The Memorial Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

The Memorial Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

 This Week's Tour Stop The Memorial @ Muirfield Village  

The Memorial, the week after Memorial Day

Chalk it up to one of the few drawbacks of the new schedule I guess? But on the whole I think it's been a great improvement. So I've been re-reading yet another great book recently, 'Berlin Diary,' by William Shirer. It has absolutely nothing to do with daily fantasy golf, but there's an important lesson I think we can takeaway that Nassim Taleb actually describes in his famous book, 'The Black Swan.' The book is an incredible first hand, day to day account of the lead up to WWII from the perspective of Shirer, an American who was one of the lead CBS radio reporters in Berlin. I'm an admitted WWII history junkie, and it's always fascinated and troubled me, how seemingly one man could galvanize an entire country into committing the terrible atrocities of the Third Reich. One of the many reasons I enjoy reading and studying about the event is I think it's important to learn and understand why and how these things happened, so we hopefully don't repeat the same mistakes in the future.A realization I came to while reading the book was that so often we look BACKWARDS at history & it seems so orderly, so predicable, when it's really anything but. 'Berlin Diary' is such a unique view of what Berlin (& Europe overall) looked like as history was happening, not as we view it now. Even as late as April 1940 the 'war' was anything but certain to take place (Britain & France had declared war some 7 months prior when Germany invaded Poland, but zero battles happened in those 7 months after). The Third Reich's desperation for commodities and materials being the main motivation for the invasions in Norway, and eventually Russia. When you read the day to day perspective of Shirer you see so many moments in 1938-1941 that could have completely changed the war, for both sides, if very small changes in plans/attacks/timing had happened, making any end result extremely difficult to predict. A great example being the decision of Hitler to attack Yugoslavia unnecessarily for purely personal reasons, which pushed back the pre-planned Russian attack some 4-6 weeks. By most historians accounts the Germans only needed maybe 4 more weeks of good weather to finish off Russia & occupy Moscow, but that one decision created a chain reaction (thankfully) which let the Russian winter set in that ultimately was a major reason the Germans were defeated. We face a very similar problem in projecting results in golf which already has a high level of variance. We generally know what works well, or what you need to do at certain courses to play well, but once the tournament starts random shit happens!  A nice example from last weeks Charles Schwab: we all 'knew' that driving accuracy was extremely important, and the winner, Kevin Na, who has averaged 63% driving accuracy for the year, actually hit LESS fairways (60%) than his season average. So what clicked last week to allow him to gain more strokes on approach than he had in a full calendar year? I don't know, Kevin probably doesn't even know, but he did it. Knowing what to look for in player picks is the 'backwards' looking version of history, whats much harder is trying to figure out how/why someone will perform well or terrible in the 'day to day' current view of history. It's so difficult that in my opinion the game theory/ownership side of golf is & always will be the most important weapon we have against the masses. Other games like DFS football/baseball/basketball/hockey are all about having the right correlations, golf is completely different & that's exactly what makes it so damn fun. 

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!

 MATCHUP 1 JT vs. Boouchar 

Arguably the most interesting line of the week, the books are giving Matt Kuchar favorite status against JT coming off his wrist injury. Injury is usually the only thing that would make Kuchar a favorite over JT, & my intial reaction was certainly to just take JT. But the more I dug in the more Kuch looked like he *should* be the favorite w/ his elite course history & great recent form. In his last 7 trips to Muirfield, Kuchar has never hit less than 64% of his greens in reg (the field average is 62% here), and has never lost strokes putting....thats a good recipe for good course history. Matt's iron play has largely driven his 'career' year so far as he's gained strokes on approach every single event & has gained over a stroke per round 5 different events. JT is the ultimate wildcard this week as he's played great here the last 2 years & was playing great until he hit the wrist injury that you can literally see in the data. He went from the hottest iron player in the world pre-injury to losing strokes on approach the next two events post injury. He claims he's healthy, but since he's not currently committed to next week's RBC, this is his last tune-up before the US Open. 

MATCHUP 2

DeChambeau vs. Woodland

In another matchup of guys where the line is usually reversed, Woodland comes in as the favorite this week over Bryson, & probably rightfully so. Bryson as been fairly terrible ever since the WGC-Mexico, and while his GIR% hasn't been all that bad, this strokes gained data has been all over the place. The thing that made Bryson so elite for a strech last year was he gained strokes across the board, in every category. In 4 out of his last 6 events he's lost strokes in at least 2 areas and in his last 3 events he's lost strokes to the field in total. He does have what I would consider elite course history (though only an 8 round sample size) as he's hit over 70% of his greens here, well over the field average. Woodland is generally one of my favorite players to fade because of the inherent volatility with his short game, losing strokes putting in 6 of 9 events so far this year. He's a good course 'fit' with his elite ball striking, but it's hard to say that he has good history here, as his 1 good finish was all short game driven. He's a *safe* bet to make the cut, and Bryson clearly isn't...BUT if Bryson's ownership is sub 7% I think his history is worth a stab. 

MATCHUP 3

Rory vs. Rose

Amazingly neither one of these guys (like Kuchar) has ever hit less than 64% of their greens in reg at Muirfield. Despite 3 missed cut between them the last 7 years, both guys have equally elite history w/ spotty putting being the only thing that separates Kuchar's history from these guys. Rory's form continues it's incredible pace....even when it felt like he played 'bad' at the PGA he still back-doored a top 10. The head to head price is fair, both guys at this course have the upside to win, w/ Rory having a substantially higher floor (it's easy to forget that he literally has ONE event that he's finished outside the top 8 in 2019). Rose's volatility this year should push his ownership down quite a bit compared to Rory, and he should make a good pivot in gpp's if your looking for leverage. 

MATCHUP 4

Furyk vs. Li

Kind of a wildcard line here, but considering that both of these guys are the same DFS price we have pretty clear value on Furyk. As you know, we've been pounding the drum on Furyk all season long as he's turned back the clock and really found something in his approach and total short game. He was in line for another top 10 last week until a couple late bogeys knocked him down to a share of 12th place. Four times since 2013 Furyk has hit 70%+ of his greens in reg here at Muirfield which is elite despite only one of those instances resulting in a top 20 finish (which is incredible). For Li, there's never anything particularly sexy about his game but he does have a *relatively* high floor for someone priced $7500 this week. Generally the best part about owning Li is that he's almost never owned more than 10% and is a good cut maker. 

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*Remember that we've made a rule for the bomb that they have to be in the top 10 projected owned on FanShareSports.com. Stats about our boy this week: (I could have easily picked 4 other players this week)

  • Dating back to the Players here are his strokes gained T2G for each event (notice the volatility): 2.7, 5.1, 2.9, (-0.1), 1.5, 7.6

  • His strokes gained putting #'s dating back to the Genesis (again notice the volatility): (-4), (-0.6), (-4.1), (-1.8), 5.5, 5.7, 7, (-7.2), (-1.1)

  • He's lost strokes around the green in 7 straight events

  • His best finish at Muirfield? 35th

  • He's also missed 3 of his 4 cuts here

  • He has negative putting splits on bent/poa grass

  • He actually loses quite a bit against his baseline on easy to hit fairway courses

  • He loses quite a bit against his baseline on really fast greens

  • Which would probably explain why he's averaged 30.5 strokes putting per round at Muirfield. Sad!

  • Even for a good tee to green guy his GIR% here is just slightly below field average

  • He hasn't broken 70 in his last 8 rounds of competitive golf

  • He loses strokes against his baseline on courses with long rough

  • He loses strokes against his baseline on par 72 courses

  • He's a head to head pickem' against someone that's $400 cheaper

  • He has the worst top 10 odds of every player $7800 & up

  • Over the last 12 rounds he's 55th in the field in the field in birdies gained

  • Over the last 100 rounds he's 59th in the field in par 5 scoring 

  • He's a head to head underdog against someone $400 cheaper than him

  • He's a 72 hole matchup with another player that is $600 than him

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 17.5% (ownership is extremely spread out) this week....Jason Kokrak, you're the Chalk Bomb!

It's the perfect time to join as Major season is here! Click the button below for 20% OFF FanShare Pro, just enter promo code 'tourjunkies'

1. 

Strokes gained tee to green leaders from last years Memorial:

1. Tiger 2. Cantlay 3. Benny An 4. Uihlein 5. McIIroy 6. Scott 7. Bradley 8. Moore 9. Stanley 10. Matsuyama

2. 

Historical GIR gained leaders at Muirfield, (min 8 rounds)

 1. Benny An 2. Cantlay 3. Stenson 4. DeChambeau 5. Sabbatini 6. Haas 7. Oosthuizen 8. Finau 9. Kuchar 10. Mickelson

3. Strokes gained putting leaders the last 50 rounds on Bent:

1. Fowler 2. W. Kim 3. Day 4. Hossler 5. Noren 6. Grillo 7. Horschel 8. Schauffele 9. DeChambeau 10. Malnati

4. 

If I make a custom model w/ bent greens, easy to hit fairways, & par 72.....your top 10 in total strokes gained are:

1. Spieth 2. Rose 3.Kuchar 4. Scott 5. McIIroy 6. Oosthuizen 7. Finau 8. Leishman 9. Mickelson 10. Day ....BTW....if you guys haven't been paying attention to this fact every week....it's basically nailed half the top 10 every event

5.

Jason Dufner, Tiger Woods, and Hideki Matsuyama have all won this event while losing strokes putting. Also, 9 of the top 11 guys that gained the most strokes tee to green last year all lost strokes putting

6.

 Top 10 in proximity from the 150-175 yardage bucket, and 175-200 bucket last 50 rounds (the 2 most popular approach shot distances):

1. Kokrak 2. Cantlay 3. Conners 4. Scott 5. Li 6. Dahmen 7. Moore 8. Leishman 9. Im 10. Gooch

7.

GIR'S gained backtests extremely well here at Muirfield, your top 10 the last 12 rounds:

1. Tiger 2. Streelman 3. Stenson 4. Kuchar 5. Bradley 6. Na 7. Hatton 8. Dahmen 9. Grillo 10. Rose

8.

 S

trokes gained on the par 5's rated the highest in importance at Muirfield so your top 10 in strokes gained on par 5's:

1. JT 2. McIIroy 3. Woodland 4. DeChambeau 5. Im 6. Day 7. Finau 8. Champ 9. Rose 10. Sabbatini

9. 

Top 10 in opportunities gained the last 12 rounds:

1. McIIroy 2. Merritt 3. Matsuyama 4. Dahmen 5. Na 6. Landry 7. Li 8. Bradley 9. Woodland 10. Kuchar

10.

Top 10 in 'sneaky' course history:

 1. Scott 2. Grillo 3. Cantlay 4. Benny An 5. Uihlein 6. Stanley 7. Leishman 8. Haas 9. Bradley 10. Stricker

WIN A

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PAT'S PARTING WORDS 

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