PGA Championship Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

 This Week's Tour Stop PGA Championship at Bethpage Black 

Major #2 & Thinking Like a Poker Player

I've been re-reading another great book recently, Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke. For those that don't know Annie was a professional poker player before & during the boom winning several millions of dollars during her playing career. There are several things that really resonated with me, the first being that we should try to think about ALL decisions in mathematical terms. I think that's particularly important in DFS/betting with golf because the sport has so much inherent randomness to it. It's a big reason why I mention the implied odds of the head to heads just to drive home the point that nothing is certain, far from it in fact. Take for example Tiger vs. Rory this week, below is the matchup on MyBookie:So even though Rory is a -155 favorite, which is big, that only translates into a 60% probability that Rory will beat Tiger this week....that's it, a mere 10 percentage points from a pure coin flip! (BTW is Rory the forgotten man this week? If so that's incredible) Playing DFS golf is a lot like sports betting where we're simply trying to assign a probability to players performing well, and hopefully exposing an edge over time. Annie makes a great point in the book when she describes us humanoid's generally irrational craving for certainty in a world that is never certain. How many times have you seen it (or it's happened to you) where someone was so certain of an outcome that you couldn't help but believe it to be certain. You see it all the time in sports betting...'GUARANTEED WINNER! Just pay $19.99 for our winning pick!'.....that sounds a lot better than 'Maybe 56% of the time it's a GUARANTEED WINNER!"A lot of people get Warren Buffets story wrong, but he used this same line of thinking in building his wealth throughout his career. The real story is that he saw several opportunities to put upwards of 25% of his net wealth into single, very large bets, because he saw the odds of those investments playing out at like 75% (which BTW he's completely against if you read any of his advice...the 25% part not the 75% part). But back to golf, there are a TON of ways we can leverage the fact that someone is even a coin flip in a head to head match-up. Let me explain. This week we have a ton of great examples, but to just pick one real quick: so Sergio Garcia is a -120 head to head favorite over Adam Scott, that means his implied odds to beat Scott are about 55%. BUT, throw in the fact that Sergio is going to be owned 20%+ and Scott is going to be 10%, that should be a no-brainer trade off! (or at least I hope it is). As per usual with major weeks on courses that we see once every 5 years or so, #narrativestreet is bumper to bumper with information that is 50% helpful and 50% hurtful. The only things we know for sure, 1. It's a par 70 2. It's long 3. It's difficult 4. It's going to be chilly/windy 5. The greens are bentgrass/poa. 6. About 45% of all Milly Maker players will max out their salary at 50k. That's literally all that we know as actual facts!

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 TourJunkies.com. 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 Tiger vs. Rose 

I wish Draftkings would be smart, just one time, and make Tiger a reasonably discounted price. But instead they do the exact opposite and make him the most expensive player in the field. I'm sure plenty of public money will play him anyways but he's a pretty clear anti-value if we're just evaluating it from a DFS perspective. Justin Rose who is $1400 cheaper this week is expected to win the match-up 55.56% of the time, and his 2019 season has certainly been inconsistent to say the least. Rose has played in 6 events this year, and in 3 of those he's lost strokes tee to green. Fantasy National data goes back to 2012, and in that time frame Justin Rose has never lost strokes tee to green that often, not even close. In fact, before 2019, he had lost strokes tee to green 11 TOTAL times in 6 years. Could it be the club change? I'm sure thats part of it, but it's impossible to say. I think the DFS decision is fairly easy for Tiger as he's just to damn expensive, BUT keep a close eye on his ownership numbers....because even if the public still plays him, that leaves a lot of the industry sharps on other people. 

MATCHUP 2

Fowler vs. Molinari

As per usual, tons of value to be found during major championship week as Rickie is $400 cheaper than Molinari yet he's expected to win heads up 60% of the time. I really wasn't 'on' Rickie heading into the week but as you'll see in the 10 facts he pops up several times. He's #1 in the entire field in strokes gained putting on bent, #1 in bogey avoidance on difficult courses, #2 in the top 2 proximity buckets, & #10 in strokes gained total on difficult courses. Not to mention he's in pretty good form as he gained multiple strokes across the board at the Wells Fargo. On the flip side I expected the data would certainly lead me to really like Molinari, but that just wasn't the case. He's in the 10 facts exactly zero times, and for a course that would seem to fit his game, & hence the models I built, he rated fairly poor, just above middle of the pack. While we don't get strokes gained data from the Masters, we do know that he only hit 65% of his greens in reg (Tiger hit 81%), it's just that he averaged 26 putts per round, 2 strokes better than every other player in the top 10. 

MATCHUP 3

Bubba vs. Stenson

Tiny bit of DFS value on Stenson here as far as implied value is concerned, but what really jumped out at me was the data had already lead me to be high on Bubba, so I was really surprised to see him as an underdog to Stenson, which made me take a closer look at Stenson. The results haven't been all that great for Stenson so far this year as his best finish is 17th, but his ball striking has really turned back around the last 2 months as he's 3rd in the field in strokes gained approach the last 24 rounds. It's really just been the putter that has held him back at every event so far as he's lost strokes putting in 6 of his last 8 events. Also according to DataGolf Stenson has the highest strokes-gained relative to baseline on difficult courses in the field. Bubba really caught my attention from his course history which is arguably the best in the field. He's played here 3 times, w/ an 18th, 10th, & 13th on his resume....none of that w/ great putting numbers. Bubba has also historically played difficult courses well and is 2nd in the field in historical GIR hit % at BPB. 

MATCHUP 4

Speef vs. Cantlay

As per usual, Speef's price is to high & Cantlay's is to low, but that's the case every week. For the 2nd straight event, Jordan lost strokes off the tee, on approach shots, and around the green, he's just a mess. The sad part is he gained over 6 strokes putting and STILL couldn't manage his 1st top 20 in NINE months. However, he is in the 10 facts 3 times (for good things), so I am actually considering not X'ing him out of my player pool for the first time in forever. When you look at Cantlay's performance over the same 9 month period, it's almost as if he voodoo dolled Jordan's game away from him & claimed it for himself. Since the HSBC Patrick has 6 top 10's in 9 tries, and in one of his missed cuts (the Players) he was top 5 in the field (pre-cut) in greens hit (75%) and just 3 putted every single green. He'll be very popular this week, and rightfully so. My ONLY concern is that he's gained more strokes putting his last 2 events than any other 2 event stretch of his career. 

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

*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:

• Dating back to the Farmers here are his total strokes gained for each event (notice the trend): 8.9, 8.8, 5.3, 2.6, 3.9, (-0.8), 2.1, (-0.8)

• His strokes gained approach #'s dating back to the WGC Mexico: (-4), 7.8, (-2.8), (-0.3), (-4.5)...one of these is not like the others

• In 2 of his last 3 events he's hit less than 47% of his greens in regulation, he's literally never done that before in his entire career

• He hasn't finished better than 30th since February

• He loses strokes against his baseline on difficult courses

• He pretty much always loses strokes putting, no matter the surface (he's 123rd in the field putting)

• He's 64th in the field in opportunities gained the last 12 rounds (which doesn't include his awful Wells Fargo performance)

• He's 57th in the field in bogey avoidance and 98th in the field in double bogey avoidance 

• He's 84th in the field in GIR's gained the last 12 rounds

• Even in a stat that features his biggest strength (Off the tee) he's 62nd in the field in Good Drives Gained his last 50 rounds

• He's 38th in the field in proximity in the 2 main approach shot buckets

• He's usually pretty accurate with his driver, but in 4 out of his last 5 events he's hit less than 55% of his fairways

• Amazingly for an elite driver of the ball he loses strokes against his baseline on long courses

• He's only +250 for a top 20 finish. So the implied odds of him finishing outside the top 20 are 71.43%

• Last week we certainly got lucky w/ Leishman WD'ing after lineup lock, (& I'm certainly NOT saying I predicted it), but when someone goes from playing really well to really poorly in a short span of time I almost always assume it's injury/sickness related...which I think is most likely also the case for this player

FanShareSports.com

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 13% (ownership is extremely spread out) this week....Gary Woodland, 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 the last time they play BPB (2016 Northern Trust):

1. Scott 2. Kokrak 3. Reed 4. Mcllroy 5. Bubba 6. Palmer 7. Woodland 8. Moore 9. Spieth 10. Grillo

2. 

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

 1. Scott 2. Bubba 3. Palmer 4. Phil 5. Casey 6. Holmes 7. Woodland 8. Furyk 9. Piercy 10. Day

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

1. Fowler 2. Hossler 3. Day 4. Olesen 5. Grillo 6. Snedeker 7. Noren 8. Reed 9. Horschel 10. Schauffele

4. 

If I make a custom model w/ bent greens, difficult scoring, & over 7400 yards.....your top 10 in total strokes gained are:

1. Spieth 2. Day 3. Westwood 4. Rose 5. Bubba 6. Oosthuizen 7. Kuchar 8. Snedeker 9. Stenson 10. Casey ....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.

Top 10 Bogey Avoidance on difficult courses:

1. Fowler 2. Spieth 3. Matsuyama 4. DJ 5. Simpson 6. Fleetwood 7. Casey 8. Finau 9. Kuchar 10. Koepka

6.

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

1. Hideki 2. Fowler 3. Hoffman 4. Bradley 5. Suri 6. Palmer 7. Luiten 8. Ben An 9. Niemann 10. Tiger

7.

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

1. Tiger 2. Furyk 3. Conners 4. Kuchar 5. Piercy 6. MclIroy 7. Fisher 8. Poulter 9. DJ 10. Bradley

8.

 S

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

1. Koepka 2. Schauffele 3. Casey 4. Scott 5. Bryson 6. Hadwin 7. Kuchar 8. Finau 9. Woodland 10. Fleetwood

9. 

Top 10 in opportunities gained the last 12 rounds:

1. Rory 2. Merritt 3. Kuchar 4. Casey 5. Vegas 6. Conners 7. Dahmen 8. Schauffele 9. Luiten 10. Matsuyama

10.

Difficult course strokes gained leaders (min 30 rounds) :

 1. Rory 2. DJ 3. Rose 4. Casey 5. Day 6. Rahm 7. Stenson 8. Matsuyama 9. Koepka 10. Fowler

WIN A

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