Travelers Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

Travelers Chalk Bomb 💣💣💣

June 19, 2019

 This Week's Tour Stop Travelers Championship @ TPC River Highlands  

Not My US Open

I honestly feel like we all got pretty unlucky with the way the US Open played out this year. I might be in the minority but seeing a US Open winner at 13 under just doesn't feel right. For once the USGA actually restrained itself when it shouldn't have, with the penal rough really being the only 'tough' part about the setup. What could have been if we had just had a 20 mph wind every day...the 'other' unlucky part is that 35% of lineups had 6/6 get thru the cut, with very little carnage done to the several chalky pockets of players we had last week. Literally ZERO of the top 12 owned players missed the cut....and an unreal 25 of the top 27 owned players made the weekend with Justin Thomas & Lucas Glover being the only two. But hey, I will say I love some west coast majors...it's so awesome to get prime time golf on the east coast!For this week: the course is fairly hard to peg into who it 'fits' best as the Pete Dye design generally opens it up to all kinds of players. The interesting part is that 'short' courses generally still give an edge to longer hitters, and TPC River Highlands is no different. According to Datagolf strokes gained off the tee are actually MORE important here at this 6800 yard course than the average tour stop. The rough is always long here and greens are usually very quick as the main two defenses. I always give a little extra weight to putting splits whenever we switch from one grass type to another like this week. The field is surprisingly good as it looks like the Travelers is going to be a beneficiary to the new schedule with a lot of the top names playing this week, then heading over to play in the Irish/Scottish Opens leading up to the British. 

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

. 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 Oosthuizen vs. Watson 

Louis 'I show up at Majors' Oosthuizen did exactly that last week & continued his really impressive run of play at US Opens as he's now one of 9 players that has made the cut in each US Open the last 6 years. However if you believe in course history, like I'm assuming most of you do, it's really hard to see how Bubba is a plus money underdog to Sweet Lou. Bubba has played here every year since 2012, won twice w/ 2 other top 4 finishes, and has never hit less than 67% of his greens in reg at Highlands which is #ReallyGood. Sweet Lou has played here 3 times, with a high water mark of 17th place in what is the only year he was above field average in green in reg. Even though Bubba missed the cut last week, he was actually really good with his driver & approach shots (& hit more greens than Lou), but he somehow managed to lose 7.4 strokes around the greens. Some how Bubba is both underpriced in DFS & the betting markets this week...you know what to do. 

MATCHUP 2

Tway vs. Wolff

I was really interested to see where they would price Wolff this week in his pro debut. I *think* most people reading this are familiar with him but if not here's the quick run down: He was an All-American as a true freshamn at OSU last year, & this year won 6 of his 11 collegiate starts which tied a school record. Last week (before turning pro) he was the 2nd ranked amateur in the world behind only his fellow teammate that just finished off a top 12 at the US Open, Viktor Hovland. He's a no doubt bomber...in his 1 start on the PGA tour at the Phoenix Open he averaged 325 yards off the tee, and hit an above field average of GIR's. Funny enough he's matched up with fellow OSU alum Kevin Tway this week in what seems like a very fair price. Tway was absolutely horrible to start the year, but since the Masters has made nice strides in this approach game. He's still a bit wild off the tee for my taste (averages 52.4% fairways hit, 8th worst in the field) BUT he only hit 46% of his fairways here last year & still finished 6th. 

MATCHUP 3

Koepka vs. Cantlay

Well....what can you really say about Brooks that hasn't already been said...in the last 3 US Opens Brooks has beaten 468 players, and only 1 has beaten Brooks. The part of his game that he's really elevated over the last 2 months is his iron play. In his last 24 rounds he's 2nd on the PGA tour in strokes gained approach, just 1/10th of a stroke behind Stenson at #1 (though you certainly never hear anyone give him the 'ball striker' tag). Brooks actually greatly out 'ball struck' Woodland last week with the difference being Gary gained 7.2 strokes putting (something he's done once in his entire life) and Koepka only gained 0.5 strokes putting. Cantlay was solid if unspectacular last week *almost* gaining strokes across the board for the 4th event in a row. After last week folks are probably jumping at the bit to lay Brooks at a pick em price, but I think the line is extremely fair, as I would argue that Cantlay has the higher floor while Brooks has the higher ceiling. Neither guy has great history, but BOTH guys are great course fits. And just in case your wondering Spieth is a massive underdog to both guys and still a mess with both the driver & the irons.

MATCHUP 4

Casey vs. Day

Casey will likely be the chalk de jure this week as his tee to green history is only trumped by Bubba. 3 out of his 4 appearances here he's hit AT LEAST 79% of his greens in reg, and for those of you that don't play real golf, it's really hard to not have great rounds when your hitting 14 out of 18 greens. As is usually the case with Casey, he lost 0.2 strokes in the short game last week which kept him from a higher finish. Interestingly every single event this year that Casey has gained strokes in the short game, he's finished in the top 10. Day has decent history here never hitting less than 64% of his greens but he's struggled with the exact same issue that plagged him all last year which is approach play. He's lost strokes on approach in 5 events this year & gained strokes on approach in 4 events. But I wanted to highlight this matchup as a nice general reminder that even though everything 'seems' to point to Casey, if you get 4 to1 ownership leverage for playing Day, the books say that Day should beat Casey straight up 48.78% of the time. 

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: 

  • Last week he lost total strokes to the field for the 2nd time this season

  • He's going from his far & away best putting surface (poa) to his worst putting surface (bent)

  • His strokes gained putting #'s the last 6 events: (-2.9), (-1), (-0.5), (-3), (-3.4), (-2.7), he's never had this bad of a putting run in his entire career

  • He loses a third of a stroke against his baseline on short courses

  • For a player of his caliber his course history sucks. He's missed the cut 2 out of 5 times, and been below field average in GIR's hit 4 out of 5 times

  • He ranks outside of the top 30 when you combine his proximity numbers from the two most popular approach shot buckets (150-175) & (200+)

  • He's missed more cuts the last calendar month than he had the previous 14 months combined

  • Over his last 12 rounds he's 110th in the field in birdies gained

  • In that same period he's 56th in the field in good drives gained

  • Over his last 24 rounds he's 87th in the field in total proximity

  • He loses strokes against his baseline on courses with long rough

  • He's a head to head underdog against someone that's $300 cheaper than him

  • He's also a head to head underdog to the guy directly above him in price

  • He's +185 to finish in the top 10, so 65% of the time he's expected to finish outside the top 10

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 22.6% this week....Justin Thomas, 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 last years Travelers:

1. Watson 2. Holmes 3. Tway 4. Cantlay 5. Werenski 6. Henley 7. Casey 8. Lahiri 9. DeChambeau 10. Gomez

2. 

Historical GIR leaders at TPC River Highlands (min 8 rounds):

1. Henley 2. Casey 3. Henry 4. Grillo 5. Weekly 6. Molinari 7. CT Pan 8. Reavie 9. Ortiz 10. Berger

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

1. Hossler 2. W. Kim 3. Day 4. Spieth 5. Grillo 6. Hadwin 7. Tway 8. Luck 9. Kisner 10. Snedeker

4. 

If I make a custom model w/ short courses, par 70, and bent grass greens...your top 10 in total strokes gained are:

1. Leishman 2. Watson 3. Casey 4. Hoffman 5. Finau 6. Day 7. Bradley 8. Spieth 9. Koepka 10. Harman ....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.

If I make another custom model w/ JUST strokes gained tee to green on Pete Dye courses your top 10 are:

1. Casey 2. Si Woo 3. Day 4. Spieth 5. Grillo 6. Molinari 7. Watson 8. Knox 9. Weekley 10. Cantlay

6.

 Top 10 in proximity from the 150-175 yardage bucket, and the 200+ bucket last 50 rounds (the 2 most popular approach shot distances):

1. W. Kim 2. Bradley 3. Benny An 4. Reavie 5. Taylor 6. Kokrak 7. Henley 8. Watney 9. Koepka 10. Hoge

7.

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

1. Koepka 2. Harman 3. Streelman 4. Casey 5. Hovland 6. Watney 7. Thomas 8. Tringale 9. Tway 10. Knox

8.

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

1. JT 2. Koepka 3. Casey 4. Hadwin 5. DeChambeau 6. Im 7. Jones 8. Burns 9. Cantlay 10. Mullinax

9. 

Top 10 in opportunities gained the last 12 rounds:

1. Merritt 2. Koepka 3. Straka 4. Mullinax 5. Cauley 6. Landry 7. Hoge 8. Hovland 9. JT 10. Silverman

10.

Top 10 'bargains' on DK relative to Fanduel pricing :

 1. Grillo 2. Casey 3. Knox 4. Bradley 5. Hadwin 6. Reed 7. Hovland 8. Berger 9. Benny An 10. Oosthuizen

WIN A

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PAT'S PARTING WORDS 

"The discovery of a wine (Rose) is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars" -Benjamin Franklin-Co-signed Patrick P. Perry

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