Travelers

The Travelers Championship

What a US Open, I love it when the winning score is over par even if the players bitch and moan about it! Koepka was first in strokes gained approach last week and 2nd in strokes gained putting, that's a nice recipe to win golf tournaments as those two pieces will generally account for almost 70-75% of a players scoring any given week. This week's course is COMPLETELY different than last week and should provide some nice edges because a lot of people are going to overweight a bad result at a very tough US Open that will also skew a lot of recent form stats. The course this week has that familiar Pete Dye design that tends to bring every 'type' of player into the mix as both bombers and plodders have both shared success here (Jerry Kelly damn near won 2 years ago, it's WIDE open) . Leh Go!

Finding Value & Information in Head to Head Matchups

This is something I've been incorporating more & more into my weekly analysis. Essentially we look at the head to head matchups posted on mybookie or Bookmaker 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 look at a couple that are standing out this week: No real surprises this week up top as everyone is priced pretty close to where their DFS price is. JT is the favorite over Brooks & Rory, and Rory is a slight favorite over Brooks. Brooks is really interesting this week for several reasons: 1. Obviously coming off a US Open win & heavy bias for no one to ever want to play last weeks winner, especially off a major 2. Last time he played this course in 16' he lead the field in birdies made, but 3 double bogies killed his shot at winning. 3. After he won the US Open last year he backed it up w/ a 6th at the British, then didn't have another top 10 until the Tour Championship (if that even counts). On these shorter courses it can tend to turn into a putting contest, & Brooks was 2nd in the field last week in strokes gained putting (& has historically been an elite putter).The books have been very reluctant to move Spieth's prices down and if you've read this section the past couple weeks it's been pretty easy pickin's betting against Spieth the last two months. They finally have him at a fair price despite the fact he's the defending champ here. Reed is 600 cheaper on DK this week, but is a favorite over JS in head to head's despite JS having better outright odds to win (always a great tell). I've been more bearish on JS than anyone in fantasy golf, BUT the putter did show signs of life last week as he gained strokes for the 2nd event in a row. Unfortunately now that the putter has turned just a bit, the rest of his game has gone to shit as he's lost strokes approach and around the green the last two events. After looking back to the very beginning of his career, he's only done that ONCE! Maybe he's grinding so hard on the putting that he's let the other part of the game go as a result? (*could be narrative fallacy)Triple line analysis! Before I started looking at the head to heads I was very bullish on Leishman heading into the week (still am, but cooled a bit). I was very surprised to see that he was as big a dog to both Webb & Casey as he currently is, and was even more surprised to see that Webb was as big a dog to Casey. If you look closely though, you'll notice quite the line inefficiency here...if Webb is a -135 fav over Leish, and Casey is a -135 over Webb, then Casey should* be a larger favorite than -145 over Leishman. After looking at a couple (shittier) sportsbooks, you'll see several Casey -170ish lines over Leishman which is what I expected to see. Berger has finally come back to life after a terrible start to the season, & faces one of the hottest golfers on the planet in Bryson this week. I view this line more as a vote of confidence for Berger than anything as this line would have been in the -145 area just a couple weeks ago. We noted in last week's 10 facts that Berger was 2nd in the entire US Open field in strokes gained approach his last 12 rounds & he did nothing but continue his hot ball striking as he gained 2.8 strokes approach last week.Welcome to Ryan Moore chalk week. Both of these guys have incredible course history, and sans for Bubba playing with a pink putt putt ball last year (side comment: has any marketing deal ever gone worst for both parties involved? I can't think of one....I can just see Bubba at the end of the deal on a conference call 'I mean I've just had the worst year of my career playing your pink ball, can't imagine that's a great selling point guys!) This sounds like a perfect sponsor for @Clubproguy though, it would fit in really nice with his 'rabbit ears' ploy....lets make this happen Volvik! Anyways, I think the books line is fair here, Moore has a higher floor with Bubba having a higher ceiling. Bome! Our first Bookermaker.eu line. Like we say all the time, if your serious about making money betting golf, you HAVE to have multiple accounts and books to shop for the best lines and prices. One major reason we love Bookmaker is they actually create unique head to head lines that you can't find anywhere else. The above line being a great example of a head to head that you can only find on Bookmaker! As you'll see when we get to the 10 facts, both of these guys pop quite a bit, but again the books strongly favor Moore over the slightly more talented Berger (going off last calendar year scoring averages). Above is an interesting matchup along with a picture perfect example of why you want at least two betting accounts. Lets say your bullish on Beau Hossler this week, you could pay -110 for him on one site, or +119 on another site....that's a difference of 29 basis points and way more than the difference between being profitable in the long run or losing money. I don't really read/listen to any other DFS content until after I'm done with the Chalk Bomb so that way my analysis is free from the anchoring effect, narrative effect, and about 20 other negative cognitive biases/heuristics. After doing my inital run I was very high on CT thinking he would be a really nice value/sleeper heading into the week. Well, apparently a lot of other people saw what I was seeing and are also on him. So it's interesting to note that CT is both a dog to JB Holmes and Kevin Streelman (-139).

THE Chalk Bomb

This is a cop out week for the chalk bomb, just want to admit that right off the bat. I certainly can't blame you if you want to play Ryan Moore, but at a high price with the highest ownership he'll have in almost two years, it's one of those ideal setups. Statically speaking he's the 25th best golfer in the field if you look at his scoring average from the last calendar year, but the recent form is very strong. He is a head to head favorite against guys right in his price range, but is a pickem at best against anyone from Webb up. As far as odds to win there are 3 guys below him with better odds, and everyone above him has better odds. He has as many missed cuts as top 10's this year, and has played good, not great at the other Pete Dye courses this year. At the end of the day I like my Ryan Moore at $7500 w/ less than 8% ownership, not $9000 w/ 25% + ownership...let's not forget that the guy hasn't won on tour in almost 2 years and of his 5 career wins, all 5 have been in weak field events. Ryan Moore, your the chalk bomb! 

PS. Lets also not forget this jabroni used to wear a tie while he played tournament golf. 

10 Facts So You Can Talk Birdie to Me

I get asked a lot about the best way to use the 10 facts to your advantage, basically I'm just looking for names that pop up multiple times that are unexpected. For example last week Scott Piercy was top 10 in the field in his last 12 rounds ball striking as well as being in the top 10 for putting on poa (which putting is his major weakness). He crumbled on Sunday but was around the top of the leaderboard for a good portion of the week.

1. Strokes gained approach leaders last 12 rounds, I love looking at this every week because it gives you a great snap shot at who is giving themselves the best chance at birdie recently (whether or not they are converting): 1. Ryan Moore 2. Berger 3. Stanley 4. Joel Dahmen 5. Stewart Cink 6. Robert Garrigus 7. Wes Bryan 8. Keegan 9. Knox 10. JJ Spaun

2. Bottom 10 (relevant guys) ball striking the last 12 rounds (OTT+APP): 1. Harry English 2. Scott Brown 3. Bill Haas 4. Ollie Schniederjans 5. Nick Watney 6. Brandon Harkins :( 7. Si Woo Kim 8. Patton Kizzire 9. Brian Harman 10. Seamus Power

3. Surprising names ball striking the last 12 rounds (OTT+APP)....Rory, JT, Brooks are all top 12 in the field but that shouldn't be surprising: 1. Joel Dahmen 2. JJ Spaun 3. JB Holmes 4. Garrigus 5. Cink 6. Keith Mitchell 7. CT Pan 8. JJ Henry (great ball striker but my god he has a 'turbull' short game) 9. Streelman (diddo) 10. Sam Ryder

4. Top 10 strokes gained guys on Pete Dye courses....usually I don't care who the architect this but because his courses have so many similarities I do give it a little weight: 1a. Rory (would not have guessed that) 1b. Day 3. Spieth 4. Si Woo 5. Furyk 6. Casey 7. Koepka 8. Webb 9. Knox 10. Berger

5. Strokes gained approach leaders from last years Travelers: 1. Snedeker 2. Leishman 3. Berger 4. Kokrak 5. Hoge 6. Kizzire 7. Spieth 8. Na 9. Tway 10. CT Pan

6. Paul Casey, Brant Snedeker, Rory, Rick Lamb, & Marc Leishman all finished in the top 20 last year despite losing strokes putting.

7. Top 10 course ranking (tries to balance # of times played vs. upside) 1. Moore 2. Casey 3. Leishman 4. Webb 5. Berger 6. Stroud (7 for 7 in cuts made w/ 2 top 10's, very interesting!) 7. Keegan 8. Bubba 9. Hoffman (also a perfect 7 for 7 w/ 3 top 10's) 10. CT Pan 

8. Top 10 in course GIR at River Highlands: 1. Berger 2. Casey 3. JJ Henry 4. Abraham Ancer 5. Furyk 6. Chez 7. Henley 8. Rory 9. Webb 10. Kokrak

9. Top 10 in average birdies made at River Highlands: 1. Koepka (has only played once though) 2. Berger 3. Hoffman 4. Stroud 5. Henley 6. Hughes 7. Snedeker 8. Furyk 9. Kizzire 10. DeChambeau

10. Top 10 in my model under 8k: 1. Grillo 2. Henley 3. Bradley 4. CT Pan (seen his name quite a bit in this section) 5. Chez 6. Hossler 7. Goosen 8. Lovemark 9. Tway 10. Lahiri

Win a FREE M2 Driver!

So 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 Drive the Green ($5), Birdie ($3), or Club Twirl ($44) 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