Desert Classic Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

Desert Classic Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

January 16, 2019

 This Week's Tour Stop The Desert Classic at PGA West 

3 Courses One Cup

This is always one of my favorite events for several reasons. One, I've made more money on this tournament than any other PGA tour event over the last 3 years w/ 2 separate top 6 GPP finishes, so I'm slightly biased, but the coolest part is that I did it with the exact same model both years. A lot of people hate the multi-course events but I think there's a HUGE edge a lot of years especially when the weather is going to vastly different day to day. Unfortunately this year there isn't a big difference in the weather, but I do think we have at least a half stroke edge in the tee time waves due to the wind. Players on the La Quinta course on Saturday will have the nicest weather on the easiest course, and with the way DraftKings does scoring, just 1 or 2 extra birdies is the difference between winning a gpp and finishing 6th! I've listed the players below that are playing La Quinta on Saturday...again, not a gigantic edge, but a really nice tie breaker. One last note is I want to remind everyone that we're cranking out lots of new, #greatfantistic content every week on One Groove Low at

. Pat's new Fantasy Sommelier article is both great advice and laugh out loud funny, and our new season long betting piece is going to help settle the debate of course history, course fit, and recent form once and for all. 

Leh Go!

La Quinta Saturday List (relevant guys): Niemann, Harkins, Steele, Dufner, Pan, Bozzelli, Gay, Kokrak, Cantlay, Kizzire, Laird, Kizner, Swafford, Sabbatini, Landry, CH3

 MATCHUP 1 Hadwin vs. CH3 

I once again strongly considered our 1st matchup as my pick for our new head to head article that you can find every Tuesday night HERE #Bome. So CH3 has played here the last 3 years, just like Hadwin....he's finished a very respectable 11th, 12th, & 20th while hitting exactly 75% of his greens every year and he's 2nd in the field in strokes gained off the tee at PGA West. Hadwin, as you might have heard, shot a 59 at this tournament 2 years ago, and has finished no worse than 6th in his 3 attempts...not to bad! But here is where it gets interesting....CH3 has actually gained almost a full stroke more per round (on the West course, the only one you play twice) tee to green than Hadwin. Over the course of the entire tournament, Hadwin has just putted better (26.3 putts per round vs 28.3 for CH3), and as you know, putting can be just a little bit variable. 

MATCHUP 2

Niemann vs. CT Pan

I expect Niemann to be popular this week and rightfully so. He's a head to head pick em again CT Pan even though Niemann is $800 cheaper, quite the discount. He fits 4 of the 5 top course fit metrics that we id'ed in the betting article, and all three courses should be a perfect fit for him. The single biggest key this week is you have to pound the par 5's every day, and in this field, of the guys that mostly play PGA events, he's 11th in par 5 scoring, and #1 in eagles made per hole. CT has actually played pretty well since July of last year, but on a course that demands lots of scoring, distance, and killing of the par 5's....its just not a great fit (and he's missed the cut both times he's played here).

MATCHUP 3

List vs. Piercy

I'll be the first to admit that seeing Scott Piercy at $9100 made me a little queasy, hell he's only been above 8k three times in the last calendar year. BUT, his worst finish since October is 33rd w/ 3 top 10's mixed in, he's a great driver of the ball (26th in total driving last year on tour)...AND, guess who just so happens to lead the field in strokes gained tee to green over the last two years on PGA West? Thats right, Scott mo fo-ing Piercy. On the flip side, List is a slight value as he's 100 cheaper than Piercy on DraftKings but a -120 favorite on MyBookie. On paper this event is made for a guy like Luke List, and his first attempt out here he finished 6th (and he's become a WAY better player the last two years). He's 5th in par 5 scoring, 3rd in driving distance, and is in the upper 20% on tour for both birdie or better and eagles made. 

MATCHUP 4

Rahm vs. Rose

This is one of the key decisions of the week for most people. In my opinion Rose was the real world #1 last year from start to finish...in his last 6 events he played in 2018 he finished no worse than 8th! The real 'X' factor with Rose is the club change, and I'll be honest it scares me to. These guys are such creatures of habit and deal in such precision that it will no doubt have an effect, the question is just how much? We all remember what happened when Rory changed clubs at the top of his game, it wasn't pretty. So as far as DFS is concerned, it really just boils down to are we going to get a good enough ownership 'discount' along with the $600 price discount. As far as betting, I think the books have priced in the above, because if Rose was still with TaylorMade he would be the head to head favorite. One last note I want to point out is that Rahm's worst putting surface is Bermuda which he has actually lost strokes over the course of his career.

MATCHUP 5

Johnson vs. Schwartzel

This isn't one that jumped off the page at the beginning of the week but as I've done more research the price on Charl looks pretty good. On the DFS front Charl clearly isn't a value as he's $200 more than ZJ and is the +130 underdog, and yes, ZJ averages almost a full stroke less per round in scoring on average, but hear me out. Charl is #2 in my course fit model this week and excels at key metrics like par 5 scoring, driving distance, and recent form with his short game. Charl generally loses strokes putting, but on bermuda he actually gains strokes AND is #12 in strokes gained putting on bermuda in the field. ZJ on the other hand is basically an anti-course fit and I think his course history shows. He's missed the cut 2 out of 3 tries, AND he's putted really well all 3 times (averaged 26.3, 26, 27.3 putts per round). 

MyBookie leads the way in Golf betting, NFL, NBA, MLB & even betting on the next Pope, Justin Bieber's best man & more!

Stats about our boy this week:

So it's a really weird ownership week. Currently FanShare is only projecting two players to be over 20% owned so the 'chalk' bar is going to be fairly low this week. 

  • At last year's Desert Classic he lost strokes tee to green

  • In years past he had what I would consider 'good' course history, but the last two years he's hit 58% & 56% of his greens which is #NotGood

  • And despite putting at an elite level the last two years at this event, (24.8 & 26 putts per round, which if you average sub 25 you usually win the event) he's finished 21st & missed the cut

  • Despite a top 7 salary, you'd have to go all the way down to $7900 to find a player that has a LOWER GIR hit % than this guy over the last year

  • Over his last 10 strokes gained events, he's gained a massive 0.7 strokes tee to green per event

  • Since the US Open last year, this guy has gained a total of 7! strokes on the field....SEVEN, its not that unusual for someone to gain 7 strokes putting in one event!

  • He's a head to head underdog again someone that's priced $800 cheaper (who I'm also not high on)

is THE place to evaluate ownership in PGA DFS (spoiler, basically everyone that projects ownership in the industry uses FanShareSports as at least one input) and they have our guy projected at 14.5% this week....Phil Mickelson, you're the Chalk Bomb!

Now is the perfect time to join! Click the button below for 20% OFF FanShare Pro, just enter promo code 'tourjunkies'

 1. 

Strokes gained tee to green leaders from last years Desert Classic (keep in mind that only PGA West has strokes gained data): 

1. Chappell 2. Werenski 3. Piercy 4. Chez 5. Lashley 6. Glover 7. Saunders 8. Nick Taylor 9. Cauley 10. Hadwin

2. 

8 of the last 9 winners here: 

have played in one of the Hawaii events the two weeks before

3. I made a different custom model that focuses on ONLY year long stats since recent form doesn't really exist yet:

1. Rose 2. Rahm 3. Cantlay 4. Neimann 5. Connors 6. Im 7. List 8. Glover 9. Munoz 10. Reavie 

4. 

Strokes gained putting leaders on Bermuda the last 50 rounds:

1. Kiz! 2. Donald 3. Malnati 4. Thompson 5. Stricker 6. Lindheim 7. Gay 8. Blixt 9. Wagner 10. Reed

5.

Your top 10 in GIR's hit at PGA West:

 *small sample sizes apply 1. Knox 2. Swafford 3. Henry 4. Ortiz 5. Landry 6. Streelman 7. CH3 8. Connors 9. Ryder 10. Glover

6. Since this is a short par 72 (& if you read our betting piece this week you know par 5 scoring was #1 in course fit) your top 10 in par 5 scoring are: 

1. Ortiz 2. Rose 3. Im 4. Rahm 5. Cantlay 6. Glover 7. Phil 8. List 9. Sabbatini 10. Lovemark

7.

Top 10 in strokes gained approach at Stadium West (min 2 rounds):

1. Burgoon 2. Spaun 3. List 4. Stallings 5. Putnam 6. Si Woo Kim 7. Piercy 8. Cauley 9. Streelman 10. Haas

8.

According to DataGolf, 

over the three years that the Stadium has been the keynote course, strokes gained approach has accounted for 42% of the scoring variance, 17% above a normal tour stop

9. 

Top 10 in strokes gained approach at PGA West last year:

1. Chappell 2. Glover 3. Reavie 4. Cauley 5. Mahan 6. Putnam 7. Rahm 8. Vegas 9. Hadwin 10. Hadley

10.

If I make a custom model that only counts short courses, easy courses, & Bermuda greens, your top 10 in total strokes gained over the last 50 rounds are:  

1. Dufner 2. Spaun 3. Rose 4. Palmer 5. Kisner 6. Ollie 7. Wise 8. List 9. Vegas 10. English

WIN A

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PAT'S PARTING WORDS

"Listen, if drunk me said or did something, you gotta take it up with drunk me. Don't come at sober me because we weren't there. We don't know what happened...."

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