Masters week is nigh.
Or maybe you can’t contain your excitement and it has already started for you.
Either way, there is just 96 hours until the honorary starters tee off at Augusta National.
Don’t be lazy today. Take care of any chores and run any errands you have. Start thinking of a reason to call out of work. Put in some time with your loved ones. Eliminate any distractions, once Thursday hits, you know you’re not going to want to miss any of the wall-to-wall coverage.
Your future self will thank you for clearing your schedule.
The Past
Congratulations to wmcmichael93 (@realfakewalter on X) on winning the $60k Birdie for the Texas Children’s Houston Open. They had the winner, Stephan Jaegar, along with two T2s and two T7s in their lineup, not too shabby. The worst performer in their lineup was Jacob Bridgeman who finished T21, but still had more DraftKings points than both T7s.
Their margin of victory was 18.5 points.
Of the 20 lineups entered by wmcmichael93, eight of them made it across the pay line. They also had a 14th-place finish and three other finishes in the top 1000. First place was worth $6,000 and they added another $400 for 14th place.
The winning lineup was a new take on the stars-and-scrubs build. DraftKings new pricing regime allows for a large degree of flexibility, so I do not think we are going to get a standard stars-and-scrubs build like we saw under the old regime. DFS players have to be especially flexible when they have a 13k Scottie Scheffler in their player pool. After Scheffler, wmcmichael93 skipped the 9k range and rostered two golfers in the 8k range (a tactic we have seen quite a bit), one in the 7k range, one in the 6k range, and one in the 5k range. It is hard to resist Scheffler these days, and as long as he keeps getting priced as high as he is, we are going to have to take on the risk of 6k and 5k golfers to make the Scheffler lineups work. At least he keeps doing his part.
Wmcmichael93 rostered 36 golfers in their player pool. I keep saying these player pools with 30-plus golfers are big, but they keep winning the Birdie, so maybe my perspective is off. I do not think I am about to change my ways, but something worth considering.
Their largest exposures were to Sahith Theegala and Si Woo Kim at 50%, and Taylor Moore at 45%. They then had three golfers at 40%, two at 30% and 25%, one at 20%, and four at 15%. They then had eight golfers in two lineups, and thirteen golfers in one lineup. Stephan Jaeger was only in two of their lineups, and there were no one-offs in the winning lineup. Like we have been seeing with these large, but successful, player pools, they had a tight core of golfers but then mixed and matched with a ton of golfers.
They rostered two golfers from the 10k+ range, four from the 9ks, six from the 8ks, eight from the 7ks, eleven from the 6ks, and five golfers from the 5ks. Their distribution is typical of what we have been seeing except that they rostered more 5k golfers than we regularly see. Their core was segmented into two portions of the pricing range; their highest-owned golfers came from the high 9ks and low 10ks, while the rest of their core came from the high 7ks and low 8ks. Nobody under 7.5k was rostered more than three times.
Cumulative ownership for the winning lineup was 85.36%. It is right outside of the range that we typically shoot for (60-80%), but it was going to be hard to get there with Scottie Scheffler at 50.1%. When we see ownership like that, it is safe to extend the range a little. Still pretty amazing total considering the ownership on Scheffler. Overall, they only used three golfers above 20%, four golfers from the 15-20% range, seven from the 10-15% range, nine golfers from the 5-10% range, and thirteen golfers that were under 5%, including two golfers that were under 1%. So even though they rostered a very chalky Scottie Scheffler, they made up for it with plenty of low-owned golfers.
It was an embarrassing week for me in the Birdie. Not so much because of the lack of money I brought back in but because I had zero of my twenty lineups get all six golfers through the cut on a week that Cutsweats had 15% of lineups with 6 of 6 through the cut. I wasn’t much better with 5 of 6 lineups; Cutsweats had the rate of 5/6 lineups at 36% and I only had five of those lineups. The obvious problem for me was taking big bets on guys on that didn’t make the cut (% are my exposures). My two biggest bets to miss the cut were in the 6k and 5k range. In the future, I will look to spread out my distribution a little more, but an argument could be made for this type of overexposure because if they had made the cut, I would have been in a great spot (especially so since I rostered Scottie Scheffler in 75% of lineups).
I was able to get two lineups across the pay line; my best finish was 1961st though. I got $11 back, but more importantly, I got a good lesson on not getting overexposed to cheap golfers.
My One-and-Done selection was Sahith Theegala who finished T28. After three weeks in a row in which I have failed to collect a single dollar, it was nice to at least get on the board again. T28 is not going to move the needle though, and I am still way back in the pack.
Click on the underlined text for the full story.
There were a surprising number of moving pieces ahead of Masters week; equipment changes, caddie changes, and even a visit to a legendary swing coach.
Rory McIlroy was seen at the Valero using prototype TaylorMade irons. Tony Finau got a new driver head from Ping. And at LIV Miami, Phil Mickelson has new edges, Sergio Garcia switched up putters, Brooks Koepka was using two different putters, an Jon Rahm had a new two-iron in the bag.
Phil Mickelson also changed up caddies after his brother retired to spend more time with his wife and son. He brough on veteran caddie Jon Yarbrough to carry his bag in Miami and looks to be his caddie going forward. Tommy Fleetwood has a senior manager at TaylorMade on his bag at the Valero because his regular caddie has been dealing with health issues, and hoping some rest will get him ready for the Masters. In the most surprising caddie news of the week, Justin Thomas has parted way with Jim Mackay and it is unclear who will be looping for him at the Masters.
Cameron Smith has withdrawn from the LIV Miami event with an illness. No word on his availability for the Masters, but something worth keeping an eye on.
After struggling on the Florida Swing, Rory McIlroy made a visit to swing guru Butch Harmon. He’s currently T7 at the Valero, so maybe something clicked.
And no news update would be complete with a mention of Tiger Woods. We learned this week that veteran caddie Lance Bennett will be on his bag for the Masters and, according to Notah Begay, his repaired left ankle has no mobility in it.
The Present
The PGA Tour is in the Beef State for the Valero Texas Open at the TPC San Antonio Oaks Course (yes, that really is one of Texas’ recognized nicknames). Akshay Bhatia is heading into the final round with a four-shot lead over Denny McCarthy, and is seven shots ahead of Brendon Todd.
The weather forecast was off by just a little, but it made a significant impact on the wave advantage. Thursday winds were light in the morning with gusts starting shortly before noon. The gusting lasted throughout the afternoon, instead of just a couple of hours as anticipated. Somehow, the PM wave still had a small advantage on the day. On Friday, the winds were light in the morning, but did not get any of the gusts that were predicted. The winds then picked up for the afternoon as in the original forecast. The dramatic difference in conditions led to a big advantage for the AM wave. Overall, the PM/AM wave enjoyed a much bigger advantage than I originally thought.
Here is the complete breakdown from @RobBoltonGolf:
Round 1 average: AM: 73.0; PM: 72.71
Round 2 average: AM: 72.37; PM: 74.03
AM/PM total: 147.03
PM/AM total: 145.08
Advantage: PM/AM by 1.95 strokes
Thomas Detry, Stephan Jaeger, Scott Stallings, and Matt Wallace all withdrew prior to the tournament. Patrick Rodgers, Trace Crowe (knee), and Taylor Montgomery withdrew after the first round.
Here is how the chalk is performing after three rounds (% from $60K Birdie):
Golf Channel will have final round coverage from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET, and NBC will pick it up from there. The stream on ESPN+ will start at 10:00 a.m. ET.
The Future
The PGA Tour is making its annual pilgrimage to the sacred grounds of Augusta National Golf Club for the first major of the season, the Masters Tournament.
In 1930, after his retirement from competitive golf, Bobby Jones bought a piece of land from a nursery located outside of Atlanta with the help of an acquaintance, Clifford Roberts. Two years later, the former indigo plantation was reopened as a golf club. To promote the club and its new course, Jones and Clifford decided to host a golf tournament, and founded the Augusta National Invitational Tournament in 1934. It would go by that name until 1940, when Jones agreed to change the name to The Masters.
That first edition of the tournament started on March 22nd; the tradition of playing it during the first full week in April was not adopted until 1940. Outside of the first handful of tournaments, the Masters has always been played in early April, except in 2020 when it was postponed until November due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
There were 60 professional golfers and 12 amateurs in the field that first year, but the story of the week was the return of Bobby Jones to competitive play after four years of retirement. The tournament was an instant success, and what started as a way to attract people to their club, quickly grew into one of the most important tournaments in the world as members of golf’s pantheon started showing up and winning, names like Hogan, Snead, and Nelson. The legend would continue to grow as the next generation of greats, Palmer, Nicklaus, and Player, set their sights on obtaining a green jack (which did not become a tradition until 1949). In the modern era, future hall of famers have regularly donned the green jacket, none more than Tiger Woods. In 2019, after returning from a litany of injuries, Tiger was triumphant at Augusta National for the fifth time (second only to Nicklaus with 6), fourteen years removed from his last victory.
If the organizers have their way, scoring is tough, and the winning score falls right around -10. Last year, wind and rain caused multiple stoppages, including the cessation of play on Friday due to three trees falling near the 17th green. Anybody unfortunate enough to not end their round on Friday were welcomed back to the course by a downpour (you might remember Justin Thomas missing the cut after having to restart in the rain). After another delay on Saturday, Brooks Koepka restarted his third round on Sunday with a four-stroke lead over Jon Rahm. By the end of the round, his lead had been cut in half. Jon Rahm fired a 3-under 69 in the final round to finish at -12. Koepka was three over for the round and finished in second place, four strokes behind Rahm (cutline: +3; median score for cut makers: E). Phil Mickelson turned back the clock and shot 65 in the final round to vault up the leaderboard and finish tied for second place.
Here are the last 10 winners and their scores:
2023 Jon Rahm -12
2022 Scottie Scheffler -10
2021 Hideki Matsuyama -10
2020 Dustin Johnson -20
2019 Tiger Woods -13
2018 Patrick Reed -15
2017 Sergio Garcia -9
2016 Danny Willett -5
2015 Jordan Spieth -18
2014 Bubba Watson -8
The field
There are too many Masters traditions to cover in this preview, but there is one more worth noting to help us prepare for our DFS contests: the structure of the field. Entry into the tournament is by invitation only, and the invitations are based on a set of criteria that add to the tradition, but also limit the strength of the field. The best players in the world are invited, but also amateurs, past champions and anybody that has won a PGA Tour event with full-FedEx Cup point allocation in the past year.
In the past, the strength of the field only lagged behind the other majors and The Players. With the inception of signature events and the influx of LIV golfers that were not collecting OWGR points, the strength of a field took a hit last year (strength of field 335, 13th strongest of 43; average was 268).
The 2024 field is set for 88 golfers; no sponsor exemptions and no open qualifiers, but the winner of the Valero Texas Open will get in if not already qualified. Pricing is already out on DraftKings. Naturally, Scottie Scheffler is at the top of the list at 12.1k, followed by Jon Rahm (11.2k), Rory McIlroy (10.8k), Brooks Koepka (10.2k), and Wyndham Clark (10k). Tiger Woods is 6.8k. Interestingly, Patrick Cantlay, Stephan Jaeger, and Danny Willett already have Questionable tags. By my count, there are probably 12 past champions or amateurs that we can immediately remove from our player pool.
Course Description
Augusta National is the manifestation of Bobby Jones’ dream to build a world-class course. To fulfill his dream, Jones enlisted the help of renowned golf course architect Alister MacKenzie. However, to maintain its status as one of the best golf courses in the world, Augusta National is constantly being tweaked. So much work has been done to the course that only MacKenzie’s original routing is recognizable from the initial design. The work has paid off though, Augusta has maintained its status while other courses of the era are no longer suitable for professional play.
This does mean, however, that almost every year, there is a new challenge for golfers to contend with. Here is a link to an interactive history of all the changes made to the course; it may not help us in our DFS, but I recommend checking it out, it is pretty amazing what they have accomplished at the property. As far as I can tell, there has been only one change for 2024. The tee box on the par-5 2nd hole (Pink Dogwood) was moved back and to the left to extend the hole by 10 yards and make the fairway bunker on the right a bigger threat.
Augusta National Golf Club is now a 7,555-yard, par-72, classical parkland design. If you look at yardage by par, it is the 8th longest course on tour this season. Last year, it was the 6th most difficult course on tour (out of 49). It has four par 3s, ten par 4s, and four par 5s. The four par 5s are the only holes on the course with an average score under par. The 350-yard, par-4 3rd hole (Flowering Peach) plays right at par. Three of the other par 4s are 400-450 yards in length, five are 450-500 yards, and one is 520 yards. Three of them appear on the list of the 50 most difficult holes on the tour last year; the 495-yard 5th hole (Magnolia) was the 25th most difficult, the 465-yard 18th hole (Holly) was the 34th most difficult, and the 520-yard 11th hole (White Dogwood) was the 44th most difficult. One of the par 3s is 240 yards in length (Flowering Crab Apple), and the rest are under 180 yards, but they still play as one of the toughest sets of par 3s on tour.
Here is the scorecard for 2024:
Off the tee, golfers will see undulating, tree-lined fairways that are among the most generous on tour (average width is 50.2 yards). The ryegrass rough, or second cut, is kept short (1.375 inches). Some of the second cut was shaved down to fairway length prior to the tournament a couple of years ago. In the past, somewhat wayward tee balls would hang up in the second cut and golfers could maintain good angles to the green; now that the ‘rough’ is gone in some spots, balls rollout further and golfers can lose those angles. The fairways are also ryegrass. Even though golfers are given a wide berth off the tee, there is still plenty of trouble to get into. There are bunkers adjacent to many landing areas. Water is in play on five holes (but it is mainly an issue on approach shots). The rippling fairways can yield uneven lies. There are also the extreme elevation changes; the difference between the highest and lowest points on the course is 55 m, and golfers will climb a total of 135 m during their rounds. If tee shots get way offline, golfers will find their ball in the pine straw; lies in the pine straw can be unpredictable, but the professionals manage it well. On top of all that, the grounds crew intentionally mows the fairways against the direction of the hole to minimize rollout. There are doglegs throughout the course; most of them turn left, so you will hear the Augusta favors left-handed golfer that hit a fade. The modern golfer (along with their equipment) is capable of moving the ball in both directions, so that narrative is more of a relic at this point.
On approach, golfers will see bentgrass greens that are above average in size (6,486 sq. ft.). Many of them are elevated, tiered, and feature bumps, troughs, plateaus, and all other manners of undulation, making them play smaller than suggested by their measurement. Most of them also slope from back to front. They play firm and fast (average Stimp is around 13.5, but the grounds crew will make small adjustments to the Stimp on a hole-by-hole basis to properly fit the undulation of the green). The greens are fitted with irrigation and sub-air systems, so organizers can fine-tune the firmness and keep the speed up even if there is some rain. The greens are protected by bunkers, false fronts, and water on a few holes. Most of the bunkers and water are situated on the short side of the greens, forcing golfers to play it safe behind the flag and leaving themselves with a quick downhill putt. There is also little rough around the greens, so approach shots that miss their mark even a little bit, and even good approach shots, can end up rolling off the green and into a collection area, leaving a tricky up-and-down. Even if golfers hit the fairway and avoid the trouble off the tee, most of the pins can be placed in areas that require the proper angle of attack on approach to keep the ball near the hole.
Augusta National is a thorough test of every aspect of a golfer’s game. Even though the fairways are wide and easy to hit (Driving Accuracy last year was 68.4%; 11th of 47; average was 62.1%), there are dangers lurking and golfers have to be properly positioned in the fairways to access the pin locations. The length and openness brings driver into play on most of the par 4s and 5s, giving Augusta one of the higher Driving Distances on tour last year (291.1 yards; 10th of 34; average was 284.9); golfers cannot be reckless though, and have to think strategically about their tee shots. Even when properly positioned off the tee, the speed and movement of the greens make them some of the hardest to hit on tour (Greens in Regulation was 60.4%; 41st of 47; average was 66.2%). Since there is no rough around the greens, golfers will have chips from tight lies onto a speedy surface, resulting in one of the lowest scrambling percentages on tour 52.4% (tied for 45th of 47; average was 58.5%).
The Course Table on DataGolf demonstrates just how difficult Augusta National can play. Of the courses on tour this season, it has been the most difficult course over the last five years. It has the most difficult par 4s and fourth most difficult par 3s. It is the second easiest course for Driving Accuracy, but the second most difficult on approach with the fourth lowest Greens in Regulation. It also has the most difficult in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and Putting. It is the second most difficult course on approach from inside 150 yards and the most difficult course when chipping from the fairway grass. It is the fourth most difficult when putting between 5 and 15 feet from the cup and the most difficult when putting outside of 15 feet.
The Weather
As we saw last year, the weather can have a significant impact on the tournament, so we will need to pay attention to the forecast. If conditions are soft and the wind is down, scores can reach the high teens. If the course is firm and the wind is up, they can fall well into the single digits. As of now it looks like the winds on Thursday and Friday could be around 15 mph with 20+ mph gusts with light winds over the weekend. The forecast is also calling for an inch of rain to be dumped on the course just before golfers tee it up on Thursday, so the course could be receptive and slow to start before the sub-air system takes over. The temperature will mostly be in the 70s.
There is no possibility of a wave stack this week because all of the golfers will go off in a single wave, but you will still want to pay attention to the weather because some tee times may benefit from changing conditions.
DFS Strategy
It’s a week to get a little aggressive. The top 50 golfers, including ties, after 36-holes will make the cut; when you account for the old-timers and the amateurs, approximately two thirds of the field will make it to the weekend. During a normal PGA Tour event, less than half will make it to the weekend. With the higher percentage of golfers making the cut and the ability to automatically eliminate some golfers from our pool, there are going to be more lineups with six golfers making the cut. Unlike other weeks, getting six golfers through is not going to be enough to guarantee success. Even in cash games, I have gotten six through and missed cashing. We’re going to have to pay special attention to finding leverage and building unique lineups this week.
Longtime golf fans know not to be fooled by the verdant fairways, flowering plants, and pristine white-sand bunkers; Augusta is a beast not to be trifled with. Golfers face a stiff challenge from tee-to-green; they have to be long and accurate from the tee box, surgeon-like on the approach, skillful from tight lies around the green, and masterful on the fastest greens they will see all season.
As usual, I will start my process by building my course fit model and putting together Recent Form and Course History spreadsheets. I will use my model to target golfers that are long and straight off the tee, good with their long irons, have a delicate touch around the green, and be comfortable putting on fast bentgrass. I will also give an edge to golfers with experience at Augusta, and golfers that are coming in with great form, particularly off the tee and around the green.
Course history is important at Augusta. According to DataGolf, it has the most predictive Course History on tour, by far. Golfers need to know where to place their tee shots and approach shots, understand the intricacies of the greens, and the mystery of the winds. There is a reason no first timers have won at Augusta since 1979. Another wrinkle to Course History that I have been hearing people talk about is the number of times golfers played in the Masters before winning (I think Andy Lack first mentioned it). It typically takes at least five tries before a golfer wins the tournament, with seven tries being the most common for first time winners. I think you can dismiss the first couple of attempts by a golfer if the results are poor and focus more on how many times a golfer has played the course.
Despite the changes to the course that occur on a nearly annual basis, the nature of the course has stayed the same, so I think you can go back as far as you want for data. Results tend to lose relevancy over time, and I will only go back ten years in my analysis.
Here are the top ten in Course History from my One-and-Done tool:
1 Jon Rahm
2 Scottie Scheffler
3 Hideki Matsuyama
3 Will Zalatoris
3 Xander Schauffele
6 Webb Simpson
6 Justin Thomas
8 Collin Morikawa
9 Rory McIlroy
10 Russell Henley
Off-the-tee:
Fairways Gained: I am looking for golfers that can hit the ball a long way while also hitting their spots. I would really like to use the Total Driving statistic, but I do not have access to it on Fantasy National Golf Club, instead I will use the two statistics that are combined to make up Total Driving, Accuracy and Distance. I will look at this statistic at courses over 7,400 yards in length.
Driving Distance: The other half of Total Driving. If the course gets the rain currently in the forecast, bombers will have an advantage on a softer course, and I will give Driving Distance a slightly higher weight than Fairways Gained. I will look at this statistic at courses over 7,400 yards in length.
Approach:
Strokes Gained: Approach: A staple in my model week after week. Precision on the approach is needed to score at Augusta, so I will give this category a little extra weight this week. I will look at this statistic at courses over 7,400 yards in length.
Greens in Regulation: Attacking the pins at Augusts can be perilous; instead, golfers will target the center of the green and be happy to come away with par on most holes, so I will dumb things down and just look at Greens in Regulation. I will look at this statistic at courses over 7,400 yards in length.
Proximity 200+ yards: One of the statistics I heard mentioned last year was that 33% of approach shots at Augusta come from more than 200 yards out. Golfers will need to be good with their long irons if they expect to contend, even if they are not necessarily attacking pins.
Around-the-green:
Strokes Gained: Around-the-green: Not always a staple in my model week after week, but solid around-the-green will be paramount this week. On firm greens designed to repel poor approach shots, golfers will need to get up-and-down to keep their rounds going when they miss the green.
Putting:
Strokes Gained: Putting: Another staple in my model week after week, I will switch up the surface as needed. This week, I will be looking for bentgrass specialists on fast greens.
Strokes Gained: Putting 25+ feet: If golfers are aiming to the center of the green, or if an approach shot hits the wrong tier, or the wrong side of a ridge, they can be facing a long-range putt. Successful lag putting will be an important part to staying in contention.
Scoring:
Par 5 Scoring: The four par-5 holes are the best scoring opportunities on the course, golfers will need to capitalize on these opportunities.
Par 4 Scoring 450-500: Golfers have to score on the par 5s and maybe the short par 4 and hope to survive the rest of course. Five of the par 4s fall into the 450-500 yards range, and four more are just outside of it.
Strokes Gained: Total on Difficult Courses: Some golfers seem to excel on difficult courses, while others perform better at birdie fests. Augusta National is one of the most difficult courses in the world, I want to roster golfers that relish the challenge.
After building my model, I usually look at a few other statistics to help make my determinations. This week I will look at Birdies or Better Gained/Bogey Avoidance, Par 3 Scoring, SG: Putting within 5 feet, and Strokes Gained: Total on Courses over 7,400 Yards.
Depending on conditions, scoring could be difficult or relatively easy. Once I get a better idea of how the course will play, I will look at either Birdies or Better gained or Bogey Avoidance. If it is going to be windy, and the course is firm, I will look at Bogey Avoidance. If the course is going to be soft and receptive, I will look at Birdies.
The set of par 3s, though not incredibly long as a whole, are among the hardest on tour. I want to confirm that golfers are capable of getting past them without too much damage to their scorecard.
Putting is tricky at Augusta, even on the short ones. I want to try to not roster anybody that makes me nervous standing over a three-foot putt.
There is more than one way to get around a behemoth like Augusta (see Zach Johnson in 2007). Regardless of how they do it, I am looking for golfers with the skill set to get around this long track successfully.
I will also build a model that includes statistics that are only available using The Rabbit Hole on Betsperts.com. This model will include Total Driving on Long Courses, Fairway Approach Accuracy from 150+ yards, Apex Height, Scrambling Short Grass % at Course with Difficult Short Grass Scrambling, Putting from 25+ at Courses with Difficult 3-putt Avoidance, Par 5 BoB% at Courses with Difficult Par 5s, Par 4 Average at Courses with Very Difficult Par 4s, and Par 3 Average at Course with Very Difficult Par 3s. Keep in mind that I am still trying to wrap my head around all of the filters available in The Rabbit Hole, and these statistics may change.
Turning to the Roster Construction Matrix, we have one of the strongest fields on one of the most difficult courses. The matrix suggests going with a super stars-and-scrubs build. Super stars-and-scrubs has been very viable with golfers priced down to 5k, but there is no 5k range for the Masters. Try building some of these lineups before settling on this build. I am currently thinking about going with a mix of stars-and-scrubs and balanced lineups though. I like Scottie, obviously, but building a lineup with him and Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy seems impossible. Building a super stars-and-scrubs lineup with Koepka or Clark seems risky; Koepka is not showing much on LIV this weekend and Clark is a debutante. I might get there on them though, check out The Fringe chat on Wednesday night if you are interested in which way I end up going.
As always, we should be on the lookout for ways to get leverage on our opponents. We will start in the same two places we start our search for leverage every week, then move onto to other ways to get leverage specific to this tournament. The first is the ownership projections, where we will try to identify the chalk, and then look for good pivots off the chalk. The next place we should look is in the pricing; identify golfers that are priced too low and consider fading them because they will likely be over-owned and identify the golfers that are priced too high and give them consideration because the DFS community will try to avoid them.
With such a compact pool of golfers to choose from, finding ways to build unique lineups will be critical, especially in the bigger contests. Thankfully, there should be quite a few opportunities to get a little weird with our selections. If you want to wade really deep in the player pool, you could take a chance on one of the amateurs or the old-timers; if they make the cut, they will not have to do too much on the weekend to pay off their price tag. The debutantes are also another avenue for leverage; we will hear all week about how course history is important at Augusta, but strong performances by debutants is not completely unheard (Will Zalatoris finished in 2nd place in his debut a few years ago), so they should not be completely ruled out. We also have the LIV golfers; it is hard to know what to expect from them, and most DFS players will try to avoid them. The final category of golfer we can look to for leverage is the short hitters; I think the importance of length will also be highlighted by the touts this week, and the short hitters may get overlooked. Zach Johnson’s path to success was a highly improbable one, and the course has only gotten longer since then, but all these options come with some risk. I wouldn’t go overboard trying to get any of these options into your pool, but one or two of them will certainly make you unique.
Andy Lack and Steve Bamford mentioned an interesting angle regarding the LIV golfers during their pre-Masters discussion last week. LIV is playing the Blue Monster at Trump National Doral Miami this week, a former long-time host on the PGA Tour. Steve and Andy listed off a bunch of golfers that won at Doral that also went on to win, or play exceptionally well, at Augusta. Pay attention to the LIV results this week, they may uncover an overlooked golfer that just performed well at an Augusta comp course.
If you don’t want to get weird with your player pool, you can also use roster construction to get some leverage. One option is to not use all of the available salary; a lot of DFS players try to use every dollar, therefore, your lineup has a better chance of being unique if you intentionally spend less than the maximum. If you are bold enough to fade Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, and Rory McIlroy, I think you will be able to get leverage by building balanced lineups because most other players will not fade them. I am also not that confident that we will see a ton of super stars-and-scrubs lineups, I think a lot of DFS players will go with a normal stars-and-scrubs build because they do not want two (or more) 6k golfers in their lineups. Fortune favors the bold, and I think we should be in a good spot if we go balanced or super stars-and scrubs. You can always get a little unique with the exact structure of your build; a typically super stars-and-scrubs build will have two 10k golfers, two 6k golfers, and two golfers that make it all work. You can do some tinkering along that general structure and see if you can produce some unique combinations that work. Pricing on DraftKings is out, so you can start working on it today.
I will be using 100% of my usual bankroll this week. I know it’s Masters week and everybody is excited. Do not let the excitement ruin months of diligent bankroll management. Come up with a plan, right now. Stop reading this and write down how much you are willing to lose. It is ok to go a little overboard, it’s the Masters after all, but we’ve got all summer to make money. Do not let a little excitement for one tournament dash all of your plans for the coming months.
Finally, I want to leave you with one last warning. Golf media has been cranking out Masters content for a couple of weeks and they are about to go into overdrive. Stay focused. It will be easy to get bogged down by all of the coverage out there and get a case of analysis paralysis. Again, it’s The Masters, a little overindulgence is ok, but try your best to stick to your normal routine.
That’s all I have for now, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@glzisk) for any updates.
Have a great week!