Masters Bomb

Masters Week

Hello Friends, welcome to the greatest week in golf and the Super Bowl of DFS golf, bring your popcorn. Augusta is such a cool place. It's the only Major we return to the same course year after year, but the course is designed with such genius that depending on the conditions, completely different skill sets will thrive. Given 'normal' conditions....big hitters with elite long to mid iron play have generally dominated, BUT when the players are faced with really hard conditions like 07', 08', 15'...accurate players with elite short games found their way up the leaderboards. When you do these deep dives into the data, you can truly appreciate the brilliance of Bobby Jones & Alister MacKenzie being able to design a course that can give an advantage to completely different types of players given different conditions. Having had the honor & privilege of attending the Masters several times, I can tell you first hand that the TV just doesn't do it justice, it is the most beautiful piece of landscape on planet Earth. There literally isn't one single weed on the property....not ONE! I have more weeds than grass right now in my yard! Anyways, having walked the grounds over the years, here a couple nuggets & key takeaways:1. The elevation change is huge, four holes alone have elevation changes greater than 62 feet. It is a HARD walk...not that there are many out of shape guys on tour anymore, but if you need a tie breaker, look no further.2. Standing next to a green like #5 or #14, the elevation changes on the GREENS are #real. It's why if I have to rank one stat above everything else, its GIR/Approach, if you missed the Masters stats preview that we did, it can be found here: Masters Preview. If you hit a GIR, but it's on the wrong part of the green, most pros will tell you that they would have rather missed the green entirely.3. The rough is really short, but it can give you some tricky lies. Speaking of lies, the only actual flat places on the entire course are the tee boxes. To play well at Augusta you have to really excel at side hill lies. 4. You can spray it off the tee, and as long as you dont get unlucky you'll generally still have a shot at the green. The pine trees can certainly be an obstacle but they are usually spread out enough to where you have windows to work with. 5. The right to left ball flight is a real thing, and it's why lefties have done so well at Augusta. It's much easier to over cook a draw on 13 than hitting a big easy fade around the corner....just ask Tiger when he a dropped a nice F bomb on live TV: Tiger Over Cooks DrawBonus: Best spot on the course? Seats right next to the pond on 16. You get a great view of the par 3, & it's always the most likely hole in one hole (we saw 2 of the 3 two years ago), you get to see all the approach shots from the par 5 15th, AND its right next to the bathrooms & beer, just doesn't get any better. You also have the chance to witness the worst five 5 in major championship history. Plus it's always fun to get a gambling game going on who will be closest to the pin as the groups come through.

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Lets talk GPP strategy before we get to the Chalk Bomb:

89 total players in the field, & as I build my model for the week & start to widdle down my player pool, I (& you) can pretty quickly X off about 25 guys without batting an eye from all the former winners & ams. That leaves 64 players before you really even get into course fit, history, form, are they in a dry spell, etc.  Ownership & the meta game on weeks like this are so important, and with such an already limited pool of players, lineup overlap is bound to happen if your not paying attention. The lowest hanging fruit for events like this is to LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE! Depending on the sport, 30-50% of all GPP lineups will max out their salary cap at 50k, and generally a single digit percentage will leave more than 500 on the table. It's the easiest way to virtually guarantee that your lineup is unique, because while splitting 1 million isn't all that bad, it does really kill your expected value. Personally I will leave as much as 1500 on the table for super top heavy GPP's like the Milly Maker, it's a great way to eat some chalk and still separate yourself from the field. Next comes ownership, again with the limited field, most everyone will have 'some' ownership...I don't see very many guys above 9k that will have less than 10%. Roster Construction- Pricing is very soft this week, as it is at every major. There are going to be a LOT of lineups that start at Phil at $9500 & work their way down....which conversely means that a lot of casual fans will be building lineups with no one under 7500 on their team. A stars & 'scrubs' approach is a great way to be contrarian without giving up a ton of EV on weeks like this. DJ & JT will almost certainly be under owned relative to the guys just below them (Spieth, Tiger, Rory, Phil). Which is incredible considering that the world #1 & the consensus favorite a year ago along with the guy that is playing like the world #1 are going to be two of the lower owned elite players. Weather- Like we covered in the opening....this course will play completely different if the conditions are super tough, which they most likely will be on the weekend. It's currently projected to rain with heavy winds on Saturday & it should be pretty cool Sunday with a high of 66 currently. I'll be dedicating 20% of my lineups to guys that played well in years like 07', 08', 15' for the potential that the course plays super hard on the weekend with the winner being just under par. 

The Chalk Bomb

This chalk bomb is bitter sweet because this was a guy that I didn't really want to play but originally thought that his ownership would be so low that he would make for a good GPP play. Well, the ball has swung the other way to such an extent that he's now the chalk bomb! According to Fansharesports.com, this guy that I though would be sub 5% is currently 12th in tags & 7th! in start calls. If you believe like I do that approach/GIR/approach in the RIGHT spots/ is the real key to success here at Augusta, then let me explain why you should look elsewhere.1. He's going to fit right into the chalkiest roster construction of a balanced lineup.2. He's played in 1 stroke play event since February & his supposed strong suit (approach/gir) he was an absolute mess hitting 52.4% of his greens and lost two strokes approach the green. 3. In the Dell Match play he went 1-2 with his only win against household name Yusaku Miyazato. He was also quoted at the end of the event,“Other than on the second and fourth holes, my shot placement wasn’t that great,” referring to his beat down at the hands of Patrick Cantlay4. It's a smaller sample size, but this guy is 204th currently in proximity to the hole on approach shots5. There is plenty of data on golfers that play limited schedules or are coming back from injury....but the readers digest version is that guys in these scenarios will generally underperform due to rust/not being 100%. If were playing to win a major, you probably need to be 100% physically to really have a chance (unless your Tiger)6. Not known for his putting, he's actually putted quite well when he has played which has helped to mask some really poor ball striking rounds. Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiideka Maaaaaattttttttsuuuuuuuyyyyyyaaaaammmmmaaaaaa your the chalk bomb!

10 Masters Facts You NEED to Know So You Don't Play DFS like Steven Bowditch Plays Real Golf

1. Eight times since 2004, the year the Masters champion won their Masters, then finishes outside the top 100 in strokes gained putting. Basically outside of Woods & ZJ, since the invention of strokes gained data, no one has ranked better than 40th in strokes gained putting the year they won. 2. Nine times since 2004, the year the Masters champion won their Masters, they were in the top 7!! strokes gained tee to green for that calendar year. Angel Cabrera having the worst Tee to Green game for a Masters champion in the year he won ranking 63rd. 3. According to 15thclub.com, Masters rookies generally suffer about a 0.25 stroke per round 'experience' penalty, far less than originally thought.4. While only 1 true Masters 'rookie' has won, plenty have played well. Over the last 20 Masters, the top rookie has finished inside the top 9, 13 times. (side rant: its also very flawed data for the 1st timer stuff, because most modern 'stars' play in the Masters as am's)  5. Every par 5 is gettable at Augusta, and if we've looking for upside, wouldn't it be useful to know who goes for it the most on par 5's???? Well here ya go: 1. Cantlay 2. Pieters 3. Sergio 4. Rahm 5. HaoTong LI 6. Vegas 7. X 8. Chappell 9. Fleetwood 10. Perez6. Top 5 strokes gained approach from the API & Houston Open that are in this weeks field: API: 1. Dechambeau 2. Fowler 3. ZJ 4. Rose 5. Stenson  Houston Open top 5: 1. Speef 2. Stenson 3. Poulter 4. Pieters 5. Kuchar7. Top 5 strokes gained putting from the API & Houston Open that are in this weeks field: API: 1. Rory 2. Rose 3. Stenson 4. Stanley 5. Hatton   Houston: 1. Phil (of course) 2. Kuchar 3. Poulter 4. Henley 5. Fowler8. Top 'sneaky' course history guys, if there is such thing at Augusta: 1. Hoffman 2. Berger 3. Jimmy Walker 4. Fowler 5. Poulter!9. Top 10 in my favorite stat this week: 1. DJ 2. Phil 3. Hadwin 4. Bubba 5. Rahm 6. Steele 7. Molinari 8. Finau 9. Perez 10. Noren 10. Our caddie insight for this week named his dark horse pick as.....Brian Harman, which I found very interesting because he's shown that he can play with the bomber at Erin Hills last year, & he's been in great form basically all season so far

Thats it boys & girls!

We'll be in Augusta all week, holla at ya boys if anyone is around! Hopefully someone with a TJ avatar takes down the milly! May your screens be green!