If you’ve ever read “Antifragile” by Taleb, then you’re familiar with how certain things gain from disorder in life. This notion certainly applies to DFS.
If there is one thing to take advantage of in PGA DFS (and DFS in general), it’s people’s overconfidence in their ability to predict what’s going to happen in the future.
Granted, you still need a lot to go your way in DFS. Even if you successfully fade highly-rostered players who end up failing, you still need to get your pivots correct to take full advantage.
The goal of this article is to help identify a few golfers we should consider using to help leverage our lineups against the field by using our ownership projections from Fanshare Sports in our Player Models (available in our marketplace).
And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
This analysis may reference Strokes Gained, a set of proprietary metrics generated by the PGA TOUR using millions of data points to calculate how many shots on average it takes a player to get the ball in the hole from every distance and situation.
Strokes Gained is available in the FantasyLabs PGA Models.
When deciding on pivots to make, I keep things very simple. I’ll look at ownership projections, discrepancies in betting odds, projected points, and I stick to more catch-all golf metrics like Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, Total Strokes Gained, and Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) instead of getting very granular.
I’m always interested in a minimal approach in an industry that tries to overcomplicate things.
Let’s dive in.
Note: Data Golf’s True Strokes Gained data is over the last 50 rounds unless otherwise specified.
Tyrrell Hatton ($9,300 DraftKings)
With Will Zalatoris ($9,400) and Matthew Fitzpatrick ($9,200) getting all the attention, Hatton appears to be going severely overlooked with his price tag that is right in the middle of those two.
At the time of writing, Zalatoris has a Buzz Score of 7.8, while Fitzpatrick is sporting a 9.0 Buzz Score. Hatton is currently sitting at 2.5. This does seem to suggest that Hatton isn’t garnering much chatter in this tier.
Hatton is seemingly the perfect pivot in GPPs as our Fanshare ownership projections have him around 10%, and Zalatoris (20.5%) and Fitzpatrick (19%) are nearly double him,
Hatton isn’t nearly the iron player Zalatoris is, but Hatton still ranks 24th in True Total Strokes Gained (Zalatoris 23rd, Fitzpatrick 18th), and Hatton’s Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) edges out both Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick in our models.
LT Adj Rd Score is one of my favorite round-level metrics as it’s both course and field adjusted.
Sergio Garcia ($8,100 DraftKings)
Sometimes sweating Sergio Garcia to make the cut can have some serious Luke List vibes. However, we have a similar situation with Garcia that we did with Hatton above.
Garcia is sandwiched next to and just below the chalkier Keith Mitchell and Paul Casey. Both golfers are projected around 17%, while Sergio checks in at just under 8%.
This pivot makes sense considering Sergio ranks seventh in True Total Strokes Gained and sixth in True Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green.
It’s hard to argue against Mitchell’s recent form, but should he be nearly three times the rostership in GPPs? In a volatile sport like golf, I’ll take a shot at Sergio with the rostership discount and better metrics.
Seamus Power ($7,600 DraftKings)
At the time of writing, Power is projected for around 8% and should be the less popular option in this tier if people are looking to Corey Conners, Christian Bezuidenhout, and Cam Young.
While I like Conners in this spot as he owns one of the best LT Adj Rd Scores in the entire field:
Golfers priced outside the top 20 on DraftKings for the Arnold Palmer Invitational with top 20 Long-Term Adjusted Round Scores on @FantasyLabsGOLF:
Corey Conners ($7,600): 69.3
Cameron Tringale ($8,000): 69.6Conners’ LT Adj Rd Score is tied for fifth-best in the field.
— Justin Bailey (@justinbailey32) March 2, 2022
Power and Conners have different skillsets, however. We all know Conners crushes with his irons and is strong off the tee. Power is more of a balanced golfer, who doesn’t dominate in any single category, but he can gain strokes in all facets of the game.
Overall, Conners ranks 21st in True Total Strokes Gained, and Power ranks 14th. With the ownership discount, I don’t mind Power in this spot.
And remember, you don’t need to be contrarian in every roster spot. It’s certainly viable to have higher rostered guys mixed in with your contrarian pieces.
Aaron Wise ($6,900 DraftKings)
If you’re a glutton for punishment, Wise should go virtually un-rostered this week. After a scorching Fall Swing, Wise started 2022 going MC, MC, T67, MC in his four events.
At some point, Wise should progress to his long-term form. He owns a LT Adj Rd Score of 70.0, which is the same as Mav McNealy, Keegan Bradley, and Kevin Na.
Wise also ranks 40th in True Total Strokes Gained and 34th in True Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, which isn’t too bad for someone priced all the way down at $6,900.
