is especially chalky. According to our Nut Hut ownership projections available in the Discord, Homa is expected to come in at around 16% ownership while Spieth is closer to 10%.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout -135 ($8900) vs. Adam Scott +105 ($9200)

Moving down the board, Christiaan Bezuidenhout is a heavy favorite in a head-to-head matchup against Adam Scott despite a $300 discount in DraftKings DFS pricing.

With nine prior starts at Colonial between them, both players are familiar with the course this week. Bez has the more recent experience with three starts since 2020, but Scott has the better history with an outright win in 2014 — even if he hasn’t played this event since 2018…

The public seems to be tailing the bookies here as Bezuidenhout is by far the more popular play with roughly 12% ownership while Scott is among the lower-owned players this week at 6%.

Harris English -154 ($9000) vs. Tom Hoge +123 ($9300)

Lastly, Harris English is a huge favorite according to the sharp books over Tom Hoge even though the latter is slightly more expensive in DFS.

Both of these guys have ample course history at Colonial but English has enjoyed the better performances. The former Georgia Bulldog has six top-30 finishes including two top 10s while Hoge has made the weekend just once in his last four trips to Fort Worth.

According to our Nut Hut ownership projections, both players are among the public favorites this week with English projected at over 13% ownership while Hoge is projected at around 11%

*DISCLAIMER: The Chalk Bomb is CHALK for a reason! This is a ballsy call. We're simply giving you 1 player projected to be highly owned that we think could warrant a fade in order to gain leverage in DFS GPP Tournaments. Sack up & fade OR Ignore the play. 

Golf was on crack last week huh?

Xander ‘Can’t-Close’ Schauffele wins a major at 21-under-par, Alejandro Tosti is out here driving island greens and the PGA TOUR’s choir boy Scottie Scheffler finds himself in the clink with a mugshot immediately all over the internet.

Thankfully, the ever-steady Chalk Bomb provided some normalcy as we once again nailed it with Brooks Koepka. The defending champ looked poised to make a run at a repeat, but a Saturday 74 sunk his chances and led him to a T26 finish despite a strong showing in the final round.

So how do we go from that to an admittedly sleepy tournament out in Fort Worth with a $9 million purse? Plenty of big-name players are taking a much-needed breather this week, but the chalk is still being gobbled up by the few stars that decided to make the trip to Texas.

According to our Nut Hut data available in the Tour Junkies Discord, only four players meet our minimum 15% ownership threshold to be eligible as a fade option this week. You can guess who the top one is…

Despite his pending charges, Scottie Scheffler is eating up over 30% ownership early this week — but I know better than to fade him.

So who will it be? As we often do, let’s begin with what our friends at Bet the Number have cooked up for their custom model this week to see which players might not be an ideal fit for Colonial CC.

They’ve identified this week’s venue as the polar opposite of a ‘Bomber’s Paradise’ off the tee. Tight fairways and sharp doglegs make Colonial a true point-to-point golf course where driver is the ideal play off the tee on only about nine holes.

Accuracy is much more important than distance here, and that doesn’t bode well for this week’s Chalk Bomb who ranks 123rd in the field in Driving Accuracy over his last 36 rounds. What’s more, he also ranks 63rd in Distance from Edge of Fairway when he does miss off the tee, meaning his misses are a good bit more wayward and therefore punishing.

Moving on to approach play, accuracy with the irons will be especially important this week considering the point-to-point nature of Colonial. The experts at Bet The Number have analyzed approach stats from the last five years of this event and found that the majority of approaches come from between 125-175 yards.

Looking at Strokes Gained: Approach from that distance… our Chalk Bomb could be in big trouble. Over his last 36 rounds, he ranks 126th in this week’s field in that category.

This player has been solid all year, but as the fourth-most expensive player in DFS and a projected ownership of over 16%, you’ll likely need a top-10 performance to return any value on this week’s Chalk Bomb, and I’m not so sure his game fits Colonial well enough to do so.

So without further ado, Max Homa… You are the Chalk Bomb!

If you happen to wear a sock inside out. Technically the universe is wearing that sock.

What the hell did pigeons do before big cities came around?

Imagine being a college kid and golf fan who had a wild night in Louisville that ended with being detained in a holding cell with Scottie F’in Scheffler. I mean, we thought all of us were shocked.

I feel that we are lucky water contains zero calories.

Alright, that’s all I got for this week for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial. May all your screens be green and we all bend over our bookies. Bome!