PGA Championship Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

The a'Hundredth PGA Championship @ Bellerive 

I've been 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 DJ vs Brook 'Big Balls' Koepka this week, below is the matchup on MyBookie:

So even though DJ is a -170 favorite, which is big, that only translates into a 63% probability that DJ will beat Brooks this week....that's it, a mere 13 percentage points from a pure coin flip! 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. Last week we had a great example (that BTW won a Chalk Bomb reader 100k, shoutout to @jkrouner)...so Ian Poulter was a -125 head to head favorite over Kevin Chappell last week, that means his implied odds to beat Chappell were about 55%. BUT, throw in the fact that Chappell was going to be owned 17.14% and Poulter was going to be 8.32%, that should have been a no-brainer trade off! (or at least I hope it is). As per usual with major weeks on courses that we see once a decade, #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. The greens are big 4. The greens will be slow 5. The greens are bentgrass. 6. About 45% of all Milly Maker players will max out their salary at 50k. That's literally all that we know as actual truth, so leh go!

Head to Head Matchups & Information

This is something I've been incorporating more & more into my weekly analysis, & is absolutely critical when trying to value one guy against another. Essentially we look at the head to head matchups posted on mybookie to see where the books disagree with the DFS world and where we can find value. Some weeks the DFS world & the books are in almost complete agreement, but most of the time there are clear differences of opinion that we can take advantage of. It almost always ends up being a great clue as to where the sharp money is & what the books were expecting. Lots of great lines so lets look at a couple that are standing out this week: 

This line has actually flipped since I first looked at it on Tuesday. JT is gonna be super chalk this week as his win from last week obviously isn't priced in. He also hit 18% more greens last week than Rory while hitting more putts. I'm still high on Rory for several (kind of) statistical (kind of) narrative street reason. Rory statistically plays well on easier courses which I would guess that the winner this week is around 12-15 under. The betting markets have the cut line projected at 2 over, and the low round over/under 64 which suggest fairly easy scoring conditions. Rickie Fowler is the one guy this week that is just jumping off the page as far as the prices I expected to see verse whats currently on the board. He's a decent favorite over the hottest golfer on the planet right now in Italian Bill Haas as well as Spieth, Tiger, Rahm, Fleeetwood etc. Rickie is #2 in my model this week, which was really surprising, but you combine the fact that he's played almost all of his best golf on bentgrass greens, plays well in majors, is T-6 in par 4 scoring this year, & is 15th in the field in driving distance the last 6 weeks. It's also funny that at the British he had this huge narrative around him about how well he was suited for the course and for the first time in recent memory it (looks) like he will go under owned (he was about 24% at the British). Even with that said though, I would take Molinari at a plus moneyline every day of the week & twice on Sunday. I think people forget that he almost won this major last year. Yep, Stenson is the fav over DFS favorite and pod bro Tony Finau. Yes Stenson is $600 more expensive this week, but by all accounts he's going to be sub 10%, while Finau will most likely be the heaviest owned player on the board. I'm guessing here, but I think a lot of this price has to do with the way that Finau generally does his scoring. Tony is #2 on tour for par 5 scoring while he's only T-40 for par 4 scoring....Stenson is #3 in par 4 scoring as luck might have it.......The battle of the guys that used to win a lot of golf tournaments but now win no golf tournaments. I'm sorry that was mean, I love you Tiger, mean it. Anyways TW is a favorite against literally no one in his salary group, but Spieth is extremely interesting to me from a game theory stand point. I would bet he'll be sub 8% in the milly, and as you'll see in the 10 facts, his name pops up quite often. As you all know I was an 'early adopter" (my marketing 101 teacher would be so proud) to the 'Spieth is actually one of the worst putters on the PGA tour now.' But just like we said the past couple of weeks, he seems to be grinding so hard over his putting that the rest of his game has suffered (he gained strokes putting last week and lost strokes in every other category). BUT, just read the 10 facts. I'll be honest, Cantlay is my favorite play this week. He's done nothing but play rock solid golf the last two months and is #5 overall in my model this week.....as Pat would say, 'he's checking all the boxes.' One #narrativestreet note on Noren is that he prefers a fade on almost all his shots, while Belleive demands mostly right to left shots. The same is true of Augusta and his result there was #notgood, but also keep in mind that's a sample size of 1.This line might be the single most surprising price. Leishman comes in at -145 fav over the big game hunter X-man. A common theme I keep seeing in the lines is the books giving a pretty heavy tilt to the guys that score on par 4's and a pretty big discount to the guys that do a lot of the scoring on the par 5's. Marc is T-32 in par 4 scoring on the year while X-man is 122nd! Heading into the week I thought the books would have Bubba as a favorite in a lot of the head to heads, nope. Surprising since you would assume that like Finau and X-man,Bubba would do a lot of his damage on the par 5's, but he's actually T-25 in par 4 scoring this year. Webb is a par 70 specialist that eats up par 4's (13th on tour this year), while Louis has definitely found some form and hasn't finished worse than 28th since the end of May.  The baby braced faced Chilean is quickly becoming the new Tony Finau as far as DFS popularity, so definitely a surprising line given the fact that Kuchar has missed 4 of his last 8 cuts. The driver got a little squirrely on Niemann his last time out at the Canadian as he only hit 48% of his fairways while only getting up and down 50% of the time (his biggest weakness). I honestly have no idea what to do with Kuch this week....I don't think he has the upside to win but he's 16th on tour this year in par 4 scoring.Other interesting lines:Keegan -120 v Benny An +100Kyle Stanley -120 v Olesen +100Hatton -115 v Hoffman -105Horchel -115 v Si Woo Kim -105Kirk -170 v Willett +145

THE Chalk Bomb

The bomb this week is going to be mostly geared towards the Millionaire Maker on DK. The following are facts:-His price increased since last week-He's a head to head underdog against several similarly priced guys-He hit 39.3% of his fairways at the WGC last week-He's gained strokes putting the last 3 events although he generally loses strokes (-0.2 on average)-On the season he is #49 on tour for par 4 scoring-On the season he is #56 on tour for par 4 birdie or better %-He's been owned 22% or higher 7 times this year, his BEST finish of those 7 times? 10th. (in a limited field event)-His driving accuracy in order dating back to the US Open: 68%, 63%, 58%, 50%, 39%.-The last 6 weeks he ranks in the bottom 50 of the field in scrambling (only 53.1%)-He will most likely be in the top 3 owned players according to our friends at Fansharesports.comHere is a screen shot of where he is currently projected on fanshare:I love you....but not at 25%+ ownership.....Tony Finau, your the chalk bomb!

This is the face of pain my friends, here are 10 facts so you don't have this face.

1.  Draftkings points leaders from the last 3 PGA Championships (average): 1. Day 2. Koepka 3. Hideki 4. Kaymer 5. Spieth 6. JT 7. Casey 8. Reed 9. Oosthuizen 10. Fowler2. Major Championship Draftkings points scored leaders from the last 3 years (average): 1. Spieth 2. Koepka 3. Day 4. DJ 5. Hideki 6. Stenson 7. Rose 8. Reed 9. Oosthuizen 10. Kuchar3. Top 10 guys who have gained the most total strokes on slow greens the last 4 years: 1. DJ 2. Spieth 3. Day 4. Sergio 5. Rafa 6. Fowler 7. Hideki 8. JT 9. Adam Scott 10. Phil4. Top 10 guys who have gained the most total strokes on bentgrass greens: 1. Rory 2. Rose 3. Spieth 4. Fowler 5. DJ 6. Stenson 7. Day 8. Rahm 9. Casey 10. Koepka5. Top Tee to Green leaders from last week's WGC: 1. Big Balls Koepka (also lead in ball striking) 2. Rahm 3. Stanley 4. JT 5. Leishman 6. Rafa 7. Woodland 8. DJ 9. Chappell 10. Olesen6. Strokes gained Tee to Green leaders from last years PGA: 1. Big Balls Koepka 2. Oosthuizen 3. Casey 4. Rory 5. Moore 6. Reed 7. Stenson 8. DJ 9. JT 10. Hideki7. Another Par 70 this week, so your top 10 in the field in par 4 scoring over the last calendar year are: 1. Spieth 2. DJ 3. Rose 4. Niemann 5. JT 6. Rahm 7. Cook 8. Pepperell 9. Hadley 10. Fowler8. Top 10 in GIR's hit the last 6 weeks: 1. Niemann 2. Chappell 3. Kirk 4. Horschel 5. Rose 6. Kokrak 7. CH3 8. Fox 9. Molinari 10. Finau (11.Rahm)9.Top 10  strokes gained approach leaders the last 12 rounds: 1. Molinari 2. Rose 3. Kirk 4. JT 5. Niemann 6. Snedeker 7. DJ 8. Keegan (gross) 9. Casey 10. Bjork10. Top 10 in my model sub 8k: 1. Niemann 2. List 3. Fox 4. Olesen 5. Keegan (gross) 6. Leishman 7. Hoffman 8. Oosthuizen 9. Moore 10. CinkBonus Fact: Top 10 in total strokes gained the last 12 rounds (to help capture the US/British stats) 1. Rose! (seems like he's flying WAY under the radar considering how good he's played, and yes I know he WD'ed last week) 2. Rory 3. DJ 4. Cantlay 5. Molinari 6. Fleetwood 7. Olesen 8. Day 9. Woods 10. Finau

Win a FREE M2 Driver!

We had our first winner last week, get in on the action! We've got WAY to many listeners to not be seeing Goalby up at the top of the leaderboards every week in the DFS streets. If anyone finishes in the top 5 of the Fore ($4), Albatross ($12), or Millionaire Maker ($20) on DraftKings, we'll send you a TJ hat, AND if you can take one down with the TJ logo at the top when it's all said & done, we'll send you a brand new TaylorMade driver on us! Literally all you have to do is change your avatar & screenshot us those green screens! Bome! Just use the link here to change your avatar: Tourjunkies Avatar