The Tour Championship Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

The TOUR Championship

And then there were 30....welcome to the capstone of the 2018 PGA season, and man, what a season it's been. I know we've touched on this before but the 2018 season was incredible, and was so so close to being the greatest season I can remember in a long time. A couple highlights that really stand out in a year of great comeback stories (perhaps the greatest comeback year of all time?):-In 9 months time Tiger goes from maybe never playing again to damn near winning the final major of the year-After a lost 2017, Jason Day wins twice-Bubba Watson fought health issues and pink balls last year (looking back at his results it was even worse than I remembered, 2 top 10's all year) to win thrice times-Household name Ted Potter Jr out dueled Jason Day, DJ, & Phil to win the AT&T-In arguably the best moment on tour this year, Ian Poulter who was also left for dead & about to lose his tour card, wins the Houston Open in incredible fashion-Phil, Kevin Na, Brandt Snedeker, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson & Gary Woodland all get back into the winners circle after multi-year droughts-First time winners Ryan Armour, Patrick Cantlay, Patton Kizzire, Austin Cook, Satoshi Kodaira, Landry, Wise, & Michael Kim (not counting alt field events)-Rose takes world #1, and guys like Bryson, Tony Finau & Francesco Molinari join the ranks of the world's elite players-Brooks 'Big Balls' Koepka winning 2 of the 3 majors he played in this year-oh, and we still have what might be the greatest Ryder Cup match up of all time in two weeks! #BomeSo with 30 players in the field, we'll obviously have an abbreviated Chalk Bomb this week, but a couple notes/observations of interest. The pricing (in my opinion) is pretay pretay soft. I think this is actually a good thing because it allows for a lot of flexibility and helps prevent cheap guys from being 70% owned. The single best advice I can give you this week....LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE! Duplicate lineups will be everywhere this week, and splitting a GPP win with 30 other people doesn't sound that great. The pricing is soft enough this week that I think you can realistically leave up to 3k on the table. Remember that generally somewhere between 40-50% of lineups will use the full 50k, leaving more than say $400 on the table will reduce your duplicate lineup probability to almost zero.As far as the course, its another awesome Donald Ross design that as per usual will reward accurate drivers of the ball. With anti-bombers like Camilo Villegas, Jim Furky, Bill Haas, Brandt Snedeker, Stenson, Horschel, Spieth as past winners.....the odds don't exactly favor the big sticks (though it's not impossible, hi Rory). After playing on what seems like 20 bentgrass greens in a row, we go back to bermuda, so I'll be looking at those splits very closely this week. 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. So lets dig in!

In a match up of the two hottest golfers on planet Earth, I'm once again surprised to see that Tony is very slightly favored over Bryson. Yes, Bryson 'only' finished in 19th place last week, but he was solid tee to green and just had a poor putting week (lost 0.14 strokes per round). Tony on the other hand was more interesting, as he was his usual dominate self off the tee but lost strokes in both approach shots AND around the green. A hot putter (gained almost a full stroke per round) helped to makeup for his lackluster approach game last week.

Even more surprising is Rickie being an even bigger favorite over Bryson. Last week Rickie also finished higher than Bryson, but it was almost 100% short game driven as he lost strokes ball striking (off the tee +approach) but gained 2 full strokes per round in the short game stats (around the green +putting). I actually like Bryson against both these guys as they have poor bent/bermuda splits and Bryson does not.

I think I highlight this match up every week, and 66.7% of the time in 2018 you get a winner at a PLUS money line in Brooks. Nine times they have played in the same event this year, and in six of those Brooks beat DJ straight up, tying once, and losing twice. Both actually had great ball striking numbers last week, and both had very poor short game numbers. Brooks has a slightly positive bermuda split, and DJ has one of the most negative splits in the field.

Billy is the 3rd hottest player in the field, and is a past champion here, yet he's an underdog to PC. Cantlay does have positive bermuda splits, but he was also a train wreak last week losing strokes in every category outside of off the tee. It's interesting to note that Billy was quite poor off the tee last week and has only averaged 273 and 288 yards off the tee in his last two events that didn't end up in his WD. 

Raise your hand if you think Keegan can gain 8 strokes putting again....yea thats what I though. You'd have to go back SIX years to find an event that he gained more strokes putting than what he gained last week. To give you a little more perspective, the week before at the Northern Trust, Keegan LOST six strokes putting. Now Woodland isn't exactly a great putter either, but he does have a tiny positive split on bermuda.

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THE Chalk Bomb/10 Facts

So for our limited field this week I'm gonna change it up a bit. We're basically gonna make this section the 'no problem complete fading this entire group this week mixed in with facts on why, then we'll do a count to see who's name comes up the most:1. Driving accuracy back-tested very well this week, so your bottom 5 in driving accuracy the last 6 weeks are (going from worst to 5th worst): 1. Phil (he's been an absolute train wreak off the tee the last 3 weeks, and really has struggled all the way back to the Greenbrier...he has ONE event since then that he has hit more than 56% of his fairways) 2. Day 3. JT (I think you can clearly see in the numbers that his wrist started bothering him between the Northern Trust & Dell) 4. Bubba 5. DJ2. The bottom 5 guys in strokes gained putting on bermuda grass last 50 rounds: 1. Stanley 2. Bradley 3. Bubba 4. Hideki 5. Casey3. The bottom 5 guys in strokes gained putting on bermuda vs their strokes gained putting on bentgrass: 1. Xander 2. Finau 3. Stanley 4. Rahm 5. DJ4. Bottom 5 in course history for guys that have played more than once: 1. Leishman 2. Na 3. Reed 4. Keegan 5. Phil/Hideki/Fowler are all right there together...last 5 years 5th place is the highest any of them have finished (once)5. Bottom 5 in strokes gained approach the last 12 rounds: 1. Day 2. Webb 3. Reed 4. Kizzire 5. Na6. Bottom 5 in strokes gained off the tee the last 12 rounds: 1. Kizzire 2. Na 3. Phil 4. Day. 5. Webb7. If I create a model that has difficult fairways to hit, bermuda greens, par 70, fast greens your bottom 5 guys in total strokes gained are: 1. Na 2. Leishman 3. Reed 4. Cantlay 5. Bradley8. Since we're at a par 70 again this week, your bottom 5 par 4 scorers for the year are: 1. Kizzire 2. Horschel 3. Woodland 4. Bradley 5. Bryson (would never have guessed that)9. Your bottom 5 in GIR hit the last 6 weeks are: 1. Na 2. Reed 3. Bubba 4. Cam Smith 5. Day10. Your bottom 5 on driver heavy courses: 1. Tiger 2. Fleetwood 3. Molinari 4. Horschel 5. CantlaySo the names that pop up several times here:DayStanleyCantlayReedLeishmanHorschelNaBubbaPhilBradleyDJAs far as setting a line on the player most likely to not meet salary expectations goes, I think DJ has to be at the top of the list. He could finish 5th like he's done here twice before and still be a a poor investment simply because of his price. IN FACT, if you go back and look since 2014, only 6! players total with a price greater than 9600 have returned value (basically they won or finished 2nd). So for the highest 5 priced guys, then really need to win or finish 2nd at worst to give you a shot in a GPP. So with that said, single DJ, your the chalk bomb!P.S. Since I spent like 45 min just looking up everyone's putting splits on bentgrass/bermuda here are the top 5 guys: 1. Tiger (& it's not close) 2. Molinari 3. Webb 4. Bubba 5. Cantlay

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