The Open Championship

DB's Big Balls Betting Card & the 10 Key Stats can be found HERE!

I've been putting in some long hours researching the last week because, from a DFS perspective, this is my favorite tournament of the year. Allow me to elaborate:A. It's a MajorB. the 3 biggest weeks I've ever had in DFS golf all came in tournaments with strong wind/bad weather....from what I hear they tend to get both of those at Royal St. George.C. I get to take advantage of the fact that a large portion of players this week don't take into account that the European tour just started using strokes gained 2 years ago (& has done a shit job at integrating it in any meaningful way). Now, you can find season-long strokes gained data on Europeantour.com, but it still presents problems when comparing players. Take for example a guy like Lucas Herbert. He splits his time evenly between the PGA & Euro tour, so a ton of DFS players would skip right over him because they probably only have his PGA data, but that would be a mistake. He's finished 18th, & 19th in his last 2 PGA Tour events & 1st & 4th in his last 2 Euro events leading up to the Open. He's hit at least 71% of his greens in regulation the last three events at a mere $6800. Or take a guy like Richard Bland who plays almost exclusively on the Euro Tour. All he's done in his last 4 events is Win, 50th (at the US Open where he was the solo leader after 36 holes), 4th at the Irish, 15th at the Scottish while hitting at least 74% of his greens in reg in 3 of those. But you would never know because he only has strokes gained data from the US Open! Speaking of wind! I've spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out in my own backtesting if there is such a thing as a good wind player. So let me save you a week of research and sum up my findings in 3 words from the only actual conclusion that I could confidently come to....wind=bad. There seem to be two key 'tipping points' at which PGA level golfers' scores will start to be adversely affected by the wind. Tipping point #1 occurs at about 12 mph....you could call it the 'continental shelf' where performance goes from your standard baseline to the beginning of the drop-off. Tipping point #2 is at about 20 mph...at 20 mph you basically go from the continental shelf to the abyss of performance, no matter who you are. If you really want to dig into it, the tournaments I found where the tee time wind speeds were 20mph+ (going backwards in time the last 2 calendar year w/ the winner): Kokrak (Charles Shwab), Phil (PGA), Cink (Heritage), Spieth (Texas Open), Dahmen (Corales), Grace (Puerto Rico), Na (Sony), English (TOC), Hovland (Mayakoba), Kokrak (CJ Cup), Rai (Scottish Open), Catlin (Irish Open), Langasque (Wales Open), JT (St. Jude), Rahm (Memorial), Im (Honda), Herbert (Dubai), Cam Smith (Sony), Todd (Bermuda), Perez (A Dunhill), Casey (European Open), Lowry (British), Rahm (Irish)

We're in luck this week. It looks like good English weather all championship long with sustained winds between 9-14 MPH with gusts all day getting up to the mid-'20s. As of right now, I don't see any real wave advantage. Perhaps if you need a tiebreaker I would very slightly lean towards the Thursday PM wave. 

(Image courtesy of DataGolf) Note this week I'm looking at the relative importance and not absolute importance of the course fit. So the course fit is basically meshing ALL the Open sites together into 'one.'  For the most part, you can see that the 'general' same skill set is rewarded. On a relative basis, approach play & around the green play is amplified while driving accuracy is the biggest loser. This makes intuitive sense because most Open championships have difficult fairways to hit through either setup, weather, or both which in turn leads to fewer greens hit which forces the field to scramble more often. I will say after watching a flyover of each hole, the bombers will have a distinct advantage on several of them. The pot bunkers that guard the fairways will be an afterthought for the longest hitters, BUT there are also plenty of opportunities to make a really big number if you get too aggressive. 

Leh Go! 

MATCHUP 1

Brooks vs. Rory

Brooks -130 vs. Rory +116

Pound for pound I would argue that these two have the best Open Championship records of anyone in the field. While Rory did miss the cut at Portrush, he almost battled back to make the cut after shooting a 79 in round 1. Before that, he had gone T2, T4, T5. And while people have come around on Brooks lately, he has a pretty sneaky Open record of T4, T39, T6, T10. The sportsbooks have also had a 'major' price adjustment on Brooks as he's favored over everyone in H2H markets with the exception of Rahm. Just a few short weeks ago he was a H2H dog against almost all the top guys in way weaker fields. I think it's safe to say that the knee has healed up. If you just subtract 2 rounds of lackluster short game focus from the Palmetto, Brooks has been pretty damn steady across the board. At the PGA, US Open, & Travelers he gained 12, 11.1, & 9 strokes on the field. When his irons play is on he's almost always going to find a way to be in contention (btw, it's on right now). Not to be outdone though, Rory has also rediscovered the center of the clubface with his irons, gaining NO LESS than 4.1 strokes on approach shots his last 4 events. If you watched the US Open, it seemed like he had a 10 footer for birdie on almost every hole. And if you look at the numbers, he actually OUTGAINED Rahm T2G, but just couldn't get anything to drop on the weekend. Brooks has been much more consistent off the tee, but Rory has the higher ceiling around the green which always comes in handy at the Open. At a mere 9% projected ownership, I think Rory is as dangerous as any this week. 

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MATCHUP 2

Casey vs. Lowry

 Casey -128 vs. Lowry +114

While it's no surprise that Casey is the H2H favorite over the 2 year reigning Open Champ, he again looks to be undervalued & most likely under-owned in what has always seemed like the best place for him to finally claim a major victory. Like our boys above, he's gained NO LESS than 4.7 strokes on approach shots his last 4 events, has gained at least 1 stroke off the tee in each of those, and has an eternally underrated short game in which he's AVERAGED 1.6 strokes gained his last 10 events. The problem, as always, is that in that span he's lost strokes putting in every event, losing 5 strokes alone at the Travelers his last time out. While Lowry is much streaker than Casey, he has 4 top 10's in his last 8 events and again had 4 incredible rounds of ball striking at the Irish Open. Lowry has flashed the upside to gain 6+ strokes off the tee, has gained strokes on approach in 7 straight, is equally elite with his around the green game averaging 1.7 strokes gained his last 10 events, and like Casey, you just hope & pray that he can eke out 1-2 strokes putting. 

MATCHUP 3

DeChambeau vs. Morikawa

DeChambeau +101 vs. Morikawa -114

Pretty big DFS value on Colin as he's $700 cheaper than Bryson yet the H2H favorite. I know he doesn't have the links experience that a lot of the other top players have, but when you stripe it like he does, it doesn't matter if it's a links course or on freakin Mars. His strokes gained approach numbers the last 10 events are riveling peak Tiger numbers. Over his last 10 events, he's AVERAGING almost 7.5 strokes gained with his approach play. He's also gained strokes off the tee in 8 straight events and has a good enough short game to eke out positive numbers overall around the green. The rub? He's lost strokes putting in 5 of his last 6 events. But the good news is that even if he just breaks even putting, that's enough to go ahead & pencil him in for a top 10. I think I'm more interested to watch Bryson play this course than probably anyone else in the field. A lot of the pot bunkers that come into play off the tee for most of the field will be an afterthought for him. And if the wind is blowing in the right direction, he could potentially drive 6 of the par 4's. Has he been playing great recently? No. But again it's easy to forget that he was 2 really bad shots away from being right there with Rahm at the end of the US Open. To boot, up top it looks like he is going to be the lowest owned at a salty 7%. 

Other interesting lines:Rahm -183 vs. Brooks +162Brooks -114 vs. Spieth +102JT -117 vs. McIIroy +104Schauffele -156 vs. Morikawa +139Oost -113 vs. Hatton +100Hovland -111 vs. Oost -101Reed -108 vs. Cantlay -104Finau -106 vs. Scheffler -106Simpson -127 vs. Garcia +113English -143 vs. Zalatoris +127Herbert -140 vs. Higgo +124Kokrak -108 vs. Wallace -104

*Remember that we've made a rule for the bomb that they have to be in the top 10 projected owned on Fantasy National.Stats about our boy this week: 

• He's going from 2.8% owned his last time out to the highest projected owned player. Ok. 

• He's returned negative value against his salary expectations in 3 of his last 4 events. 

• He's hit less than 57% of his fairways in 3 straight, & less than 50% in 2 of those

• On difficult to hit fairway courses, his ball-striking & total strokes gained falls off a cliff

• On difficult to hit fairway courses, he goes from #1 in DK points scored his last 50 rounds, to 65th

• On par 70's, he again loses massive strokes against his baseline

• On courses shorter than 7200 yards, he loses strokes against his baseline

• In very windy conditions he loses strokes against his baseline

• He's a H2H underdog or pickup to 5 guys right around him in salary that will be WAY lesser owned

• Over his last 12 rounds, he's 34th in the field in GIR's gained

• Over his last 12 rounds, he's 73rd in the field in good drives gained

• Just once in his last 4 events has he gained more than 1.7 strokes off the tee, just once in his last 4 events has he gained more than 2 strokes on approach, just once in his last 4 events has he gained more than 1.6 strokes around the green, & just once in his last 4 events has he gained more than 2 strokes putting

At 26.5% actual lineup generated % on Fantasy National (highest) Jordan Spieth, you're the Chalk Bomb! 

"Pontificate with Pat"

Random thoughts from Pat

I don’t know if this will go over well, but I’ll say it anyway. I need a better understanding of “service” dogs. What qualifies them for this? I mean, I’m at the grocery store this week and some guy has a miniature poodle with a “service dog” tag on it’s little dog sweater and it just makes me wonder. Can any dog be a service dog? Do they have some sort of qualification test they have to go thru? Look, I totally get the need for these, I’m just saying we don’t need some sort of unregulated national problem with so-called service dogs just pooping in grocery stores and stuff which could very well start to happen.

I’ve never been to England before but always hear how bad the food is. I don’t understand that. How can a whole country be known for bad food? Especially when things like fish and chips and a full English breakfast are popular. You just can’t really mess those up. And Don’t forget their classic dish called a Toad in the Hole. Actually maybe that’s it, bad titling.

Why aren’t toothpaste tubes clear? It sure would be a hell of a lot easier to know when you are truly out of toothpaste than just guessing how much you can squeeze out. Especially when you get to that last little amount and you’re straining with your whole body just to push it out of there.  

There’s a lot of talk (ad nauseam to be honest) about the wind and weather this week and it really makes me feel sorry for the local weather person near a links course from a day to day job requirement. They surely have a worse record predicting things than even the Chalk Bomb. JK, Love ya Ben! 😉

Alright, that’s all I got for this week. I hope you enjoy the 149

Open Championship at Royal St. George’s  Golf Club. Stay well, good luck with your lineups and bets, and may your screens be green! Bome!